Slashdot Mirror
AIP Probes Bush, Kerry On Science Issues
martensitic writes "Physics Today (the 50-year-old monthly publication of the American Institute of Physics) continues their election-year tradition with this special report, posing nine questions 'in an effort to get the candidates to specifically address questions of interest to the science community'. The 'sometimes direct and sometimes vague' written responses 'show fundamental differences on several key issues.'"
It is also safe to say that after reading this article, an average voter would have lost interest in the first few sentences, wiped the drool from the corner of their mouth, and gone back to finding porn site passwords.
Of course I can only speak for myself...
...But I digress. TREMBLE PUNY HUMANS!ONE DAY MY SPECIES WILL DESTROY YOU ALL!
Kerry:
Seems like the most important difference is in their interpretations of reality itself.
Neither of them seems to think it is all that important to actually answer the fucking question being asked.
1. Should we be wasting money on missile defense when scientists have shown it is ineffective?
Bush: we're doing it no matter what anyone says.
Kerry: it would be nice, but it's lower priority than stopping the spread of WMDs.
Physicist: a previous article in Physics Today discussed the issues and showed that it's silly to think that a missile defense system would provide any safety. The only studies that show it's even close neglect to take into account certain laws of physics, like allowing for infinite acceleration, etc.
we're not the average voters
This is true and I think it goes for all intelligentsia, not just computer geeks and nerds. But on the same side I believe we are the ones that are most likley to change other peoples minds on some of these issues.
No where in the debates will a moderator ask about the science of stem cell research - just the policy because they can't answer on that. Basically it will stick to "moral" questions. However, we are the ones that can inform our fellow citizens that this or that candidate is wrong for taking this or that moral ground on such subjects. We are the ones, the only ones, who will explain to friends and family that certain decisions are bad for science and why.
Get your Unix fortune now!
I am a physicist. Talking with the professors and faculty at the University I attended, I picked up these critical opinions.
1. Nuclear power is the way to go. It is cheap, affordable, and the waste really isn't that bad. Besides, we are developing ways to handle the waste properly. Managed properly (meaning, freeing the scientists to continue R&D) will mean we won't need coal plants and gas plants and electrical cars may become a reality.
Bush scored spot on. "I am going to begin building a new nuclear facility in 2 years, using new knowledge and technology. We are going to store the waste safely, while researching ways to handle the waste."
Kerry scored poorly. "I am going to make new rules and regulations." That's the last thing scientists want - more red tape.
2. The environment. Physicists don't drink the kool-aid on global warming. If you can prove that global warming is happening, then that is one thing. Trying to prove it is a bad thing is something else. The whole Krakatoa argument Reagan gave is irrefutable.
Bush was spot on. "We're looking at alternative energy sources, but we're being reasonable. We are funding real research to determine what effects global warming has and how to prepare or prevent it."
Kerry was way off, suggesting action without thought. He parroted the Kool-aid line.
3. Energy. If there's one thing Physicists love to talk about it is energy. No one understands what energy is better than physicists. Energy is the end-all idol they worship, if they worship any idol at all. How do we exploit the energy out there? How do we get more and more of it delivered to the masses? If it were up to physicists, we would be doubling our energy production every ten years. There are so many useful things you can do if only you had enough energy! Even time travel is possible with enough energy!
Bush laid it out. "I want to expand research, and explore bringing new sources of energy to market."
Kerry was dull and boring. "We need to abandon oil, we need to mandate new energy."
If there's one class of people that understand the intelligence of the masses, it is the physicists. They know that human ingenuity trumps all, that no problem is impossible to solve. They want less government, not more. They want the money, and they want it pretty much unfettered by restrictions or guidelines. Bush is willing to shovel the money they need into their labs. Kerry just wants to put up red tape.
The radical sect of Islam would either see you dead or "reverted" to Islam.
If you were a real physicist, you'd know that was wrong. Here's an electron - tell me exactly where it is, where it's going, and how fast.
Physicists don't drink the kool-aid on global warming. If you can prove that global warming is happening, then that is one thing. Trying to prove it is a bad thing is something else.
... so we're going to keep studying it (while continuing to dump CO2) and if it turns out that it was bad... then we'll stop it". This is insane. It's a very dangerous, very stupid experiment we're playing with by burning huge amounts of fossil fuels.
Um. Huh? Physicists are smart enough to know that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, and that the Earth has a limited capacity to absorb it. Long term temperature trends show pretty clearly that the Earth is warming up. Much of it may be due to orbital eccentricity drift, but the problem is that CO2 levels are spiking dramatically (due to human activity) as well. This hasn't happened in any period of Earth's history that we can study.
Physicists would also be smart enough to know that the question isn't whether or not global warming is happening (it clearly is - the top five warmest years on record have happened since 1997, and if you look at the average global temperature, it's clearly going up) but whether or not human activity is causing it. And the problem with this is that we don't know enough about Earth to say it. We don't have a "control Earth". We know that humans are dumping huge amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere - far more than natural causes. We don't know what that will do. Any physicist worth his or her salt would know that this is, to quote a paleoclimatologist from Ohio State, "is a dangerous, uncontrolled experiment."
Bush is saying "well... we don't know what dumping huge amounts of CO2 is going to do
If there's one thing Physicists love to talk about it is energy. No one understands what energy is better than physicists. Energy is the end-all idol they worship, if they worship any idol at all. How do we exploit the energy out there? How do we get more and more of it delivered to the masses? If it were up to physicists, we would be doubling our energy production every ten years. There are so many useful things you can do if only you had enough energy! Even time travel is possible with enough energy!
What in the heck are you talking about?? Physicists would also know that any energy you produce has to go somewhere. And unless we start moving off this planet (which is one thing where Bush is correct - if he wasn't saying it just to be politically correct, as is evidenced by the fact that he didn't back it up in NASA's budget) that energy is going to be dumped somewhere on Earth. I could probably do a back of the envelope calculation figuring out how long it would take to incinerate Earth if our energy production doubled every ten years, but it's not worth the effort. Given that it's exponential growth, though, that number would be well less than probably 100-200 years.
And I really, really challenge you to find a real physicist who honestly believes that time travel is possible with enough energy.
Bush is willing to shovel the money they need into their labs.
News to all of the physicists I know. Well, those that aren't working on weapons programs.
Right b/c that weapons program the Manhattan project did nothing to advance science.
I laughed at the weak who considered themselves good because they lacked claws.
Well duh, wasn't that the whole point of the end of the cold war? Nuclear disarment?
"There is no teacher but the enemy."-Mazer Rackham