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NASA Science Under Attack
The Bad Astronomer writes "The New York Times is reporting that NASA science is being harassed and even sometimes suppressed by presidential political appointees. The article details how NASA scientists dealing with such topics as global warming and the Big Bang are under attack for ideological and religious reasons." The submitter also has a running commentary summarizing a bit of the background of the story on his blog.
Fucktard, NASA is a Government Agency and therefore MUST be politically savvy, it's life depends on it. The last 20 yrs NASA has had to fight for every budget dollar. Anything they do that presents themselves in the right political light to the White House AND Congress by using timing, wording,etc. they MUST do. I have worked for NASA during the admins of Bush Sr, Clinton and GWB and it has NOT changed a bit in how it seeks to spin science to it's political advantage and using the Public Affairs office to work the system. This is because the average Joe of the USA does not think NASA is important nor does it realize how much it costs to do science. They love the "coolnesss" factor but don't want to pay for it, they'd rather have something else. And that is the way our system of Government works. As for wording something like the Big Bang or Global Warming as a Theory, GOOD scientists shouldn't object because they ARE Theories, neither one has been proven beyond doubt. Slowing down the release of papers isn't always bad, and isn't always politics. Having worked for NASA I saw things published that were poorly done, were common knowledge,or had flat been copied from other research. As a taxpayer I object to that, and a stronger review system that keeps the science GOOD and the political slant of the scientists out of the paper is also good. I will also say there are a lot of dissenting voices inside NASA who like to make trouble for whoever is the new administrator, they often get fed some project they wanted so they will shut up, they can't be fired they have too much time in the system. I suspect these guys the NYT found are that type, they just didn't get thir pet project this time. The new adiministrator who came from Industry, is a well respected engineer, does not take with scientists BS, and has strong opinions is going to piss off some people. O'Keefe took great care NOT to piss off people but he also never had much vision and IMHO NASA floundered a bit under his leadership. NASA is very very political, and going public is not going to help these folks careers, just as if you spoke out against your boss and company to the NYT.
NASA's science is building rockets (aka "Rocket Science"), which they haven't done for almost 30 years. You might as well listen to the personal opinions of actors on politics, politicians on history, or poets on mathematics as the bureaucrats at NASA on such religious issues.
So your definition of "scientist" is "someone in a white lab coat with a clipboard that votes Democrat"?
If someone in a lab coat with a clipboard votes Republican, then he's obviously not a real scientist, and therefore not objective; because only *real* scientists can be objective.
There's a flaw in your argument somewhere, but though I have the objectivity to see it, I don't have a lab coat and clip board, so I can't be trusted.
James Hansen is the man getting headline news for his claims that Bush is supressing scientific data. This is the same James Hansen that attacked President Bush with a speech one week prior to the presidential elections in the key state of Iowa. Besides taking the unusal step of making a climate policy speech under the employment of the Federal Government right before the election he also recieved $250,000 from the Heinz Foundation, run by Mrs. Kerry. He claimed he was speaking as a private citizen because he paid his own way to the event. Apparently the 250k didn't count.
But of course, that's a straw man if what he says is true. Mr. Hansen said this in 2003's Natural Science Journal http://www.naturalscience.com/ns/articles/01-16/ns _jeh.html
Emphasis on extreme scenarios may have appropriate at one time, when the public and decision-makers were relatively unaware of the global warming issue. Now, however, the need is for demonstrably objective climate...scenarios consistent with what is realistic under current conditions.
That seems reasonable except he implies it's ok to exagerrate one's findings when the percieved awareness of policy makers is lacking. This fits in with Mr. Hansen's predictions on Global warming when he initially predicted higher warming trends and has revised those predictions to lower increases recently (at the low end of IPCC model).
In summary, I'd take the "Father of Global Warming" a lot more seriously if he weren't so political himself. They say that passion is poison to science but it seems like the only people that get paid attention to are those that pour passion in to their results.