This thread is split off from viewtopic.php?f=8&t=1911#p6745 which was running off-topic. It seems to be drawing people in to participate, so I am going to let it run with the caveat that anyone reading it gets what he/she deserves if he or she decides to take any of it personally.
So far this thread is quite polite and I like it that way, but even if it escalates unto a flame war, which I hope it won't, I'll let it run until it gets too nasty or verges on hate speech. It is my policy not to censor or change anyone's words, but there are limits to everything and I hope I don't have to start.
It is here for your education and enjoyment. Remember nobody has to read it and nobody has to get involved. If you do, expect some disagreement.
Carry on...
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Why should it be an exception?I'm just going to point out scientificbeekeeping.com as the exception here.
Please understand that not everyone in the beekeeping community is a Randy Oliver fan, myself included. I consider Randy Oliver to be one of the most damaging individuals to the beekeeping community. Like academia, Randy can't stop at being curious and doing research, but he has to advocate and engage in activism promoting horrible ideas.
Randy Oliver is like Donald Trump. He has no core values. His morals are all messed up. This results in wild erratic thinking. Randy Oliver doesn't believe people are smart enough to make their own decisions. The fact that Randy Oliver is an EPA propagandist and government apologist should be enough to alert anyone to the fallacy of paying attention to him.
Randy Oliver vacillates between promoting socialism and fascism, but he is always working towards bigger government. These are very destructive political views that has always oppressed society. They never involve win-win situations, and you must have win-win situations if you want to improve society.
The Holy Bible teaches that voluntary charity and helping others is good, but those who beg for money are always portrayed as being evil and sinful. Whether or not someone believes in the Christian religion is irrelevant to recognizing that there is merit in some teachings. The fact that Randy Oliver begs for money for doing research is a big red flag. (If it was really important to him, he would pay for it out of his own pocket. And if he can't afford it, it means it isn't important enough to research, or it means he wasted prior research money on worthless research that was not economically beneficial. If the research was really important to others, they would pay him to access his research findings. Or treat it as an investment, and folks could invest in his research. However, folks would stop investing if his research was not profitable. These are proven, win-win business models.)
Randy doesn't understand economics, and believes forcing other people to subsidize worthless research is a good thing, simply because that aligns with his own personal, political agenda. If something is worth researching (and worth is determined by economic merit.) there will be a potential financial reward as a result of the research. Future research projects should be able to be self-funding if the research is done on things that have economic merit. The moment when the money runs out, that is a sign of bad management and doing research on the wrong things. The money was wasted. There is a saying that you don't throw good money after bad. You don't keep investing money into a project that keeps losing money.
ScientificBeekeeping.com should NOT be called ScientificBeekeeping. It should be called Political Activism Beekeeping Under the Guise of "Science". Then, maybe folks would recognize his work for what it really is.