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NASA Public-Affairs Appointee Resigns in Disgrace
belmolis writes "George C. Deutsch, who tried to muzzle top NASA climate scientist James Hansen and ordered NASA web designers to add the word 'theory' to every mention of the Big Bang, has resigned. The New York Times reports
that NASA declines to discuss the reasons for his resignation, but that it came the same day that Texas A&M University, from which Deutsch claimed on his resume to have graduated, revealed that he had attended the university but did not complete his degree."
The New York Times reports it today, but as of yesterday, it was the Times that had unquestioningly passed along the falsehood of Deutsch's graduation, and it was the blog Scientific Activist whose investigation revealed he'd left before graduating to work on the Bush reelection campaign. For more on the 24-year-old political appointee's interesting viewpoints, see World O' Crap; on Monday, we covered the anger over his attempts to squelch science -- something that, sadly, Jim Hansen has gotten used to.
The increasing availability and ease of access of information is making it increasingly difficult to get away with lying.
Good news for the people, bad news for governments.
On a related note, that same increasing availability is starting to render traditional news outlets obselete. No wonder they're so upset.
____
~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
He never would have thought that he would be on the receiving end of a puppeteer's hand.
1. Deutsch is young. True, while at 24, Deutsch is young, that really does not say anything about his ability to be a spokesperson for science policy....if he is capable of representing the science for NASA and not necessarily a political agenda.
2. Deutsch did not graduate college. The fact that he is not a college graduate does not in of itself eliminate him from a spokespersons job. However, the major issue is that he lied about his graduation and because of that lapse in integrity should not be trusted.
3. Scientific integrity. NASA is an organization that should be proud of its scientific accomplishments and should care enough to represent those achievements to the world through the best possible spokespersons possible. Having these positions as appointed posts rather than earned posts or hires based on merit circumvents this process.
4. Motivations. Placing limits on science by appointing sycophantic toadies who are carrying out a politically and/or religiously motivated agenda is becoming a recurring theme in this administration which leads one to suspect potentially other agendas.
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
This could be a win-win situation. NASA has an opening for a job to be filled by a Republican crony. Michael Brown is unemployed. Looks like a natural fit! Give that man a call!
Waltz, nymph, for quick jigs vex Bud.
....is that he could have graduated from college in theory!
The "Theory of the Big Bang" is at the least how it should be described. NASA is a scientific organization. They should not be trying sell ideas but do strict science.
Theories, Models, and Laws are all terms that mean something. It's not just a matter of verbage but a title given to the status of something in the scientific methods. The Big Bang is actually a model according to scientific methods. To call it a theory is a stretch. To have something as a model is not a bad thing it's just a different descriptor for it.
Evolution or ID?
Has the Big Bang been established as scientific fact? Not saying it isn't, just would like some more info.
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
Let this be a perfect example of why cronyism is not a good practice.
Now that this guy is found out to be a fraud, it begs the question as to how many other people are holding positions that they neither deserve nor are qualified to hold?
And how many more qualified individuals were passed over because of cronyism?
The US Government should do a resume audit to find out who actually went to college and worked where they say they did.
But, of course, this will never happen.
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
Let's recap for those at home keeping score.
MIchael Brown, the guy Bush picked to head FEMA, had no experience doing disaster recovery, having been fired from his previous job as commissioner of the International Arabian Horse Assocation. However, Bush appointed him because he was the roommate of the college roommate of Joe Allbaugh, President Bush's 2000 campaign manager and Brown's predecessor at FEMA.
Next, he nominated to the Supreme Court his personal lawyer Harriet Miers who had absolutely no judicial experience. Luckily she didn't get her "up or down" vote due to a Republican backlash (but probably for the wrong reasons).
And now we find that Bush appointed to NASA a 24-year old journalism major who dropped out of college but had all the qualifications of someone who worked on his campaign. And the guy was censoring real scientists!
This problem of Bush cronyism goes much further than just giving plum jobs to to one's friends. These types of appointments are dangerous to our democracy because they can do real damage (as we saw in Brown's case). The fundamental problem is Bush and his ilk value loyalty more than experience or expertise; they value faith more than facts.
Insert simplistic political, ideological, or personal proselytization here.
This guy was able to hold a prominent position in the government? Only a day ago we were discussing how this guy was trying to influence NASA's output for a political end and now we find that the people who put him in the job weren't smart enough to do a background check. If you've ever been in poltics this is Lesson #1. Before you put someone in front of a camera to represent you, you make sure of their job credientials.
It's bad enough that a 24 year old was trying to tell NASA what to do but he never even graduated college. Whoever gave him that job should be fired along with him.
On a more personal note, Serves you right you dozy eejit.
I wonder if Deutsch had a problem with heliocentrism. The idea that the earth goes around the sun is as much a theory as the Big Bang or evolution.
I have been 24 years old. And, at that age, you think you know EVERYTHING. And, I have been involed in politics (when I was about 24 years old, as a matter of fact). Guess what? In politics, when you are on the winning side and you get a political appointee job, you have a huge "ego factor".
A 24-year old political appointee is, almost by definition, a cocky S.O.B. (not to say all 24-year old political appointees are cocky, but there is a high probability). Asking him to "keep his feet calm" is like asking a shark to ignore the chum in the water.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAA!!!!!!
Disgrace and shame is better than folks like this deserve, but it's the best we can realistically hope to see. The appointment of political officers to oversee scientific speech smacks of the bad old days of the Cold War, and I mean the BAD guys.
Unfortunately, this is only one small win for the side of truth, justice, and the American way. We've still got a *long* way to go before honesty and integrity are restored to the government.
It was a joke! When you give me that look it was a joke.
Sorry I missed this the first time this story came out, but the guy who's muzzling scientists at NASA is a 24-year old stooge? Talk about adding insult to injury. The only thing that would have made this more humiliating is if the guy had failed to graduate from Oral Roberts University or Bob Jones University.
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
I generally laugh when an appointee fails. They aren't a good example of the success of representative democracy, and no matter which side is in power, there are people crying foul about whoever is appointed.
They lie? Don't all politicians? They're too white? They're too left? They're too right? They're unqualified? They're qualified but they don't have real life experience? They're cronies?
Let's look at how this works in a free market:
John Johnson hires his son John Johnson, Jr, to help run his company. Nepotism. John I dies. John Jr takes over, and the general history of business shows us the John Jr has never felt pain, so he doesn't work as hard as he should. Business fails. The market solution is to give the person with the best output and lowest price the work. John Jr rarely will be that person.
In the market of government, we don't really have much to control. We can't vote with our dollars OR vote with our ballot. We can't directly affect the actions of the appointee, and some appointees are so powerful it amazes me that the country doesn't cry foul more often (see Ben Bernanke).
Positions of power are better suited to be competitive rather than elected, and better elected rather than appointed. Do you feel better when "your man" is the appointee? Do you forget all the damage that occurs when it isn't "your guy?"
Because some other asshole will be asked to step into his place.
"Misrepresentation" is a pretty harsh word. There's a decent description of the Big Bang on NASA's website at http://map.gsfc.nasa.gov/m_uni/uni_101bb1.html. Do you think this is a misrepresentation?
I can't believe this administration hired some young kid to this position (well, I can but...). Besides the Michael Brown/FEMA disaster, there's this shocking bit (from Al Franken's latest): And then there was Scott Erwin, twenty-one, a former intern for Dick Cheney and Tom DeLay, who didn't need a job because he was still in college. Erwin marveled to the University of Richmond newletter that "in one week I went from chatting on the quad, eating in the Heilman Dining Center and attending ODK [Omicron Delta Kappa] meetings to being briefed in the Pentagon, flying in a C-130 military plane from Kuwait City to Baghdad and living in one of Saddam's many palaces." Erwin soon landed a gig as the top Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) official managing the finances of Iraq's civilian security forces -- fire units, customs, border patrols, and police. What a great job! Almost as much fun as his previous favorite job, which he told the Richmond Times-Dispatch was "my time as an ice cream truck driver." Erwin was one of the six youngsters given control of Iraq's $13 billion budget. ... CPA Inspector General Stuart Bowen concluded that no less than $8.8 billion went unaccounted for ...
No.
Discus is greek for plate, and theke is also greek for table. A discotheque is a table with plates on, in this case the table of the disc jockey. It has indirectly to do with the bibliotheque, the table for books (biblio: greek for book).
however, calling the big bang a theory is actually correct
Yes and no. Yes Big Bang is just a theory, like every single scientific "law" or "fact". There is not absolute truth in science. The problem is not calling Big Bang a theory, the problem is that theory, for the common mortal is nothing more than a "hunch" a "wild idea".
Scientists need to come up with a different term for theory. Or they need to push a major PR campaign explaining what a theory is for science, that a theory for science isn't just a hunch but something that is backed up by empyrical evidence. They have to stop giving fundamentalists a way to attack science by calling everything that goes through the scientific method "just a theory".
Deutsch called Big Bang a theory to imply it's not good science and that there is a good alternative in God/Creation. He clearly aimed to discredit the scientific work done on Big Bang to advance his radical and/or fundamentalist and/or religious view.
Only days ago Bush praised George Deutsch for his work at NASA, "Deutschy your doing a heck of a job!"
I guess he should have added the word theory after Texas A&M everywhere on his resume.
JWall: GUI client for IPTables
Let's start with the President! *ducks*
You better watch out, there may be dogs about . .
Sweet! There is a god.
> The Big Bang is actually a model according to scientific methods. To call it a theory is a stretch. To have something as a model is not a bad thing it's just a different descriptor for it.
A theory is a model.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
I work in the Exploration Systems dept. at NASA.
/.ers belive anything they hear.
---Oh really? What do you do exactly?
So I am really getting a kick out of most of these replies.
---That's cool because I wouldn't want this to distract you from your work.
Some of you guys are very good at making it sound like you know what you are talking about.
----Welcome to Slashdot!!
But trust me.... You don't.
----Oh really? Is this some kind of Jedi mind trick?
I think you just want to make yourself sound smart, when in reality you dont know what you are talking about.
-----Well, reality is a subjective thing these days, but sounding smart is an art form.
This is how bad info gets passed around.
---As we all know that everybody reads Slashdot as fact - and there is no room for dissent!
If you dont know about the topic....Dont make yourself sound like you do.
----Well, it would be nice if you could give us an example here because it sounds like you are doing the same.
Cuz some
---Sad, isn't it? But those people aren't the ones we are worried about, just the guys who resign in disgrace for making us try to believe lies that we hear from them.
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
Theory - 1. A set of statements or principles devised to explain a group of facts or phenomena, especially one that has been repeatedly tested or is widely accepted and can be used to make predictions about natural phenomena.
Hypothesis - 1. A tentative explanation for an observation, phenomenon, or scientific problem that can be tested by further investigation.
There is a definition of "theory" that means what they think it means but that's not the same definition that science uses.
0x09F911029D74E35BD84156C5635688C0
It implies a source of the bang that makes Creationists salivate.
How so? By admitting that we don't understand how it came about and what caused it? For someone to think that this supports creationism, there are two issues. Firstly, this is a "God of the Gaps" argument. This is just a statement about their disbelief that science will ever provide explanations for everything so they fall back to their default position, "God did it" which still explains or proves nothing. Secondly, "what occured before the Big Bang" cannot be answered with the creationist position of "God did" as the immediate response is "what occured before God?". The creationist might say that God has always been present which is no more or less valid that saying that the Big Bang has always been present (Big Bang --> Big Crunch --> Big Bang .... etc) so neither position has been shown to be any more valid.
So to say that the Big Bang is no longer popular with the evolutionist debate crowd, you must be referering to the sophists who debate for fun as opposed to scientists/evolutionists who still very much believe in the Big Bang.
Uh, last time I checked, the Big Bang IS just a theory, just as black holes are. They may be credible theories, theories with a lot of evidence, but are still just theories. There is nothing wrong with not proclaiming a theory to be fact.
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
Deutsch is only a minor (and obvious) part of a larger problem with the NASA public-affairs branch.
But he represents a more fundamental problem: the way we govern our country is broken. Given that, it's not surprising that the government is dysfunctional in the realm of space science. It's dsyfunctional period.
Look, the guy's 24 years old and he gets a political appointment? Now prove to me this country isn't being run by an aristocracy. It used to be connected people got their kids internships, or made congressional pages. They didn't get them policy level poliltical appointments.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
I invite them to test the theory of gravitational attraction by jumping off the top of a very tall building. After all, if they had faith the size of a mustard seed, they'd be able to land safely, right?
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
Here's a notable excerpt:
And he's ranked 7 out of 15 for hacktitude.
Given this Administration's behavior and appointees of late... Well, any theory that President Bush really wants the US to lead in science and global competitiveness is just that: a theory. And one that has absolutely no evidence supporting it (and which seems to be pretty well falsified at this point, actually). On the other hand, it's comforting to remember that the judge who ruled against ID in the Dover, PA case was a Republican and a Bush appointee. So perhaps all is not lost.
"A statesman is a dead politician. Lord knows we need more statesmen." Opus
Not that it really excuses lying, but you're absolutely right. The underlying problem is the belief that a college degree is some sort of basic requirement for having the ability to do a job. Much to the chagrin of many people paying off huge student loans, it's simply not!
The Slashdot story yesterday about new govt. hiring guidelines going into effect will just make the problem even worse. If resumes are expected to contain every single requirement listed in a "want ad" - guess what? Most of them will end up doing so, whether or not the candidates really know those specific things.
I think in the specific cases cited here, it's mostly a matter of our president appointing these people to their positions because he already knows them and thinks they're in line with his agenda. (Heck, who's to say he didn't talk with them behind closed doors, informing them that "a college degree is, ahem, required, before I can give you this position - so you might want to, uh, put something down just for the sake of completeness...."?)
But you're quite right. There's a lot of discrimination out there towards folks who chose alternate paths to "get out of high-school, jump into college". It seems sometimes, the only ones who manage to overcome it are the ones who build their own big businesses -- and then, all of a sudden, the college-degreed world is very interested in what they have to say. (EG. Bill Gates)
The person that is responsible for appointing that underqualified-chucklhead needs to resign or be fired too.
This event is a disgrace to the entire scientific community in the United States.
You know -- at an agency like NASA which presumably has a large number of career scientists who have spent decades in their field (some of whom have spent over a decade on a single project like Stardust) -- a 24-year old, politically appointed, non-college graduate who tries to put Bush's political spin on science doesn't deserve anything better than kid. And, in fact, probably deserves worse.
A grossly underqualified person with no real world experience telling people many years his senior and way more qualified they need to call the Big Bang a theory (and whatever else he did) doesn't deserve anything but contempt and scorn.
Compared to what can only be called 'elder statesmen' of science, this guy is a kid. In this sense, 'kid' is used in the diminutive to refer to someone who is new to a field and doesn't have a lot of experience.
Heck, rookie quarterbacks get referred to as 'kid', even if they're in their early 20's.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
> I suspect, in fact, that even the intelligent design crowd would want to disown this clown. Their best hope of avoiding widespread recognition that they're creationists under a false flag is to pretend that it's all about biology.
They've pretty much given up the pretense since the Dover trial. At talk.origins they've been posting links to editorial after editorial where some ID supporter falls down and claims the ruling was religious persecution, or that the Establishment Clause shouldn't prevent public schools from teaching religious beliefs an a par with science, or that the Constitution is just a piece of paper, or anything at all - other than an attempt to shore up their position with facts.
> It's a scientific quarrel with Darwin. It's about evolution being inadequate. Once the intelligent design flag is raised over cosmology too, it becomes very clear what the name of the intelligent designer is supposed to be.
As if it wasn't already clear.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Hey, the NYTimes gets credit for publishing their story of Bush's domesting spying operation, even though they did so only to preempt the story in the reporter's book about to be published. James Risen, the reporter, had seen his story suppressed by the Times for over a year when his book finally forced the Times to publish its version, allowing the Times to control the "framing" of the explosive issue. A year that included the 2004 presidential campaign season, while the Times therefore skipped its responsibility to inform the public about the president who would be reelected by a slim margin.
But then, the Times allowed its frontpage cheerleader for the Iraq "WMD" War, Judith Miller, to avoid the August 2004 Federal subpoenas into her role outing Valerie Plame, the CIA/WMD agent debunking the Iraq WMD lies sending us to war. Her trial likely would have meant another few points less for Bush in November 2004.
After these yearlong delays escorting Bush through the 2004 election, their final revelations are met with Bush's highest disapproval ratings, now in the 40% approval / 55% disapproval range. A range which itself has been escorted by the Times managing the news for minimum damage to Bush.
With the Times telling the story, why shouldn't the newspaper look even better than Bush does?
--
make install -not war
This theocratic/ideological intervention into science by policy wanks and political hacks has some pretty serious consequences. As an active scientist I see science losing an important cultural war in the US. Yes WE all know the ideosyncratic difference between a "law" and a "theory" but to a vast majority of the public the gap between these 2 ideas seems huge. So in important debates like ID vs. evolution, the side of science and reason gets muddled because of minor differences in the connotation of the word "theory"
I know all of us cringed at the idea of studying linguistics and rhetoric, but they are important tools to have in order to have others understand your position. We need to change our lexicon if we are going to win this argument.
Well, someone deserves to bear the consequences for the dishonesty, that much is true.
But since he didn't interview for the position, it's not like he lied on his resume to get the job -- the job was handed to him.
The cynical bastard in me says that someone lied about his resume and qualifications, but that it is equally likely that the people who gave him the job may have coached him to pad his resume so that if anyone ever asked, he would appear to have more qualifications.
Do you really think that the people appointing him to the friggin' position didn't know he was unqualified? Do you suspect they cared?
I wouldn't be surprised if some senior staffers have been padding a whole bunch of appointees resumes so it sounds like qualified candidates are being appointed to the post. Lets face it, you get a politically appointed job because someone important likes you and either owes you a favour or wants to stack the deck for themselves.
Simply crying foul at the one who's resume was padded might leave out a lot of people who are otherwise culpable. Me, I think Bush should take personal responsibility for every underqualified flunky he's put into jobs.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
During the runup to the '04 elections, I checked out the websites of all the Democratic presidential hopefuls. Kerry and Edwards were the ones who immediately turned me off because they sounded just like any other goddamned politician telling people what they wanted to hear, and they spoke in that English dialect peculiar to politicians and marketdroids. On the strength of what their sites said, I favored Dean and wossname, that just-retired Army general. Kucinich was also good, but too out there to be electable.
And yet, K & E got the best ratings in the primaries. This tells me that either 1) The Democrats who vote in primaries are clueless, or 2) Enough Republicans turned out to vote for what they knew were the least-palatable Democratic candidates.
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
Are you kidding? If we start pointing out that 24-year-olds aren't kids any more, we may have to realise that being a drunk and a drug addict until you are forty may not qualify as a "youthful indiscretion".
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
The big bang is a theory but not for the reasons the PR guy mentions. There are a few problems coming to light with the big bang theory that scientists are running into such as galactic clumping and the early moments of the big bang. Also what they are seeing at the far ends of the universe are not what they expected with a big bang theory. Until they figure out the unified field theory...see the word theory in there, they will not have an answer for the big bang theory. It may turn out to be a snapped cosmic string theory.
Oh, PLEASE.
r ts-fear/
/ 976
n ews_lz1e21benford.html
Michael Crichton is out to make money. He gets money for giving his "daring" speech on the rubber chicken circuit. He gets money on sales of his latest shlock thriller, which has evil grant-hungry climate scientists running weather control machines to terrorize the populace.
Here is what actual climate scientists have to say about the claims in his novel:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=74
At CISCOP, Chris Mooney reviews State of Fear:
http://www.csicop.org/doubtandabout/crichton/
A look at the politics behind Crichton's crusade:
http://www.grist.org/advice/books/2005/02/01/robe
Who are your going trust, Crichton or scientists?
http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2005/1/20/234126
OK. Maybe you can't trust scientists. How about the opinions of another author? Here is what Gregory Benford has to say:
http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20050121/
I demand that my alternative theory of gravity be taught in physics and science classes across the nation as an alternative to the currently accepted "law" of gravity, which, after all, is only a theory.
...). In the case somebody actually does observe it, he or she will most likely think they were hallucinating, because we are all brainwashed by the so called "law" of gravity, which, in fact, is only a theory. Even if they actually pay attention to it, nobody will believe them that they saw something fall up, and if they insist, they are most likely going to end up in a mental institution. That explains why there seems to be no experimental evidence of things falling up. But we all know from our experience that things sometimes just simply mysteriously disappear!
Here is a brief description of my theory of gravity, which explains some observable phenomena much better than the commonly accepted "law".
First you have to understand that it is not true that things always fall down. What is actually happening is that things fall both down and up, with equal probability. Therefore the sequence of all "falls" in the history of the universe is a random sequence of "ups" and "downs". As every truly random sequence, it contains long strings where frequency of "downs" is much higher than frequency of "ups". We happen to live during one such string, so it appears to us as if things were always falling down. In fact, things still sometimes fall up, however, with very high probability it happens somewhere where nobody can observe it (ocean, deserts, mountains,
My theory of gravity explains many unexplained mysteries. Let's look for example at the extinction of dinosaurs. The explanation is very simple: they fell up!
You see, what happens when an animal started to fall up? It tries to saves itself from flying off into the space, or course, so it grabs onto something, like a tree or a bush or a rock. When the animal is a small mammal or an insect, it will hold on, crawl back to the earth, and survive. But when a giant dinosaur grabs onto a tree, both the dinosaur and the tree will end up in the cold emptiness of space. That also explains why we cannot find any large deposits of dinosaur skeletons from the extinction period. There are not any, most of the skeletons are up there somewhere, floating towards Aplha Centauri.
As you can see, my theory of gravity is at least as good, if not better, as the commonly accepted "law" (which is really just a theory), and I demand that it is included into the science curriculum at our schools.
AccountKiller
Not only does he get a political appointment, but why the fuck is a PR post for NASA a Political Appointment?!
The system of appointments-as-payoffs is broken beyond belief.
-EvilMagnus
To be fair to the Republicans, this process started under Gore's "National Perofrmance Review" initiative, the point of which was to reduce bureaucracy. Which it did. But at the same time the role of political appointees was expanded.
Of course nobody is holding a gun to the Republicans' heads to continue this trend, much less to encourage it.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
What about all of us Ag majors???
I mean a poultry science degree from Texas A&M has worked for me.
My sigs offend the max # of people all over the world, regardless of race, religion, color, sex or creed. It's a gift.
Um, I am Catholic and no not pay money for forgiveness, that has been free at least since Vatican II, maybe even before that.
Yes we have physical representations of religious figures, artwork and such, but no Catholic I know believes a statue of Mary has some sort of power, any reverence expressed towards an "idol" - as you call it - is not directed towards the physical item...simply a means of outward expression of one's feeling of devotion, faith, respect, etc. Many people simply consider this kind of expression a beautiful action, not worshipping a statue.
Mary is definately not God and no Catholic claims her to be otherwise. However some people find personal strength in reflecting on Mary or the saints, angels, and the like...they say "well Mary helped me through this" or "St Francis helped me through that" or "My guardian angel protected me from those other things" what really happens is that they have found strength and guidance in their reflection on these people, through prayer or otherwise. Prayer is not always a worship thing but can be more of a meditation on the subject or content of the prayer as usually one can clear their mind and focus on the content and meaning of the prayer. People call it "praying to some saint or for some thing" but when you get down to it I don't really think people understand what is really happening when they do...but that is ok because I think God understands that even if these people think and say they pray "to" a saint, etc that they really are not doing that.
About marriage and priests/nuns, the bible does say something about that: (from 1 Corinthians 7):
"An unmarried man is concerned about the Lord's affairs--how he can please the Lord. But a married man is concerned about the affairs of this world--how he can please his wife-- and his interests are divided. An unmarried woman or virgin is concerned about the Lord's affairs: Her aim is to be devoted to the Lord in both body and spirit. But a married woman is concerned about the affairs of this world--how she can please her husband. I am saying this for your own good, not to restrict you, but that you may live in a right way in undivided devotion to the Lord. "
I think the official Catholic translation uses God instead of Lord, but the quote is pretty much the same - this is one of the ideas behind the reason for unmarried priests/nuns. The Catholic church does follow what the Bible says, the issue is how different denominations of Christianity interpret what the Bible actually means.
If a priest or nun is having issues maintaining their celibacy, or even worse - finding a very improper outlet in parish children, then they should find help or leave/be ejected from religious line of work. There is nothing wrong with the concept of unmarried priests/nuns, however most Catholics do agree that what is going on with priests now is not a good thing and would like to see a more heavy handed response....so do not make so many assumptions about what mainstream Catholics believe, cause just like anything, the extremists and fundies in any walk of life will always make the most noise and draw the most attention and appear to be the majority when in fact they are not, and most priests do not represent what people outside the Catholic faith perceieve them to represent. You know the Pope supports Evolution? Maybe not in the Godless, secular view that an atheist would take, but he does take a pro-evolution position. My personal view is that the Bible and science are both correct concerning how everything was created. They do not conflict with each other. And you know what? No one I know understands how I came to that conclusion even when I explain it to them.
I have two points:
- continue-to-get-funding"). Anyone who doesn't believe that politics plays a role in what research gets funded and continuance of that funding is naive. I'm not only talking about the politics of the current administration, but departmental politics, university politics, professional organisation politics, review journal politics, agency politics, popular press politics, etc. Inherent with the politicalisation of scientific research is the suppression/minimization of the results of that research if it doesn't agree with the current mood. Suppression can also occur, especially in government agencies, as a result of turf battles. This leads me to my second point.
First, politicalisation of science has been going on since the dawn of time. No, it's not right, but it happens and will continue to happen. Too often research has not been guided by the scientific method but rather by the WBCTTCIWWTCTGF method ("we-better-come-to-this-conclusion-if-we-wish-to
In NASA's case, the problem is with the NASA PAO (Public Affairs Office). They wield an incredible amount of power over all NASA employees and contractors, including astronauts and tend to get a bit incensed when you invade their turf (that is, communicating with the public). Keith Cowing (editor of NASAWATCH) gave some excellent testimony back in 1998 to Congress about the state of affairs at NASA PAO:
" Problem: Xenophobia at NASA Public Affairs: NASA's Public Affairs Office (PAO) is at fault by virtue of having become the de facto Propaganda Announcement Office with the singular role of preventing the release of damaging information. When bad news does get out, NASA PAO seeks to put the best possible spin on it. For information released voluntarily, NASA is often its worst enemy. I have seen far too many examples of amazing and exciting things NASA does "dumbed-down" for public dissemination. Instead of going out of its way to make the agency open to public scrutiny, NASA PAO seeks to keep the public out.
NASA PAO seems to have a mission focused only on purveying happy, positive thoughts. If you visit their Space Station or Space Shuttle websites, you'll see that they post reader comments. Have you ever seen a comment in anyway critical of NASA? No - nor will you. When NASA put together its 40th Anniversary exhibits of pivotal events in NASA's history, was there any mention of the Apollo 1 or Challenger accidents? No. NASA has become so xenophobic that it is incapable of admitting, much less dealing with any external criticism. Look at the way they craft their congressional testimony and you will get a regular reminder that they just can't admit that they are at fault.
NASA's greatest asset is its employees, civil service and contractor alike. Yet from the way NASA PAO overtly prevents them from acting as ambassadors to the outside world you'd think they were guilty of some crime. Indeed, recent surveys done by NASA itself show that an overwhelming portion of NASA employees do not feel that they can speak out freely with out fear of retribution.
When NASA contractor employees speak out, the fate is far worse. When Jim Oberg, Ken Hollis, and Tom Hancock (a.k.a. "BitFlip") exercised their constitutional right to free speech, and discussed NASA without PAO permission, they soon found their jobs in jeopardy such that they had to leave their jobs. These individuals spoke of nothing proprietary and often spoke and wrote things that made NASA look good.
Any organization, which is so eager to silence, those who do not agree with official agency dogma is an organization with a serious case of insecurity - one which is not in keeping with the best interests of its employees, its mission, or the taxpayers it is supposed to serve."
Amen to that