The Republican War on Science

corplinx said:
Some jack-booted thugs just broke into my lab, removed all my beakers and burners. The war is real! Someone take this message to Obi-wan!
Click to expand...

Now don't be dense: nobody's saying that. Read the damn links.
 
Orwell said:
Are they? What makes you think that? And what about all the other scientists complaining?


http://www.oneworld.net/article/view/79763/1/
Click to expand...

The list of scientists is freely available, look up their credentials if you wish.

Do you want me to dig out the numerous articles on this subject that are floating around the net?
Click to expand...

If you want.

By the way, the Scientific American mag (amongst others) has been reporting these kinds of complaints ever since the Bush administration too over.
Click to expand...
I am sure they have, bet they started before Bush took over.
 
Funny, I thought the left was leading the war on science, at least on the GM foods and alternative medicine fronts...
 
WildCat said:
Funny, I thought the left was leading the war on science, at least on the GM foods and alternative medicine fronts...
Click to expand...

Believe me, I have had some mighty big rows on some leftie boards over those exact subjects. However, this isn't very relevant to this discussion, unless you wanna go the partisan hack route.
 
Orwell said:
Believe me, I have had some mighty big rows on some leftie boards over those exact subjects. However, this isn't very relevant to this discussion, unless you wanna go the partisan hack route.
Click to expand...
"The Republican War On Science"

Maybe you didn't know it, but this thread is partisan. I'm just pointing out that both political poles have their anti-science pet issues.
 
corplinx said:
War on Science. Day 428. New nanotech advances at MIT mark the possible development of fog-free lenses and glass. The Bush administration fired back by not giving government money for stem cell research. Science waved the white flag of surrender.
Click to expand...
Fog-free glass is technology, not science. What's so important about fog-free glass? Military applications, of course, they can always be found, but otherwise why the problem with children drawing on misted-up windows, and wondering why it causes droplets to form and run down the pane, offering opportunites for races ...

It's because of the car-culture, isn't it? That's where the pay-back is coming from. Technology addressing the problems of the car-driving public, paid for by the car-buying public, based on fundamental materials science carried on in taxpayer-funded universities. Not that's their much tax on US gasoline. Perish the thought. :)
 
CapelDodger said:
Fog-free glass is technology, not science. What's so important about fog-free glass? Military applications, of course, they can always be found, but otherwise why the problem with children drawing on misted-up windows, and wondering why it causes droplets to form and run down the pane, offering opportunites for races ...
Click to expand...

Technology that is possible because of science behind it, duhhhh.

What doesn't have military applications under that logic?

It's because of the car-culture, isn't it? That's where the pay-back is coming from. Technology addressing the problems of the car-driving public, paid for by the car-buying public, based on fundamental materials science carried on in taxpayer-funded universities. Not that's their much tax on US gasoline. Perish the thought. :)
Click to expand...
Indeed.
 
manny said:
Oh, it was not. It was about 20% complete even by the estimates of the project leaders themselves. The shutdown costs (which were not $1 B, of course) were to compensate contractors for money they had spent in development.
Click to expand...

Although I have seen the 80% figure used, based on the internet search I just did, I will give you 50%. 20% of the "circle" had been completed, but that wasn't the only part of the construction. However, in dollars, they spent about 5 billion (including shut down costs), when the final bill to finish it would have only been around 6-7 billion. If you think that makes sense to have cancelled it at that point, I can only say I disagree with you.
 
corplinx said:
They must be losing this war. Scientific advancement continues.

-1 hyperbole on the title
Click to expand...

Scientific advancement continues, but this hardly proves that that Bush's policies have been harmless. Pat Robertson could become president, and he wouldn't be able to put a complete stop to scientific progress.
 
WildCat said:
"The Republican War On Science"

Maybe you didn't know it, but this thread is partisan. I'm just pointing out that both political poles have their anti-science pet issues.
Click to expand...

Yes. And the title of the book is sensationalistic: it's a book! So what? Stupidity on the left does not excuse stupidity on the right.

If you want to start a thread on things that you think are left wing anti-science. I will even join you in the bashing, but only as long as I think that you are not being stupidly partisan.
 
Grammatron said:

The list of scientists is freely available, look up their credentials if you wish.[/B]
Click to expand...
You questioned their ability to judge the Bush administration's practices on science. You are the one who has to show that their point of view is one of them "bad arguments from authority". Personally, I think there are enough scientists from different fields complaining to satisfy me as far as their legitimacy is concerned.
Grammatron said:
I am sure they have, bet they started before Bush took over. [/B]
Click to expand...

As I already pointed out, no they didn't, at least not to this extent and degree. I don't remember hearing about anything like this during the Clinton administration. As I said before:
I don't agree with you. For instance, as far as I know, the Clinton administration (like other administrations before) limited itself to ignoring scientific recommendations, without interfering with the research itself. The Bush administration has been accused by many scientists of both ignoring scientific research and manipulating it to its own needs. As far as I am aware, the Clinton administration never was accused of doing this. This is a new development.
Click to expand...
If you don't agree, then prove me wrong. I will thank you.
 
They reflect an attitude toward science that has infected every corner of his Administration. From the beginning, the Bush White House has treated science as a nuisance and scientists as an interest group—one that, because it lies outside the governing conservative coalition, need not be indulged. That's why the White House-sometimes in the service of political Christianism or ideological fetishism, more often in obeisance to baser interests like the petroleum, pharmaceutical, and defense industries-has altered, suppressed, or overriden scientific findings on global warming; missile defense; H.I.V./ AIDS; pollution from industrial farming and oil drilling; forest management and endangered species; environmental health, including lead and mercury poisoning in children and safety standards for drinking water; and non-abstinence methods of birth control and sexually-transmitted-disease prevention. It has grossly misled the public on the number of stem-cell lines available for research. It has appointed unqualified ideo_logues to scientific advisory committees and has forced out scientists who persist in pointing out inconvenient facts. All this and more has been amply documented in reports from congressional Democrats and the Union of Concerned Scientists, in such leading scientific publications as Nature, Scientific American, Science, and The Lancet, and in a new book, “The Republican War on Science,” by the science journalist Chris Mooney.
Click to expand...
http://www.newyorker.com/talk/content/articles/050822ta_talk_hertzberg
 
Speakers at the national meeting of the American Association for Advancement of Science expressed concern Sunday that some scientists in key federal agencies are being ignored or even pressured to change study conclusions that don't support policy positions.

The speakers also said that Bush's proposed 2005 federal budget is slashing spending for basic research and reducing investments in education designed to produce the nation's future scientists.

And there also was concern that increased restrictions and requirements for obtaining visas is diminishing the flow to the U.S. of foreign-born science students who have long been a major part of the American research community.
Click to expand...
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0221-27.htm
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2005-02-20-bush-science_x.htm
 
Two scientists from President Bush's top advisory board on cutting- edge medical research published a detailed criticism Friday of the board's own reports, and said the board skewed scientific facts in service of a political and ideological cause.

The authors -- one is a member of the president's Council on Bioethics and the other a renowned UCSF biologist fired from the council last week -- have accused the council's chairman, Leon Kass, of ignoring their scientific advice and refusing to include in the board's last report some information that would challenge Bush's restrictions on stem cell research.
Click to expand...
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2004/03/06/MNGVN5FO9L1.DTL
"President Bush, in advocating that the concept of 'intelligent design' be taught alongside the theory of evolution, puts America's schoolchildren at risk," says Fred Spilhaus, Executive Director of the American Geophysical Union. "Americans will need basic understanding of science in order to participate effectively in the 21st century world. It is essential that students on every level learn what science is and how scientific knowledge progresses."
Click to expand...
http://www.scienceblog.com/cms/node/8676
 
This one dates back to 2001!
In mid-May, as many key science positions in the Bush administration remained vacant, Congressman Joe Baca (D-Calif.) said out loud what some of his colleagues on the House Science Committee and others in the science community were thinking: "The president has sent the very clear signal that he does not value objective scientific input in developing his positions on the most controversial decisions of his young administration. . . ." [snip] Partisanship aside, a growing concern exists among science advocates in Congress, and in the science community, about Bush's apparent lack of interest in science. As of early June, Bush had failed to find a science adviser and had not picked a director of the Department of Energy's Office of Science, the position that oversees much of the nation's physical science research.
Click to expand...
http://www.physicstoday.org/pt/vol-54/iss-7/p30a.html
 
Orwell said:
Humour eh? Let's try a little exercise:


Aren't these jokes about loathing entire groups of people according to something they didn't get to choose hilarious? ;)

How do you like my sense of humour now, Jocko?
Click to expand...

Nice try. Equate a harmless barb with racism and antisemitism, now that's rational. False equivalencies are another AUP staple.... do I detect a sock puppet here?

Another thing about Canadians... apart from having no sense of humor, they also seem to confuse themselves with proper ethnic groups. Apart from your Frenchified population, you guys are about as distinct as North Dakotans are from South Dakotans.

You wanna get ugly, Orwell, then by all means carry on. You're not the only one who can "annoy" people.
 
Jocko said:
Nice try. Equate a harmless barb with racism and antisemitism, now that's rational. False equivalencies are another AUP staple.... do I detect a sock puppet here?
Click to expand...
Do a detect a load of horse manure here?

Jocko said:
Another thing about Canadians... apart from having no sense of humor, they also seem to confuse themselves with proper ethnic groups. Apart from your Frenchified population, you guys are about as distinct as North Dakotans are from South Dakotans.
Click to expand...
Frenchified, eh? Boy, you do loath Canadians, don't you?

Jocko said:
You wanna get ugly, Orwell, then by all means carry on. You're not the only one who can "annoy" people.
Click to expand...
Let's do something, Jocko: it's obvious you don't like me much, and I don't like you much. Let's just try to keep out of each others way, mmm?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom