“To grok something” states a deep understanding and implies an incorporation of actual knowledge so deeply “that it has become part of you, part of your identity”.
“To Gok something” is a far newer and far more hazardous entry into the lexicon: to introduce uncertainty and deceit into scientific discussion about life and death issues.
While Grok emerged from fiction, created by Robert Heinlein and introduced to the world in Strangers in a Strange Land, Gok comes from the Trump Administration‘s unending effort to undermine science and confuse Americans about critical science-related issues.
Gok is the nickname for Indur M. Goklany, a Department of the Interior appointee promoted to a gatekeeper role of Interior publications. In what has been coined “Gok Uncertainty Language” within the Department, Goklany has been inserting misleading truthiness and outright falsehoods about climate change into numerous scientific reports.
As politely put by the New York Times,
“Goks uncertainty language” … inaccurately claims that there is a lack of consensus among scientists that the earth is warming. In Interior Department emails to scientists, Mr. Goklany pushed misleading interpretations of climate science, saying it “may be overestimating the rate of global warming, for whatever reason;” climate modeling has largely predicted global warming accurately. The final language states inaccurately that some studies have found the earth to be warming, while others have not.
Goklany has been a long-time bit player in climate-science denial from within the government, a minor bureaucrat with cameo roles with the libertarian CATO Institute’s efforts to undermine climate science and heartless Heartland Institute‘s outright science denialism.
In terms of a War on Science, perhaps Goklany could best be considered a mole lying in wait for an anti-expert, anti-knowledge, anti-science coup. With Trump’s occupation of the Oval Office, Goklany’s years of waiting were over. And, his efforts are having impact — impact that will likely resonate for years.
The Interior Department reports expressing uncertainty about the risks of global warming “become part of the record” … “They’ll be able to say, ‘We’re not going to consider climate change.’”
Three little monkeys at play — see, speak, hear nothing about climate change. Team Trump, hard at work To Gok climate science.
Goklany is just another soldier in Trump’s War on Science. To Gok is a weapon being employed in that war.
Update NOTE: One of the links above is to a Washington Post story about Goklany. Worth highlighting this more explicitly as I just realized / found out after writing this blog post that Juliet Eilperin had tweeted about this