Should Science Be King In Politics?

Layzej writes "According to former Republican representative Bob Inglis, being conservative means dealing in facts. He suggests that energy and climate policy warrants a conservative approach based on science and accountability, rather than a populist approach based on denial and wishful thinking. He also proposes an intriguing free market solution to our energy and climate challenges."

Comments

I want to believe, I really do

[abarrow]

The scientist Ben Franklin (No, it wasn't Albert Einstein) said, "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results."

We had 8 years of a science-and-fact-loving conservative government, after which we had a doubled national debt, two wars, an economic crisis second only to the Great Depression, the demonizing of evolution, and oh yeah, a new attitude in the country that climate change was questionable and that it was probably the scientists that were to blame. Please excuse me if I remain skeptical that a single former representative is going to change much.

There is a reason why Mr. Inglis is a "former" Representative - his commie ideas about actually believing the scientists were clearly not well received by his former constituency.

Science as a candle in the dark

[TapeCutter]

Your post reminded me of a quote from Sagan's book "Demon Haunted World (Subtitled: Science as a candle in the dark)";

Science is more than a body of knowledge; it is a way of thinking. I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time - when the United State is a service and information economy; when nearly all the key manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness."

Re:Contentious Subject Matter?

[BergZ]

There was a poll of climatologists conducted back during the Bush administration and even those "government grant" scientists felt pressured to downplay/minimize the consequences of Anthropegenic Climate Change.

High-quality science [is] struggling to get out," Francesca Grifo, of the watchdog group Union of Concerned Scientists, told members of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. A UCS survey found that 150 climate scientists personally experienced political interference in the past five years in a total of at least 435 incidents. "Nearly half of all respondents perceived or personally experienced pressure to eliminate the words 'climate change', 'global warming' or other similar terms from a variety of communications," Grifo said.

Source, 2007.