'Loony' jibe at US policy over climate (The Observer)

(Even though this guys a Lord, he doesn't sound half bad.)

"Loony" jibe at US policy over climate

Robin McKie, science editor
Sunday November 27, 2005
The Observer

Britain's most senior scientist warned last week that UK research is being stifled by an "appalling, obsessive" bureaucracy. "A bunch of academic apparatchiks" is threatening our scientific brilliance, said Lord May, retiring president of the Royal Society.

"Today, Crick and Watson's work on DNA would have been blocked before they had got started. Crick would have been sacked for being idle and Watson would have been told to piss off and stop messing about with his grant."

May - in short - is in typical form. The Australian-born mathematician - scourge of greenies, homeopaths, lawyers, bureaucrats and politicians - leaves office on Wednesday, but he is not going quietly. He described the beliefs of US climate chief James Connaughton as "loony" and warned that Christian and Islamic fundamentalists now threaten to create a blighted, blinkered world worthy of Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four

He also attacked arrogant doctors for fuelling the recent MMR crisis and lambasted author Michael Crichton - whose State of Fear claims that global warming is a myth - for writing nonsense. "Crichton's ... book is presented as something important. In fact, it is total rubbish."

<http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,6903,1651779,00.html?gusrc=rss>
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