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

The Sad Fact of the Matter

[eldavojohn]

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.

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.

This group is asking politicians to make decisions based on logic and scientific evidence when the voters aren't even using these processes. I remember the 2004 election and I remember plotzing when I heard someone was voting for Bush. Often times, I got a canned response of something crazy like, "John Kerry is for abortion. Bush is against it. If my mother had had me aborted, I wouldn't be here and that's why I'm voting for Bush." Now, whether any of that is true or not can be debated forever, that's not the point of this post. The point is that someone or something had gotten to them the message that if Kerry was president, all fetuses would be aborted. They didn't pay attention to any other issues except that one and they made a very emotional decision based on it.

What's even more exasperating about this situation is that Kerry wouldn't have had the power to change the abortion laws and Bush hasn't done a damn thing about them either. This makes the "my body my right" crowd just as idiotic. Abortion is always a steaming political debate right around an election and then subsides to nothing during the term because the trimester laws aren't budging.

The logical step is to not even base your vote on the abortion stance. Of course, none of the voters are logical.

What's the first aim of SEFORA? To push one candidate based on a single issue -- stem cells.

The group's organizers include John H. Gibbons and Neal Lane, who were science advisers in the Clinton administration, the Nobel laureates Peter Agre and Alfred Gilman, and Susan F. Wood, who resigned from the Food and Drug Administration last year to protest the agency's delay in approving over-the-counter sales of the so-called Plan B emergency contraception.

Just admit it, Democrats are less founded in conservative Christian belief and therefore are more prone to rely on science for decisions/explanations. This 527 will most likely end up supporting the Democratic candidate 9 times out of 10 simply because of the "party stances" the Republican will most certainly take. The million dollar question is, "Would they support a third party candidate running on the Science platform before the bi-partisan idiots?" And the answer is 'probably not.' Which is really too bad because sometimes the third party candidate has good ideas and stances -- just lacks major funds to get the word out.

I see this group as doing an overall good thing but I'm not a big fan of their methods. What ever happened to just trying to educate the voters? At the end of the day, the people voting are not scientifically founded. If they were, I wouldn't have to put up with commercials for The War at Home on TV. 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.

Decisions, Decisions

[ackthpt]

In this day and age, if I'm running for office, which am I going to do:

• Say and Do the right things for the integrity of office and country?

OR

• Say and Do the right things to get elected/re-elected and bring home the bacon?

I think it's fair to say, we can see how we got where we are. Fixing it by electing good, intelligent and wise candidates means finding them and grooming them so the voter, who cares more about Paris Hilton getting a DUI, keeping gays from marrying, teaching Creationism/Intelligent Design vs. Evolution than whether there's about to be a rise in sea levels, mass extinction and famine is a truly gargantuan undertaking. First they have to get the average clod on the street to understand how clean science will impact their lives. Considering the head start stupidity has and the powerful allies of ignorance, it's daunting.

How far has America fallen

[kremvax]

When American scientists have to form a 527 group just to make sure the public has reasonable access to facts and reports?

We used to be the most technologically advanced country in the world. Now American fundamentalist extremists, enormously well funded fundamentalists, want to keep biology out of the classroom. Oil companies want to supress climate science. And both are the principal campaign financiers of the presidential administration and both houses of congress. And a majority position on the supreme court.

And the powers that be want to frame it as a "you're either with science or with the Lord" kind of insane debate that went out of fashion in the 18th century.

This is the kind of thinking that will relagate us to "has-been" status quicker than you can say "empire where the sun never sets"