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Published online 7 March 2008 |
Nature
| doi:10.1038/news.2008.655
Updated online: 12 March 2008
News
Last days for US polar bear dithering?
US government's decision on threatened status due Monday, or lawsuits will follow.
If the US Fish and Wildlife Service doesn't finally announce their long-delayed decision about listing the polar bear as ‘threatened’ under the Endangered Species Act by Monday, environmental groups are set to press them into action with a lawsuit.
But the threat of legal action may be helping to hold up the announcement.
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Alaskans do not need outsiders to tell them how to manage their state's wildlife. The polar bear population is at an all-time high right now, and they are being shot as they seek food in the villages across the north. There is no interest in Alaska to allowing outsiders to meddle in their affairs.
So now science has once again become the handmaiden of politics and religion. Decisions are being made not on science but on models that even their proponents admit are no more then conjecture and outright guesswork. Models of complex systems that can be neither verified or tested. This is not how real science is done. This is how real science is perverted and twisted to fit into an agenda. Real Scienceâ„¢ is never "settled".