U.S. Pushing Conservative Science

mozumder writes "Does abortion lead to breast cancer? Does condom use lead to increased sexual activity? According to the government, the answer is now inconclusive. The New York Times has a story on how the government is altering low-level scientific conclusions to satisfy conservatives. Will this lead to a mistrust of the government? Or is the government now correct?"

Comments

This may shock some

[nizcolas]

but most readers familiar with the way science "works" won't be all that shocked. Scientific results are frequently altered or completely made up for one reason. Money

Most science is funded by a sponsorship of some kind. Very little is done out of the scientist pocket. Because of this, science becomes a sort of business model. As long as the scientist is producing results, his funding continues. See where this is going?

Is this going to lead to a distrust of government.? Doubtful. It may wake up a few but the vast majority either know now, or will never know.

Re:Not surprised

[Hawthorne01]

The more I think about it, the more I like the system that Ecuador uses.
Voting is mandatory. You want the government services available to citizens? Vote, otherwise you get what's available to legal aliens. While I'd love it if everyone understood thieir civic duties as well as they do their civil rights, which would make this idea unneccesary, the fact is, people don't vote often enough, as a rule.
And I know there will be those screaming about secrecy of the vote, etc.Note: I didn't say keep track of who you voted for, I said keep track of WHETHER you voted or not. Should be easy enough to do, given the near-universality of SSN's and the like.

Higher fuel prices? Bring 'em on!

[fmaxwell]

According to revised estimates, implementing the Kyoto Treaty would increase gas prices in the USA upwards of 60 cents per gallon

That would be a good thing. I'm sick of kissing Saudi ass and funding terrorists so that commuters and soccer moms can drive around in 11mpg Lincoln Navigators. Bush and Cheney have made it clear that they have no intention of doing anything to encourage fuel conservation. So the only way it can be done is through consumer demand -- and that won't happen unless fuel prices go up significantly.

I have a VW Golf TDI. It gets 45MPG on average and I've broken 50mpg. It handles far better than the aforementioned SUVs and has plenty of power, with acceleration that bests most of them. The same engine and fuel economy is available in the two and four door hatchbacks (Golfs), four door sedans (Jettas), and four door station wagons (Jetta wagons). Honda and Toyota also make extremely fuel-efficient vehicles. So it's not like the vehicles aren't there. If fuel prices went up and many consumers converted to those vehicles, our reliance on foreign oil would go away and our air would be far cleaner (since SUVs are permitted to pollute far more than passenger cars).

Re:Bush sucks.

[Zeinfeld]

This administration lies about everything -- every goddamned thing -- as a matter of permanent policy

The problem isn't just the administration, its the Republican echo chamber that chose the candidate, chose the policies and lied to the people to get him elected.

Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, the Washington times have a new version of Gobbel's 'big lie' it is the myth of the 'liberal media'. By repeating this myth often enough they aim to immunize themselves against criticism for their packs of lies.

That is why we have in the Whitehouse a Vietnam draft dogger who deserted his National guard post that daddy pulled strings to get, a man with a criminal conviction and a man who was investigated by the SEC for corruption who got off on a 'technicality' - if you call having daddy being Vice President at the time a technicality.

All of this was known during the campaign but the Republican echo chamber made sure that attention was instead focused on the 'real issues' of Gore's 'lies', like saying he went to Texas fires with the head of FEMA, not the deputy head, according to the Republican echo chamber this was an attempt to embelish his record, a vice president claiming to be on equal terms with an agency director! imagine!

Very little is being said about the fact that the SEC is currently investigating Cheney for corrupt accounting. One would thing that would be a big story, bigger than Lott's racist gaffe even. But no the big story the Republican echo chamber want to talk about is the alleged cost of Kerry's hairdo.

And so having made a mess of the economy and failled to catch Bin Laden the Administration is desperately trying to start a war in the hope that everyone (or at least sufficient numbers) can be fooled by the flag waving.

Question for the republican slashdot monitors - can you honestly claim that W, who deserted from the National guard would have served in the war he wants to start with Iraq?

Over where I come from we have words for people like W, they are Hypocrite, Liar and Coward.

Re:Not surprised

[gilroy]

Blockquoth the poster:

I would be concerned, however, about people going in and randomly filling out a ballot just to keep their govt. services.

I wouldn't. In fact, I teach 17- and 18-year-olds, and every year I tell them this: They should vote even if they're uninformed -- provided that they truly vote randomly (if uninformed). Here's my rationale: If lots of people vote truly randomly, then it'll basically cancel out. But voter turnout will have risen -- and the politicians won't know which votes were random. From their point of view, they'll have to conclude that voter interest really is rising, which means that voters count -- which will de-emphasize the current "play to my base" logic.

Let's be honest here: Many of the ills of American democracy follow from the pathetically low participation rate. Corruption, ideology triumphant, slash ads ... they all result from the (justified) assumption by politicians that only a small fraction of people actually care.

Re:Why should we be surprised?

[nathanm]

If you think that North Korea (or Iraq) as aspirations to take over the world, then I think you are mistaking them with the most power / money-hungry country on Earth - the US. Everyone else (except for Israel) is quite happy left to their own devices, and only has weapons to protect themselves from the inevidable invasion from the US military / economy.

North Korea may not want to take over the world, but they definitely have plans to invade South Korea and Japan. Their quasi-Marxist, central-planning philosophy of "self-sufficiency" has led to massive famine and economic stagnation. The only reason they have any food to eat is South Korean and US aid.

As far as these inevidable [sic] US invasions, you didn't say the word, but essentialy you're accusing us of imperialism, which is complete, utter, delusional nonsense. We could've ruled the world long ago. After WW II, we were the only real power left on Earth. It would've been easy to establish the first truly global empire and rule the entire planet. Instead, we rebuilt Europe and Japan, then went home. You can find a much more cogent argument here.

If you want to get upset about who has weapons of mass destruction, then have a look at 'our' side. The US has more nuclear, chemical and biological weapons than every other country on earth combined. And they have proved on numerous occasions that they are willing to use them to assert their economic 'rights' (while pretending that they are fighting the 'good fight' for decomcracy).

Are you kidding, or just ignorant? Russia has more nukes than us, and the only biological and chemical weapons we have left are used for training and research only, not research into new weapons mind you, but how to defend against them.

Yes, we are still the only country to use nuclear weapons in war. However, it probably saved the lives of 5 million American and Japanese soldiers who would've died in an invasion, and it ended the war.

When will we see UN, or Iraqi, or North Korean inspectors checking out the US's weapons of mass destruction and shaking their heads and saying 'This is not good enough. These are clear signs or your intent to invade us. We will therefore make a pre-emptive strike!'. Until the US disarms itself (and all countries should), then it has no right to demand other countries disarm themself. If the US insists on hunting down every last terrorist and every last weapon on the 'other side', then it is going to produce more terrorists and more weapons in the act.

First, we actually do allow the UN and Russia to inspect our weapons of mass destruction. They ensure compliance with several arms control treaties.

If you think all countries should disarm, you're incredibly naive. Someone else would always rearm and try to assert their power. This is partly what we're seeing now with Al Qaeda, a non-governmental organization waging war across international borders. As long as there are humans left, there will be war and violence. Your utopia will never exist, and besides, I wouldn't want to live there.

You also have a severe misunderstanding of the Islamic fundamentalist terrorists' mindset. The reason they even attempted 9/11 is they thought the US was a "paper tiger." Throughout the 90s they kept escalating their attacks, but Bill Clinton never retaliated quickly or decisively enough. The most he ever did was lob a few cruise missiles at empty training camps and pharmeceutical factories.