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Scientists Challenge U.S. on Scientific Distortions
rocketjam writes "The Union of Concerned Scientists, an independent organization which includes 20 Nobel laureates, issued a statement accusing the Bush administration of distorting scientific fact and supressing findings to fit administration policy decisions on the environment, health, biomedical research and nuclear weaponry. They also issued a 37-page report detailing the accusations. Bush's science adviser, John Marburger, called the report biased and said he was troubled that some very prestigious scientists had signed the statement. Numerous complaints from the scientific community about the administration's scientific policy-making prompted the The Union of Concerned Scientists to begin investigating the issue last summer. As an example, the group noted the panel that advises the Centers for Disease Control on lead poisoning had been prepared to recommend strengthening regulations due to new findings on lead toxicity, but had their recommendation rejected by the administration and two panel members replaced by individuals with ties to the lead industry." Other articles: Sydney Morning Herald, New York Times, The Guardian.
Which has nothing to do with the accusations the scientists are making. I wonder what sort of mindset the administration has when its science advisor can't even read the letter he's responding to.
There are a lot more voting bible-belters than there are scientists.
This administration has made it abundantly clear that they are only concerned with getting reelected. To hell with anything that stands in their way and alienates their voting base.
The US Presidency, much like US Corporations, is afflicted with serious shortsightedness.
I think a 10 year term is much better than a 4 year term because it would give the office holder at least 5 - 7 years before they would have to worry about reelection right after they enter office. And perhaps they'd think about doing things for the good of the nation rather than themselves.
-- You see, there would be these conclusions that you could jump to
Bush's science adviser, John Marburger, called the report biased and said he was troubled that some very prestigious scientists had signed the statement.
Yes it's biased. Biased towards scientific truth instead of political motives (though by creating the document in the frist place, the scientists are expressing some political motives).
And yes he should be troubled. Being a science adviser and having 20 highly acclaimed scientists say you are wrong makes you look like bad.
that being said, time to go RTFA and see where i'm wrong.
who thinks creationism is a valid science rather then a religious doctering.
They are luddites plain and simple.
They came out against the a health study a couple of weeks ago. The study said that americans or too fat and should eat less fat and more veggies. Real contravercial stuff..
I think this just shows what a number of scientists have been saying about Bush from the beginning, that he just does not trust, nor believe in science, nor the scientific community in general.
It started with small manipulations of results, or skewing of reports by ommiting crucial sections, but it just seems to be getting more and more blatant.
I think the growing number of prominent scientists speaking out, risking their chances of getting appointed to advisory panels, or getting federal funding, etc, is making the point more clear every day.
--- It's not my fault this post looks redundant. I just type too slow.
I'm amazed in seeing how far John Marburger has gone. I first knew him when he was the president of SUNY at Stony Brook when I was a student. He then went to Brookhaven National Labs and now he's the President's Science Advisor. I'll be real interested in how this whole event carries out. Personally I found Marburger to be a really upfront and a likeable person. I hope these high level politcs hasn't changed him.
No kidding. A quick perusal of their site comes up with articles on global warming, how to be an activist, the evils of SUVs, and other non-sense. Little wonder such a group would condemn the policies of the current administration.
For instance, this blurb is on their front page: "Misplaced Priorities in the 2005 Budget. President Bush's budget request for 2005 increases funding for the dysfunctional missile defense system while shortchanging programs that could ensure a future of cleaner energy and automobiles."
"Dysfunctional"? Funny, seems every test that's been conducted has shown better results than the previous one. I'm not sure how something designed to safeguard the US from attack by, oh, say, North Korea (who has persued nuclear weapons and missiles with range to California in the past), and which, while not perfect, is getting better, can be described as "dysfunctional." You'd think a bunch of Nobel laureates would understand the concept of "incremental improvement."
God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world.
Well, you know, Stalin was really good at reaching out to, and coming to an understanding with, Soviet scientists whose work cast doubt on the inevitable glorious triumph of New Socialist Man over not only the imperialistic forces of bourgeoise capitalism, but also nature itself. And there was nothing touchy-feely about it. <1/2 g>
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
They (seemingly) manipulate intelligence reports to paint an incredibly grim picture of Iraqi's WMD program in order to justify an attack on a sovereign nation
The view the same job market and economy reports we do, and yet see 250 million new jobs being created this year, and that the economy is doing just fine, thank you.
Their interpretation of the Constitution allows attempt to circumvent the separation of church and state by giving your tax dollars to faith-based programs.
Why not circumvent the scientific process if it will appease the American Taliban (read the very left-wing christian fundamentalists, not your every day christian) and keep the $$$ rolling in from big corporations?
The short-sightedness of this administration is staggering. Yes, everyone knows other administrations have been corrupt as well, but Christ! They didnt' have the chutzpah this one does.
They scare me.
One of their biggest backers is the V. Kann Rasmussen Foundation, which regularly donates to many other groups such as Greenpeace, labeled by some as ecoterrorists.
Sorry if the subject sounds like a flame, but it's true. Bush got into Harvard and Yale through connections. He was exposed to people infinitely smarter than him, and this seems to have vastly shaken his self confidence. This happens to a lot of us, but we grow out of it. Bush hasn't. All professors or researchers are now 'elites.' Science is subjective. All that matters is faith.
I find it troubling how much of a disconnect there is in the American public (and beyond) such that political opinion overshadows scientific fact and mathematical logic. Yet another sign our education system is in crisis.
Even sadder is that people generally don't care to understand the difference between 1 million and 1 billion and 1 trillion. It's all just some big number to them, but a few extra zeros really matter!
As always, I blame the news media (present company excluded, of course). They could really help bridge the gaps but they don't. I believe a law should be passed that every number ever stated in the news should be followed by an analogous per capita statstic. Like, $87 Billion more for the War on Iraq? That'll be $300 each per American. Funny.. Isn't that exactly what Bush gave us in the first tax year after he was elected?
Oops. Too much coffee. Back to work..
- Lebofsky
At the end of the first Gulf War, the peace treaty said that Iraq would not have WMDs, and the UN would get to have uninterfered with inspections to make sure they didn't. Iraq was playing games with the inspectors, so we couldn't be sure that they didn't have any WMDs.
Ummm, the big reason for playing with the U.N. Inspectors was the fact that the U.S. Representatives were reporting back to the CIA, and not about WMD's.
The U.S. would have had the spies shot for espionage, had things been the other way around.
Somebody lend this git a spoon, as the one his Gubment is feeding him with is about worn out!
I've seemed to notice that many /.-ers have this opinion of "nothing new". Yes, this is nothing new (especially if you're a skeptic of the Bush administration) but to me this means something big.
The reason is is that much of our bias, one way or another, has come from the media. Yes, much of it can be based on facts, but I think we'd all be lying to ourselves considering the amount of biased media out there. While scientists could have their own political agenda, the fact that this report was signed off by 20 Nobel Laureates gives it real legitimacy.
Nobel Laureates don't come a dime a dozen and they can't be bought out or created like special think tank groups out there. So, therefore, this sort of report gives our concerns about the Bush administration, in my opinion, real legitimacy. No longer can people say that our skepticism is the result of "liberal media".
"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." - Martin Luther King, Jr.
Doesn't anyone know how to read the fucking news critically anymore?!
Dateline of the linked article: July 31, 2001
Dateline of this article: November 21, 2002
This is what I meant by incremental improvements. Yes, some of the first tests were done under "ideal" circumstances. But those were designed to test the feasability of actually hitting a supersonic missile and disabling it, not tracking it, too. As we go along, the technology will mature and we'll be more able to protect not just our homeland, but our allies, too (since they're unwilling to do it themselves).
Now, answer this: the Navy has been able to knock down incoming anti-ship missiles for years now. The technology has gotten to the point where the chance of a missile impacting one of our ships is miniscule. How is that fundamentally different from shooting down an ICBM? Answer: it's not, it's only a question of scale.
God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world.
There's a lead industry? And it has influence in washington?
... lead. Drive your car to the doctor to get an Xray, the apron they put over you to cover your "radiologically sensitive glands" is made of ... lead. You go home & turn on the TV, which shields
you from radiation from the CRT with, guess what, lead. And so on, and on, and on.
Of course there's a lead industry. You're using a computer, and the components are soldered to the board with...lead. Get up from your desk to go take a drink, and unless your building is less than 5 years old, the pipes are held together with...lead. Get in your car, and the battery works because most of it's weight is
Yes, there's a special interest group for the lead industry. Oddly enough, if they weren't standing up for that industry, we'd have government mandates imposed upon us which have no foundation in reality, like the ill-advised "rip out the asbestos floor tiles" craze in the 90's.
It's a case of a "special interest group" that you're not even aware of, that has a positive effect on your everyday life. Next time you hear someone whining about lobbyists and special interest groups, think for a bit just what the big picture might be.
The entire exectuive branch is the responsiblity of the president. Only the prez and VP are elected offices, everything else is an appointed position. Therefore, the only effective way to force the replacement of a disliked member of the executive branch is to replace the entire administration from the president on down, there's just no middle step.
This report doesnt'accuse anybody of abusing their power, but simply using bad science when trying to justify their decisions. They could have made such decisions with no reasoning at all, but then the public would likely assume the worst possible self-serving reason is the true one. Well, if the scitific reasoning as wrong, either the person is stupid or acting on those self-serving reasons...
(As quoted from www.activistcash.com )
Unbiased? "Rigorus" scientific processes? Yea right.
Cruc
The Heartland Institute of course being wholly free of any right wing leanings or funding.
You need some sunlight to produce vitamin D; therefore, therefore, sunlight cannot cause cancer.
Sure, whatever you say.
And we're back to "terrorists". I hate to tell you this but spray-painting a car is vandalism, not terrorism. I disagree with their tactics, but in today's society I understand their futility in playing in a system where Bush has $120 Million already in campaign funds and they want what's right.
Follow the money and you'll find the root of all the problems in politics.
Agendas, like the full inculsion of scientific evidence as a basis for making policy decisions?
I mean, who really _cares_ what lead exposure does to kids when determining what the exposure guidelines should be. Or how many degrees an additional 50 million metric tons of CO2 makes the air emperature rise by. Yeah, those pesky Nobel and National Science Medal winning scientists, just trying to promote their agendas for personal gain.
This space for rent. Call 1-800-STEAK4U
I really wish Bush would just go away. The whole world is mixing up his administration with the US as a whole, where Bush's policies are usually sneaky enough to escape notice or buried in issues too complex for most people to take the time to sort through.
This is an extremist government that believes it is ok to hold foreign nationals without trial or legal counsel, stifle scientific research, place the entire country under as much surveillance as possible, subpoena doctors' medical records to bully them into political apathy and generally make us "safer" by pissing off the entire world!
Don't blame us all!
Scientists agendas are usually based on getting more free tax money for their projects.
If they weren't biased, the document wouldn't refer to "the Bush Administration". It would just talk about the government. When they talk about the president, they make it politics and, during an election year, that's just plain partisanship.
Shame on them!
---- It puts the lotion on its skin or else it gets the hose again. It does this whenever it's told.
What I got from that statement was the following dilemma: Those with ties to the lead industry should have more intimate knowledge of lead, but that limited intimacy also makes them dependent upon the future of that industry. This dependency makes it easy to apply FUD to anything they say.
The question then becomes, who do you trust more? Someone who doesn't necessarily know the topic as well but has nothing to lose/gain or someone who probably knows the topic quite well but has something to lose/gain.
The above is really just a generalization applicable to any industry. Of course, I should eventually RTFA.
This is not my sig.
He said pretty much the same thing in The Price of Loyalty by Suskind. Most meeting were scripted and non-partisan information was not getting to the president. Having served in both the Nixon and Ford administrations he was disturbed that the decision making PROCESS had become almost completely driven by political issues and controlled by Cheney. It's fine if having reviewed the facts you make one decision or another but to not review the facts seemed reckless in his mind.
So a very nasty fellow. But focussing on the history of nastyness by Saddam would have prompted question as why nothing was done about it before. Who was supporting him while he was doing it and how the hell he got into power in the first place.
All questions america rather would not answer.
So WMD it was. As a reasonably intelligent person I can see what the real reason was. Saddam was like the guard dog that had snapped and had to be put down. Nasty and perhaps better care should have been given but this is the real world not some pacifists lala land.
For me and apparently you the reasons that saddam was a loose cannon with same very nasty habbits was enough. For many others it wasn't.
How does this relate to the hiding or falsyfing scientific evidence? Very closely. Instead of just saying, well yes lead is bad but so is making thousands of people jobless and we need the lead, they instead make up fancy reports saying lead ain't bad at all. It insults people like you and me but the people who elected him swallow it hook line and sinker.
Oh he was elected by a majority of americans. To remain silent implies consent and the majority of voters remained silent therefore consenting to bush. Still no option, "none of the above", I guess.
Poster should have spellchecked but poster is a lazy bastard
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
I totally agree that business interests should have an input into public policy, and for the reasons you cite. But to have public policy meetings behind closed doors, where the public can not even gain access to minutes and notes after the fact, let alone aren't invited to provide their input, is just plain wrong.
Democracy and Freedom depend on openness.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
"Your reasoning - the scientists are releasing a scientific paper. Their conclusions have political ramifications. Therefore they are making a political statement"
That's not at all what he said. What he said was that it was released as a report on "The Bush Administration" rather than on the activities of the agencies that have outlasted and will outlast the Bush Administration like the DoD, the CDC, etc. This was a political statement aimed squarely at a particular administration.
That doesn't make it wrong, but it certainly does turn on my bias-detection filters...
I find it amusing that the example you choose happens to be one where the answer is, in fact, not known.
You could have picked a whole lot of issues where science provides a solid truth. Instead you picked anthropogenic global warming, which is still a matter of dispute among specialists (most agree with the theory but there are large gaps in information, low quality data, and an inadequately long time series).
Had you picked something else - say that inheritance is via DNA - you would at least have an example that every responsible scientist agrees with.
Furthermore, the assertions against the administration are not scientific assertions, but rather social assertions. That they are made by scientists does not make them scientific.
For example, did the UCS report go through independent peer review?
Finally, the UCS is not an "independent" organization. It is an organization with a long history of supporting the side of a debate held by the left. In other words, it is a political organization, with a political agenda, that a number of scientists agree with. In 1984 UCS openly supported Walter Mondale, with a 15 city tour of their members. It is part of the group that persecuted Bjorn Lomborg.
The idea that because scientific work involves discovering facts of nature, scientists are arbiters of truth, is laughable. Scientists are usually very narrow specialists, with deep knowledge in one area. Within that area, if it is worthy of research, there are almost always disagreements, until definitive experiments are done and replicated (try doing that with anthropogenic global warming, by the way).
Furthermore scientists are human. They have biases. They have agendas. They have blindspots.
By the way, did the UCS complain when the Clinton administration was suppressing research that did not support Al Gore's environmental agenda? I know people who had to be very careful what they said in public, and knew they would not get funded submitting research proposals likely to produce uncertainty about global warming forecasts.
When the government pays for science, the science will be subject to political steering.
The only good weather is bad weather.
Someone else said this better than I can a few months ago, but I can't find it, so I'll do my best to replicate it. (Remember, this is an estimation at best, but it should illustrate the point I am trying to make).
The best I could find on Google is that CO2 emissions from industrial processes account for about 30 million tons. This sounds reasonable to me, anyone have a better figure?
Humans exhale CO2 as part of the normal breathing process. Let's assume for the sake of this simplified example that an average human breathes 20 times a minute. If I remember correctly, average exhalation volume of air is 2.5 liters or so, of which 20% or so is CO2 (If any of my figures are inaccurate, please correct them). Therefore, there is about half a liter of CO2 in one exhalation, which would be about a gram (this is a roundoff to make my next calculations easier). This results in 20 grams of CO2 produced by one adult human in a minute. There are 60*24*365.25, or 525960 minutes in a year, which means one human exhales 10,519,200 grams, or 10,519.2 kilograms, of CO2 in a year. Assuming a world population of six billion humans (don't point out that I'm discounting other species, I know and I'm doing it to keep this from getting too long), humans exhale 63,115,200,000,000 kilograms of CO2 in a year, or 6.95725989 x 10^10 tons of CO2 in a year. Now you see why exact figures don't matter all that much for the purposes of the example (if anyone has better ones than mine, though, please correct me).
It's proven, and it doesn't need more study.
Not very scientific there, everything can use more study. If there is a problem with carbon dioxide, my admittedly rough figures don't show it coming from industrial emissions.
If you disagree, you are wrong, just as wrong as you are if you disagree with the fact of evolution (as opposed to the *theory* of how it happened.) There is no middle ground here, there is science, and there is expensive wishful thinking in the form of industry/government supported pseudo-science.
Faulty logic if I ever heard it. The only fundamental fact in science is that everything should be questioned, that nothing is ever proven. For the record, I think the theory of evolution is the best one on the general subject that we currently have, but that's an aside. Another aside, I know someone else who says things like "If you disagree with me, you are wrong." Hint: he holds a job very high up in the current administration.
And just to be sure I don't leave anyone out while I'm pissing people off, I'll throw in a jab at the other side. Yes, it is true that global warming and catastrophic human destruction of the planet is not a foregone conclusion. No, that doesn't mean that you should go buy a Ford Expedition and dump its used oil on your lawn. It still makes sense to minimize your own pollution of the environment. As my father says, "Don't shit where you eat."
Don't just spew your particular party line without even considering what you're saying. Look at all sides of the issue, and come up with your own informed opinion. It makes you look smarter that way.
Afterthought: Am I feeding a troll? Oh, well.
The problem you describe is however hardly isolated to america. It happens around the world. Here in holland we used to have an tv news program at 8 o'clock on the first channel (we only had one when I grew up then two and now three). It was reasonably good proffesional guy in suit telling the news headlines with a bit behind. Not terribly deep but you got what had happened and could read the indepth stuff in next days newspaper.
What has changed. Well first of all it has gotten shorter not just in pure time but the opening jingle and ending credits have become longer, they have a summary at the beginning and end wich each take about a minute from what is now 15-20 minutes. They extended weather and now always have some human intrest stuff. I remember that during heavy suicide bombings in Israel they had a 5 minute piece on the royal family opening some art show. Good grief. The final killer is that they took the presenter from the childeren news (used to be very good, the biggest real news stories explained a bit more with simpler language or complex words explained) and got all the other presenters to use her language.
To describe the news here now is impossible. CNN is better. At least they don't talk to me in kid speak. Americans complain that american news is biased. It is perhaps. So is dutch news. Doesn't matter if the news is pro-israel or pro-palenstine. They are both biased and not telling the thruth the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
You know what the really funny thing is? All this dumbing down was to get more viewers. Tiny little detail? The old news was often the most watched program, not well watched. ONE in the ratings. Now viewing figures are down. So they are dumbing down even more to attract more viewers.
Excuse me while I go bang my head against the wall.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
There is no such thing as the "fact of evolution". You should really check your sources on that one. It's called a theory for a reason.
Actually, evolution was accepted as fact even before Darwin advanced a theory to explain it. Before Darwin, there actually were real scientists (as opposed to religious ideologues masquerading as scientists) who took creation seriously as a theory of the origin of species. But even before Darwin, they had rejected the Biblical notion of creation as patently inconsistent with the data that clearly demonstrated evolution over time. The creationist theories before Darwin tended to postulate multiple creation events at different times and places. Of course, after Darwin, all the real biologists embraced the new theory, leaving behind the Biblical zealots who wouldn't even accept creation theories that didn't agree with Genesis.
Cry me a river, Over the past four years I paid over half a million dollars in taxes. But I would rather see the tax cuts repealled and the economy doing better than continue with a stagnant economy and $50,000 off my taxes.
During the Clinton boom the economy grew 4% year on year, that means the economy grew by almost a fifth in each term. That means far more to me than any amount I might pay in taxes. During the Bush recession the economy was stagnant, there was one quarter where it grew by 2% (reported in the press as 8% anualized) and a second when it grew by 1% (reported in the press as 5% anualized). But we still havent had one year that comes close to matching the Clinton performance.
Sure Bush had some bad luck, but all President's do. Bush has made no good luck. That is the problem. He is also responsible for the bulk of the deficit, he has not vetoed a single one of the pork filled spending bills from the Republican Congress. He pushed through irresponsible tax cuts which in many cases will only start to take effect after the recession is over. That means that long term interest rates, the rates businesses borrow money at and the rates that determine economic growth are much too high. The markets know there is a big increase in borrowing comming.
The falloff of tax revenues and the $250 billion cost of the war in Iraq are part of the reason for the deficit, but they are not the biggest reason and they are not part of the forward planning estimates that are predicting $400 billion dollar deficits for the next ten years.
So no, a four year tax cut does not impress me in the slightest. It is clearly not going to last. Regardless of who is President next year taxes are going to return to their pre-Bush level and then some extra will be added on top. Read my lips, Tax rises are inevitable.
No politician deserves credit for tax cuts unless they can cut spending or raise revenues by enough to pay for them.
Looking for an Information Security student project suggestion?
Try http://dotcrimeManifesto.com/
That's a point, but that's not the real reason.
Iraq decided back in November 2000 to start selling oil in Euros instead of Dollars, and the bad side for America is that it did succeed.
This war was fought to prevent other countries from doing the same. Like Venezuela who felt under a coup (a US funded coup) just after trying to exchange oil with services instead of dollars.
The thing is that if OPEC starts to accept Euros for oil purchases the US will economically collapse because of its huge debt (way worse than Argentina when it did collapse).
Full explanation and documents to prove this point of view.
This has never been discussed in any major US media. Weird.
Iraq: war to save the U
You're thinking of Trofim Lysenko who wasn't a trained scientist, but his 'theories' seemed to fit in with Communist dogma - so he attracted the approval of Stalin. Lysenko got his ideas from a Russian form of Lamarckism known as Michurianism. Essentially it was the old falsehood that said such nonsense as the children of a giraffe have longer necks because their parents stretched to reach leaves on trees.
Lysenko came to prominence in 1948 when he declared Mendelist evolution to be reactionary, decadant and its proponents to be enemies of the Soviets. Other scientists knew what that meant and on whose behalf he was speaking (Uncle Joe) and quickly fell behind the Party line. He and his theories basically held sway in the Eastern Bloc until 1965 when Kruschev had Lysenko denounced and returned the Soviet Union to the orthodox view of evolution.
But of course Lysenko's theories were in sway during the pivotal discoveries of DNA and how it affected genetics. So the Soviet Union fell behind at a vital moment and never recovered.
It's an extreme form of the current situation in the US, where any old nonsense can be promoted by politicians to keep their vested interests (be they oil, lead or Christian fundamentalism) happy. Sadly the same is starting to happen over here in the UK, where our non-scientific Prime Minister refuses to condemn schools that teach creationism over evolution.
Best wishes,
Mike.
I can at least put forward my observations:
.my usual Slashdot rant. . .
. .
Even a scietist is allowed personal observation and opinion if he does not claim them to be otherwise. Even to the extent of giant farts of rhetoric.
If, however, you wish to read more you could start with my oft refered to "Too Much College," by Stephen Leacock, Professor of Economics at McGill University. The writings of John Holt can also be instructive. John spent 20 years trying to reform the lower educational systems and finally gave it up as hopeless, founding the modern, secular, homeschooling movement.
Googling on Randi, Michael Shermer, Martin Gardner, Fabian Pascal and Dijkstra should also turn up some relevant material, although I warn you that some of these are curmudgeons in good standing, and have been for quite some time.
KFG
Fair enough, seeing as at no point have I even suggested that scientists are "completely objective". I said they were more likely than anyone else to be able to present a rational, objective analysis of the situation. Clearly, you disagree.
So, as twenty Nobel laureates are so clearly incapable of critical, objective thought, who should we look to for rational analysis of the role of science in today's government?
I understand your skepticism, but honestly, your life will be largely fruitless if you refuse to place your trust in other people. There's no way any one of us is qualified to make more than a small fraction of the decisions one typically faces in the modern world--there's simply too much you'd need to learn to make your own rational decisions to the exclusion of the advice of others.
Personally, I can't think of many groups of people as learned and diverse as a full twenty Nobel laureates--these people don't grow on trees, and while there are a few exceptions, the majority of them are frighteningly intelligent people. I trust them to know what they're talking about when it comes to conducting and analyzing scientific research...
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
It's too bad that the so called liberal media has chosen to focus more on Bush's malaprops than the lies he's telling. While Clinton was impeached (but acquited) of perjury about getting a BJ, Bush gets a free pass for lying about: the justifications for taking our country into war (a necessary and just war anyway IMO); the consequences of his budget ($500+ billion per year!); who would actually benefit from tax cuts ("everyone benfits" when most people won't get anything or "$3000 average refund" because median income earners get $300 while the top .5% get $150,000); all the while forcing everyone in government to contort the facts to fit the Administration's agenda.
While the Dems may be tax and spend party, the Republicans are apparently the borrow and spend party. F'em both.
Most people who have gotten a Noble prize gets it because they have challenges, and more importantely, changed the accepted scientific view in their field.
That does not make it better. And it seems like the current adminstration is much more eager in this than has been seen for a long time in the USA.
Ultimately, the judges of science is scientists themselves. Peer review is the key. Anyone who think that you can become a recognized scientist just through connections and not through hard work and hard won respect for your published work, must had little contact with the academia. The problem is that the current administration don't put recognized scientist on scientific panels and committees, but industrial lobbiest and people from outside the peer review system of science.
--- guns don't kill people, people with guns kill people ---
My original message
Bush is stupid
No WMDs ever existed
Bush can't speak correctly
Ashcroft is stripping every liberty we have
Bush is evil
Reagan was stupid
Global warming is happening right now
These scientists are not bias at all.
Before you flame-bait me, ALL of the above WERE responses by people in this thread.
And I get modded down as flame-bait.
BUT ALL OF THE ABOVE RESPONSES WERE MODDED UP TO 4 OR 5. THOSE WERE ACTUAL RESPONSES THAT WERE MODDED UP.
THAT was my point.
I remember a while ago here in Alberta Premier Klein made a very interesting quote about global warming where he joked that the end of the ice age was due to dinosaur farts. This made me realize that Klein, and probably a lot of other politicians, not only doesn't believe in science but doesn't even respect it. They'll quote studies when it suits them and claim they have done scientific research but at the end of the day I don't believe science has the slightest baring on their decisions. Therefore it's not surprising that politicians are playing funny with the numbers, after all it's just dinosaur farts.
I stole this Sig
Interesting. Today's Washington Post is recommending D.C. residents flush their taps for 10 minutes to help reduce exposure to lead. Missed the opportunity to blame it on Bush, however.
Story
his historical actions were generally against his own nation, not linking him to any international terrorist organizations, such as al quaeda. this is what the bush administration said was true and now they have backed off that assertion. there is no known link between saddam and bin laden or any other major terrorist, and we have yet to find any. why saddam was this "major threat" to the united states that we felt it necessary to just go on as freedom fighters for the rest of the world while our own nation suffers from economic hardships (and don't give me that bullshit about the economy being great because the stock market is doing well... if unemployment is higher than it has been in many many years, there is an economic problem regardless of the stupid stock market).
please me, have no regrets.
Oh come on, you're just upset because your sacred cow, the 'united scientists' with their 'consensus' had their balloon punctured and were proven wrong. You can't really be serious that you buy this alarmist propaganda they peddle.
SDI has knocked down at least two more missiles than your 'scientists' have. Moreover, the supposed 'rigging' of the test is a matter of perspective - making contact with an item traveling at 10k mph is difficult enough. Altering the parameters to fit technological limitations I can deal with.
In regards ignorance, I read the book back at the time (in the 80's) and its basic premise was as follows:
While both of the above points are correct in some sense, they are inapplicable to either the situation then or the situation today. The first was begging the question, "Well, if it isn't possible today, research and development are necessary, no?". Duh. These 'scientists' decided to try to gainsay it EVER being possible, which is a silly thing to do with technology.
The second point is true enough but a poor argument: a similar argument could be made about other weapons systems. Take a tank: well, armor piercing rounds from antitank weaponry can always be made to pierce any thickness of armor, through various technologies such as hollow charges and sabot rounds, or just making the gun bigger. Should armor be dispensed with, then?
The answer is resoundingly no, because an armorless tank is prey to small arms fire and perhaps even prosaic things like Molotov cocktails. A balance is struck between armor thickness and desired survivability and transportability. This is instructive, because the purpose of SDI was never to kill every incoming missile, and the current National Missile Defense program is not geared towards that either.
The purpose of SDI was to create a situation where a 'ragged' first strike would result. Ragged in the sense that not every missile would hit the target. This would increase the risk of said first strike, therefore strengthening deterrence. I agree with the aforementioned book inasmuch as that this would have provoked a new arms race when the system became operational. That was the point. This arms race would bankrupt the Soviet Union, which was already teetering on the edge of same. Victory in the Cold War was very much as a result of the _threat_ of SDI.
The current NMD program is intended to provide defense against a 'Scud' situation ala Saddam in 1991, or a North Korean ICBM. It is intended to knock down a small number of missiles. It would have no effect on a French or Russian or Chinese nuclear attack, except inasmuch as it would cause, once again, a 'ragged' first strike that would not assure the launching nation of achieving the expected results, thereby once again strengthening deterrence. It will not be immune to countermeasures and it can be spoofed. Who cares. It raises the barrier of entry to successfully launch a nuclear strike on the US. It wasn't intended to be a perfect shield. Moreover, the NMD is small enough that it's unlikely to provoke an arms race, as the Russians or Chinese can still flood the system with RVs that would make the quantity of destroyed vehicles immaterial.
Perhaps these 'concerned scientists' should invent a rubber band gun to fire copies of "The Fallacy of Star Wars: Why Space Weapons Can't Protect Us" at incoming ICBMs. I'm sure with all their collective smarts they'll have it working in no time, unlike the idiots in the military who think NMD or SDI had some promise. Right?
This organization, these 'concerne
HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
well, the foreign newspapers should be a clue. News items like this one are very popular with the foreign press. (Along with the pubescent fuss about janet jackson's boob), these stories are making our culture and our administration look foolish, strenghtening the distrust that the false WMD claim seeded.
Care to point examples of "liberal bias"? That someone thinks creationism is utter rubbish (being not backed by a single scientifically sound argument)? That vast majority of studies consider global warming to be a potentially serious problem? That current understanding of toxicity of lead levels should be used on defining legal limits for lead levels in various substances? That current policies regarding sexuality (preaching abstinence as the main solution to teen-age pregnany and other rubbish) are idiotic?
I like paying taxes. With them I buy civilization -- Oliver Wendell Holmes
2001 - Bush places crippling restrictions on stem cell research because the cells come from leftover embryos from fertility clinics that are going to be discarded anyway. Despite the fact that stem cell research is one of the most promising areas of medical research since genome mapping, Bush doesn't want to "condone abortion".
2002 - Bush's flagship environmental policy is the "Healthy Forest Initiative", which aims to reduce forest fires by easing logging restrictions in National Forests (look it up yourself!) Actually that one's good logic- less forests, less forest fires!
2003 Bush appoints Mike Levitt, the pro-industry Republican governor from Utah to head the EPA.
The administration has axed education programs that mention birth control, (he's got an "abstinence only" policy despite zero evidence showing that that works -theres even evidence it might be counter-effective), issued the "Global Gag Rule", gutted the Clean Air Act, forced the EPA to cut any mention of global warming from their state of the environment report, etc. etc..
Seriously, the list goes on and on..
really? no proof given though, huh?
Proof of the scientific studies or proof of government omissions? It should be obvious that they don't need to republish the results of previous studies in this report.
Highly qualified according to whom? UCS?
Ah, but there are such things as verifiable scientific qualifications. Of course, a little healthy skepticism is good too. You are free to verify the findings of the report on your own. This isn't politics; it's science.
That's specific? Not a single incident is cited.
I can't access the report right now, but I still managed to find this from cnn.com:
Among the examples cited in the union's report:
* A 2003 report that the administration sought changes in an Environmental Protection Agency climate study, including deletion of a 1,000-year temperature record and removal of reference to a study that attributed some of global warming to human activity.
* A delay in an EPA report on mercury pollution from some power plants.
* A charge that the administration pressed the Centers for Disease Control to end a project called "Programs that Work," which found sex education programs that did not insist only on abstinence were still effective.
I'm surprised that you couldn't find the examples yourself. Did you read the actual report or just an article about the report?