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Science and Technology Medals Awarded
An anonymous reader writes "The Boston Globe is reporting that President Bush awarded science and technology achievement medals today to 15 laureates. The list of medal winners includes those who have done work that has 'revolutionized organ transplants, led to development of global positioning systems, and helped feed millions around the world.' "
And since he's so up on the "spirit of discovery" being a part of American culture, he surely wouldn't cut funds for schools...
To fight the war on terror, stop being afraid.
Damn you, inconveniently timed State of the Union address! DAMN YOU!
Ah, well, no matter. I shall simply toil in obscurity a little while longer -- and then when the day comes, let the planet tremble at my name! You laughed at me! You called me mad! I'll show you! I'LL SHOW YOU ALL!
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
Seems that they're REALLY filtering the science news for the masses these days...
An old-timer with old-timey ideas.
He handed a medal to Kenneth J. Arrow, Nobel prize winner for "general economic equilibrium theory and welfare theory", and to Robert N. Clayton for his chemical analyses describing solar system evolution. Economic equilibrium, welfare and evolution - none of which Bush seems interested in the rest of the year.
Maybe he thinks he's at the Olympics, and these medalists need his help to get corporate sponsors for some advertising dollars to, you know, kind of catapult the propaganda.
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make install -not war
Before he awards any Science awards he should fire all the ignorant political appointees he placed to oversee real scientists. He should fire anybody who is as incompetent and unqualified as "You are doing a heck of a job Brownie."
No prize money, just the medal. This is a U.S. government thing. There's no way any significant prize would be approved by Congress. http://www.technology.gov/medal/
I'd like to know more about the science. I don't really if an individual poster likes or dislikes Bush.
From TFA: "--Robert N. Clayton, The University of Chicago, for his contributions to geochemistry and cosmochemistry that provided insight into the evolution of the solar system."
Blasphemy! God created the heavens in six days, it was intelligently designed (TM) from the start! Blasphemy!
Those awards are an asset to the researchers' CV. And that is what they need when they apply for a grant (real money).
... the 2004 medals of science. Why do the 2004 medals get announced by the President in November 2005, and presented in 2006? Is this a tradition, or a reflection of current priorities...?
This is...
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And the math department's decent, surprisingly. Good in geometry; for instance, Stony Brook is responsible for FIST (Fast Industrial Strength Triangulation), which was commissioned by Sun for the standard Java library. (Triangulation is basically separating a polygon into a set of triangles.)
In case you were wondering, here's Dr. Sullivan's website: http://www.math.sunysb.edu/~dennis/
It's not that bad. Think of it this way:
If a Democrat had presented the awards, it would just have gone to show that Democrats are all elitist university-educated intellectuals who think they know better than the rest of us. So their career in politics would be over.
If a non-neocon Republican had presented the awards, they would have had to resign to spend more time with their families like all of the other non-neocons. So their career in politics would be over too.
If a political independent had presented the awards, nobody would care and the ability of the scientists to get adequate funding would be as low as ever. And the political independent's career in politics would already be over, by definition.
But because Bush presented the awards, there are more than the normal amount of headlines due to the irony of the awards being presented by an anti-science imbecile--and that's actually good for the scientists' ability to get adequate funding. And Bush's career in politics might be over due to the sweet merciful relief of the 22nd Amendment, should the Constitution still be around for two more years.
So, you know, look at the bright side.
Am I the only one who finds it odd that there are no climatologists on the list? There has been a lot of research in the area lately, with many significant results. Or perhaps that's the problem...
I hope these medals were presented on the basis of some sort of reasonable criteria. Hopefully these awards will be what the Nobel prizes used to be before they became a political joke.
no pioneers in intelligent design?
sulli
RTFJ.
Norman E. Borlaug is my hero, and he should be yours, too.
There was a great episode of Penn & Teller: Bullshit! that covered Dr. Borlaug's work. I highly recommend it for a watch, if you have the chance.
From Wikiquote, a quote by Penn Jillette about Norman Borlaug:
I currently have no clever signature witicism to add here.