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

In the Soviet Union too

[kedi]

They altered scientific conclusions to satisfy conservatives too.

Why should this surprise anyone?

[Newer Guy]

We all know that Bush and his cronies want to set the clock back 50 years. After all, the last time that the president and both houses of Congress were republican was then - In the Eisenhower administration. Do you really think the whole Trent Lott fiasco was because he "misspoke himself"? Fact is, he just got too cocky...but you notice that it took Bush a long time and a lot of hot water before he distanced himself from Lotto. Besides, daddy Bush is running the country, with help from old buddy: "dickie boy" Cheney.

Mod parent up through the roof

[interactive_civilian]

Posts like this one make me wish that some posts on /. could exceed the +5 limit. This hits the nail on the head.

I left the US about a year and a half ago (and if the current trends continue, I may never return), and now I am teaching English in Japan. My students often ask me what I think about what I think of North Korea developing nuclear weapons (as well as US vs. Iraq, the "War on Free^H^H^H^HTerror" and other things), and I usually tell them that I am not worried about North Korea. I am much more worried about what the number one manufacturer of nuclear weapons in the world is trying to do. They often ask me what Japan can do to improve its economy, and I usually tell them that Japan needs to get all of its eggs out of the US Economic basket and spread them around, so if that basket falls, not all of the eggs will break. They often ask me why I don't like the US and I usually respond by asking them why they aren't afraid of George W. Bush.

I know I am getting way off-topic here, but I'm in a ranty mood and I have karma to burn. I read recently (maybe a few weeks ago) in the Daily Yomiuri (a Japanese newspaper) that President(emperor?) Bush wanted to reserve the right to pre-emptively use nuclear weapons against enemies he feels are a direct threat to the United States. Umm...hello...if that isn't the scariest thing you have heard in a long time then you are not listening. Of course, what do Americans think about nuclear weapons? Well, according to my sister (a school teacher in upstate New York...so take this with as much salt as you like), there was recently a poll in some paper (yeah, I know...how much more vague can I get) which stated that 80% of those polled said they would agree with and support an nuclear retaliatory attack on anyone who attacked (whether the poll specified nuclear or not, I don't know) the US.

Ok, so, now I am off topic, quoting unreliable sources, and not backing up anything I am saying...goodbye karma, I knew you well...but honestly, I am becoming very afraid of the position that the US federal government is trying to take within and outside of its own borders. And living in the only country in the world to ever be attacked with a nuclear weapon has helped me put a different perspective on things.

If President Bush gets re-elected, how long before he "dissolves the imperial senate" so to speak? Will the ACLU and the EFF be enough of a "rebel alliance" to restore peace, or will we find out how Star Wars could have ended? (sorry for the Star Wars references, but Bush reminds me so much of Palpatine)

Ok...sorry for the rant. I usually don't but this has been sitting inside for a long time. Feel free to mod me down through the floor boards, but mod the parent up...I think I'll just start sending my students to that post.

Peace On Earth. Purity Of Essence. and all that.

I blaim Nader

[Zeinfeld]

I think that when they start drilling in ANWAR it should be renamed the Ralph Nader Oil Field.

So any greens out there who still can't tell the difference between Bush and Gore> If you are really that stupid heres some clues:

• Gore would not be starting a war with Iraq instead of chasing Bin Laden
• Gore would not have alienated every US aly apart from the UK (who are only loyal because of WWII) and Israel who would not last two years without US handouts.
• Gore would not have promoted a tax cut in which 95% of the population see only 5% of the benefits that the country can't afford.
• Gore would not have abroggated the Kyoto treaty, the ABM treaty.
• John Ashcroft would not be AG
• Poindexter, convicted of lying to congress would not be in charge of 'Total Information Awareness'

Re:Slashdot articles are also one-sided

[ealar dlanvuli]

Yeah but clinton aids didn't call up all potential gvt workers and ask them their views, and who they voted for, then refuse jobs based on their voting record.

Slight difference there.

Re:Not surprised

[FuzzyBad-Mofo]

Well, Gore won in my state (Illinois), and thanks to the electoral college system, my vote had no influence on the national scale.

In my opinion, Democracy would be best served by abolishing the electoral college system and moving to a simple popular vote.

The Mote Vs The Beam

[Baldrson]

Anyone who has tried doing real science within any environment receiving substantial government authorization knows there are beams and there are motes and the mote in the eye of "conservatives" is nothing compared to the beam in the eye of the "liberals":

From: "Henry Harpending"
Date: Sun Nov 3, 2002 5:41 pm
Subject: Re: [evol-psych] Majority against race concept (are they right?)

... There is a lot of visible denunciation of "the race concept", but when anyone is forced to say what the race concept is it invariably comes out sounding like species. It is all word play. The answer is a number, that number is about 1/8, and all the rest is word salad and sophistry.

Boyd and Silk ought to know better, but then again genetics is not their specialty. And Venter! We sequence a single genome and announce that there are no race differences: my little kid can figure out that that makes no sense.

In fairness to the genome jocks, we have to remember that they consume a lot of grant money and that the minute anyone starts crying racism they are at risk of losing that funding.

A colleague last week described a meeting at NIH where a prominent genome jock stood up and said humans were all the same, race differences were insignificant, and so on. My colleage said he "had a tear in his eye, one hand on his heart, and his other hand on his wallet".

Henry Harpending

And then, finally, after literally decades of 1984ish double-think ruination of scientific work, The New York Times reports on December 20th that:

Scientists studying the DNA of 52 human groups from around the world have concluded that people belong to five principal groups corresponding to the major geographical regions of the world: Africa, Europe, Asia, Melanesia and the Americas.

The study, based on scans of the whole human genome, is the most thorough to look for patterns corresponding to major geographical regions. These regions broadly correspond with popular notions of race, the researchers said in interviews.