Group Fights Politicizing Science and Engineering

smooth wombat writes, "Several prominent scientists said yesterday that they had formed an organization dedicated to electing politicians 'who respect evidence and understand the importance of using scientific and engineering advice in making public policy.' The group will be a 527 organization and will focus its efforts on races in which science plays a part." From the article: "In what it described as a Bill of Rights for scientists and engineers, the group said that researchers who receive federal funds should be free to discuss their work publicly, and that appointments to federal scientific advisory committees should be based on scientific qualifications, not political beliefs. It said the government should not support science education programs that 'include concepts that are derived from ideology,' an apparent reference to creationism and its ideological cousin, intelligent design."

Comments

Re:The Sad Fact of the Matter

[Mateo_LeFou]

"Just admit it, Democrats are less founded in conservative Christian belief and therefore are more prone to rely on science for decisions/explanations" I'm no republican, but I can't accept this. It's probably true that Christianity is not going to be the non-scientific thing that Democrats base their decisions on, but that doesn't mean they're any more scientific than the pubs. Consider -I see dems using class & race resentment to rile people up as often as the pubs use 'faith & morals' -Conservative fiscal policy -- generally speaking -- has some economic basis, while social-program expansion is generally based on sob stories. I don't think the idea that one party is more scientific in their approach is *at *all tenable.

Re:Not really...

[__aaclcg7560]

The sad reality is that moderates are now the new silent majority.

Re:The Sad Fact of the Matter

[Red Flayer]

The sad fact of the current political state of the United States is simply that politicians are relying on voters to vote based on emotion, not logic.

I think you're close, but not quite there. The political machines in the US are convincing voters to vote based on wedge issues -- often issues that will not be resolved whomever is elected (as you point out with abortion), or with issues of minor significance.

Just admit it, Democrats are less founded in conservative Christian belief and therefore are more prone to rely on science for decisions/explanations.

You're confusing the issues here, and generalizing far too much. Republicans are not founded in conservative Christian belief -- it just so happened that the fundamentalist Christian bloc has been able to dominate the politics of the Republican Party. Also, conservative Christian != fundamentalist Christian (which is why I used the different term). Fundies want to change the law to reflect their beliefs -- by definition, conservatives are more interested in preserving the status quo. There is some overlap, of course.

The politicians are supposed to represent the people and, since most people aren't experts using science and engineering, they shouldn't make decisions based on this.

The US is not a direct democracy -- it was not intended to be one, and our elective system represents that. We, the people, are responsible for electing those we trust to lead us, to make good decisions on our behalf, and to represent our interests -- which is not the same as reflecting our will on specific issues. Never will 100% of the population be educated enough on any single issue that the government should do exactly as a majority of the people want. I vote for the person who I think will make the best-reasoned, best-educated decisions based on shared values. Of course, I have limited choice, but that's a rant for a different thread.

At any rate, I find this new 527 to be right up my alley, and I'll have to take a look at them when I decide what PACs my money is going to next year.

Re:The Sad Fact of the Matter

[DerekLyons]

Just admit it, Democrats are less founded in conservative Christian belief and therefore are more prone to rely on science for decisions/explanations.

Hardly. Many on the Democratic side of the aisle are firmly founded in liberal and/or greenie belief - two beliefs hardly more conducive to science than Christian beliefs. (That is, if you want to base your ideas mostly on biases and stereotypes.)

Check the Title

[greysky]

"Group Fights Politicizing Science and Engineering"

Isn't what they are doing exactly what the title says they are fighting against? Don't get me wrong, I'm for what they are doing, but shouldn't the title read more like "Group Fights Ignorance/Misuse of Science and Engineering in Politics"?

There's one born every minute...

[Scrameustache]

...and 18 years later he gets a vote.

Rove understood this and whatever you say about the man, if he fools you once and fools you twice and keeps on fooling you, it's not his fault.

I blame God. God made people dumb AND he forbid them from eating the fruit of knowledge. It's not the devil's fault, he's just as god made him.

Theological notions aside, once you know about the depressing truths of human nature, it would be in everyone's best interest to shape their government in such a way that reason weighs more than emotions in the policy-making process.
Like, with laws.

It sure beats the back and forth.

Re:Wolves

[koreth]

Most Republicans are living in the real world, where there is a shooting war on.

Which they're doing their level best to lose in the most spectacular way possible.

Most Democrats are living in a fantasy world where they are more likely to believe Bushitler blew up the WTC than to believe UBL not only did it, but that it wasn't his first successful attack.

Ah! That explains why so many Democrats were in favor of going into Afghanistan. (Check the congressional vote record if you don't believe me.)

I could just as easily say most Republicans are living in a fantasy world where history isn't what actually happened, it's what should have happened such that the present authorities are cast in the most flattering possible light, all problems are automatically the other side's fault, all mistakes the result of meddling by the opposition.

Iraq isn't about weapons of mass destruction! Where did you get a silly idea like that? It's about spreading democracy, just like we told you from the beginning. The insurgency is in its last throes -- mission accomplished!

9/11 was all Clinton's fault, because, um, well, Lewinsky, PRESIDENT HAVING SEX, bad! Except that it was actually Saddam Hussein's fault, because he had strong ties to Al-Qaida, well, okay, not strong ties exactly, but he talked to them, well okay, he didn't talk to them exactly, but he knew about them, well okay, he kind of hated their guts more than we did, but dammit, he was breeding terrorists. We can't have Saddam breeding terrorists over there, not when we can take over and, according to our own intelligence analysts, do a much better job of breeding even more terrorists.

And if you have a problem with that, we might have a guy listening in to your phone conversations. You know, to help safeguard your freedom and privacy from those terrorists who hate freedom. (Or we might not, no way you can find out, because we won't even allow you to sue over it.)

What I want to know is, where are all the ultra right-wingers who were threatening bloody revolution in the event of all the anti-civil-liberty crap that's happening before our eyes? Was there a footnote in that threat I missed, "Offer only valid if a Democrat is in office?"

Re:The Sad Fact of the Matter

[jotok]

Sorry, you have to choose whether it's ok to legislate morality. I'd prefer to avoid it myself, but unfortunately I guess that's just another set of morals, right?

I think that technically the Congress can do little else besides legislate morality. Every law that they put into effect is theoretically a approximation of some kind of objective and universal moral law. If not, then there's nothing to complain about except when "your side" doesn't get to make the laws. If so, then we can debate the laws and whether or not they should exist.

This is what the Framers did, and then came up with a pretty good document, the goal of which was to limit the government for the purpose of providing the most possible freedom to the people, and in many cases it's clear that some new laws violate this document and therefore are probably immoral. However much the Left wants to debate this, though, I think that it is the reliance on relativism ("Living Document" liberals) that has hamstrung their efforts as they tries to fight the changes being put into practice by the current administration.

Just my $0.02.