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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!
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.
From now on, we should only speak of the 'Christianity theory' and the 'Islamic theory', as neither is scientifically proven. For some reason however, I have the feeling that the 'theory' zealots won't like this...
If an experiment works, something has gone wrong.
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.
Look up "cosmic microwave background" on google.
That's probably a good place to start learning about the current state of cosmology. It usually takes more than a decade of dedicated learning to master the topic, so take your time.
I'm not an astrophysicist (I can't even spell it!) and I'm not even an interested amateur, but the blog linked from the previous covererage of this story said that the Big Bang model has been extensively proven out by observation, and while the origin of the bang itself is unknown, what happened during and immediately after the Bang is considered extremely solid and proven.
Read up on the scientific method, look up the word "fact" in a dictionary and rephrase your question.
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.
There's a lot of compelling evidence for some sort of Big Bang. The universe is clearly expanding: further galaxies show a distinct "red shift", a change in the light coming from that can be measured and shows how fast away they're going. Their distance is estimated by looking for bright, measurably bright objects like nova or supernova and extrapolating their distance from the brightness.
The further away they are, the faster they seem to be going. That hints at some sort of event, roughly 10 billion years ago, that forced them all away and in fact created these objects. That's coupled with a background microwave radiation we'd expect from a universe at about 3 degrees Kelvin, as if the matter that spread out has cooled down to about that average temperature.
Other theories, such as the "Cyclic" theory assume that the universe keeps exploding and contracting, but it's hard to detect enough matter in the universe to allow it to re-contract from gravitation. Or the "Steady-State" theory assumes that the matter, the universe itself somehow keeps regenerating itself over time: some weird quantum ideas describe universes where matter forms from vacuum, but those theories don't predict the actual measurements very well.
So there are 3 common theories: the Big Bang explains the existing evidence well, but leaves people wondering "what happened before" and "what will happen later". Like gravity or light, the basic facts seem well explained, but there are weird details that do require more work to really understand.
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.
Really? When I studied for my degree in physics the Big Bang was certainly described as a theory. I'd understand a "model" to be something you construct around a "theory" - the two are not really alternatives.
That said, the problem here is not the description of the Big Bang as a theory (clearly correct) but that the word is used in a deliberate attempt to mislead the public by confusing the colloquial meaning of "theory" (i.e. not much more than a guess) with the scientific meaning of "theory". I'm betting that this guy didn't insist on NASA desribing rocketry as a "theory".
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?"
"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 ...
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 . .
It's not the word "theory" you're looking for.
Every time a Christian, Muslim or Jew speaks of anything to do with their religion, they must use the phrase "ancient tribal myth" in the same sentence.
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
Any scientist will tell you that of course it's a theory.
The fact here is that some snotnose bush brat is telling scientist that they must explicitly state the obvious as part of a plan to diminish the value of science on impressionable young minds. If something logical and rational were presented factually, the flock might wander. So "theories" are for science, and facts are for the bible!
"Penguins ain't natural, they was chemically man-made like The Incredible Hulk."
"Anthony, how do you know this about the penguins?"
"It's in the Bible."
"It ain't in the Bible."
"It's in the Bible wit' Noah! Noah didn't take no penguins wit' 'em on the ark, so therefore penguins ain't natural. Read your Bible. There's no mention of penguins whatsoever."
"Okay."
-- The State
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
The further away they are, the faster they seem to be going. That hints at some sort of event, roughly 10 billion years ago, that forced them all away and in fact created these objects. That's coupled with a background microwave radiation we'd expect from a universe at about 3 degrees Kelvin, as if the matter that spread out has cooled down to about that average temperature.
You missed one thing. The rate at which they are traveling seems to be accelerating as well.
Fly me to the moon Let me sing among those stars Let me see what spring is like On jupiter and mars
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.
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
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.
There is nothing wrong with not proclaiming a theory to be fact.
He wasn't asking the web copy be changed from "Big Bang fact" to "Big Bang theory".
The Big Bang is a scientific theory, and it is valid to call it such. But to tack the word "theory" onto EVERY SINGLE MENTION of the term is not a clarification; it is a linguistic exercise designed to create uncertainty and doubt.
Oh, PLEASE.
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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/