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The Decline of Science and Technology in America

puke76 writes "There's a good article over on the BBC about the decline of science and technology in the U.S.. Vint Cerf and others are going on record to voice their concerns about the current administrations recipe for 'irrelevance and decline.' Scientists are increasingly concerned about the White House's pandering to the religious right at science's expense. From the article: 'radically we have moved away from regulation based on professional analysis of scientific data ...to regulation controlled by the White House and driven by political considerations.'"

21 of 1,347 comments (clear)

  1. Simple solution by SunPin · · Score: 3, Funny

    As a red-blooded American, the only way I'll believe in evolution is if it's in line with the truth...

    The cold, hard, undeniable truth about evolution is:

    APES EVOLVED FROM HUMANS!

    Isn't it obvious?

    --
    Laws are for people with no friends.
  2. Re:Oh, this is going to be good. by Neil+Blender · · Score: 4, Funny

    That just opened my email reader and created an empty file called creationism.

  3. We gots these internets by infonography · · Score: 1, Funny

    click a few buttons and yous got alls ya needs. Who needs larning when ya got...

    oh, wait porn!!!

    --
    Sorry about the writing. Robot fingers, you know? Cliff Steele in DOOM PATROL #23
  4. Prepare for onslought of inane talking points! by StefanJ · · Score: 2, Funny

    Someone could make a drinking game out of this.

    For example: Everytime a discussion about science on /. leads to someone posting a link to Michael Crichton ranting about junk science, take a drink.

    "It is the business of the future to be dangerous, and it is among the merits of science that it prepares the future for its duties."

    - Alfred North Whitehead.

  5. Re:America has a choice.. by jjoyce · · Score: 5, Funny

    As a concerned American, I'm not reading all that.

  6. LiberalConservative Cycle by birge · · Score: 4, Funny

    Funny how liberal statists want the central government to control everything, except when the government is run by people they disagree with, elected by people they detest. You can't have your government schools and not expect the government to control the teaching as per majority desire, can you?

    Here's the cycle of America:

    1) Democrats gain power, expand government control over X, Y and Z.
    2) Republicans gain power, use government control to fuck up X, Y and Z.
    3) Goto (1)

    1. Re:LiberalConservative Cycle by Rude+Turnip · · Score: 2, Funny

      Well, if this country is being run on GOTO statements, no wonder all the programming jobs are going offshore!

  7. Re:Religion holding us back as usual by SecondHand · · Score: 2, Funny

    Australia, perhaps.

  8. Really? Well Jefferson says otherwise! by Winckle · · Score: 2, Funny

    http://www.godlessgeeks.com/LINKS/Jefferson.jpg
    I knew about that, and i'm British!

  9. Re:Oh, this is going to be good. by hoggoth · · Score: 4, Funny

    > That just opened my email reader and created an empty file called creationism.

    Well, go ahead and close that file. It's already got all the facts and hard science in it that it's going to get.

    --
    - For the complete works of Shakespeare: cat /dev/random (may take some time)
  10. Re:America has a choice.. by Sponge+Bath · · Score: 3, Funny
    ...they invented the zero

    ... and Microsoft patented it.

  11. Re:Fix the delusions by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    So... If Americans are so stupid, why can't you get them on your side?

  12. Is our children learning? by travvy · · Score: 3, Funny

    uhhhh.....no.

  13. Re:America has a choice.. by starling · · Score: 4, Funny

    [...]a shrub appears to intercept the vision to the fertile hills beyond.

    Nostradamus eat your heart out. Looks like Paine was quite the prophet.

  14. Re:America has a choice.. by Pope+Benedict+XVI · · Score: 3, Funny

    Hey! that was the old Christianity. What we're doing now is completely different! Really, it's like night and day. Why, we're, uh, ... , I mean, ... . Well, you really should drop in some time and check us out.

  15. Re:America has a choice.. by Slak · · Score: 2, Funny

    As a typical American, I can neither read nor care aboutt the article ;)

  16. Re:America has a choice.. by drooling-dog · · Score: 2, Funny

    You know that God - even the Republican one - has a sense of humor when it's the conservatives that end up getting us deep in hock to a communist dictatorship to finance our ballooning deficits...

  17. Re: Christians like Newton, Darwin and Galileo. by Draknor · · Score: 2, Funny

    Christianity isn't one monolithic entity.. never has been... there's always been a strong pro-learning streak in [spite of] it

    You left out a few words - it happens to the best of us ;)

  18. Re: America has a choice.. by Black+Parrot · · Score: 4, Funny


    > Not quite. Duffbeer703 may be referring to the "dollar hegemony", a global dynamic put in place in or around the end of WWII, which refers to how countries need stockpiles of US dollars in reserve to buy petroleum in an international market. Therefore, and by a wide margin, the main United States export is dollar bills, of BIG denomination.

    > As of recently, most countries obeyed this unwritten law: Iraq switched to Euros back in 2001, and the interim US government immediately switched back to dollars. Iran recently began valueing a good portion of its' oil reserves in Euros. Same with Venezuela. OPEC in general has been flirting with the Euro as of late.

    I read somewhere, within the past few months, that arms dealers are starting to switch over to the Euro, and the great fear is that drug dealers will follow.

    --
    Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
  19. Re:America has a choice.. by coma_bug · · Score: 2, Funny

    Perhaps you could explain to me the liberal bias inherent in a Greens Function or a multi-body gravitation problem?

    Right there - and you didn't even notice it!

  20. Re:Are you kidding? by mikiN · · Score: 2, Funny

    Wow, there's another Slashdot phenomenon: Factflooding!

    --
    The Hacker's Guide To The Kernel: Don't panic()!