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America's Turn From Science, a Danger For Democracy
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "Here's a good article about how playing politics with science puts our country at risk — a review of Shawn Otto's book Fool Me Twice: Fighting the Assault on Science in America. Today's policy-makers, Otto shows, are increasingly unwilling to pursue many of the remedies science presents. They take one of two routes: deny the science, or pretend the problems don't exist."
The whole U.S. is established on the idea of God and religion. It's everywhere in the U.S. culture. That fact alone tells that U.S. has never been about, or seek to know, science. Science tends to look at the world in terms of numbers, technology and confirmed facts. Religion tends to tell the world has been made by some imaginary person in the sky, tells you to pray towards said imaginary person and completely disregards science in favor of what someone wrote on paper 1500-2000 years ago. They are not compatible.
Now here's a crazy question to those of you believe in god. The whole world is full of lunatics, alcoholics, drug users and pathological liars, and has always been. Hell, it doesn't even have to be a "bad" thing. Many people have great amount of imagination. What makes you think those stories weren't made up by either drunk persons, someone who wanted to tell a story or someone who just wanted to play with people?
On that matter, stories always change when they are passed from people to people. This is like 1-2th grade stuff. I still remember when my first grade teacher demonstrated this by whispering something to a student, who then whispered it to next person and so on. After all of us in the class had passed it forward, the meaning was completely different with added "fun stuff" and things that didn't even make sense.
Why do you think the bible is a good representation of how things actually went? Why do you think it's even true at all? It could just as well be based on some old stories that have changed when going from people to people, or better yet, some drunk or drug using guy just wrote it 2000 years ago. Just think about it.
Hmmm.....
- about 30% voter turnout ....
- Election looser becomes president (2000)
- You need a billion US$ campaign funds to have a chance
- Heriditary tendencies for seats in congress/senate
-
So not much left to endanger IMHO. Sorry!
The problem with this oft-repeated trope is that the pro-AGW forces are inevitably playing politics with the very "science" they claim to rest their arguments on. Over and over, we read of hidden, manipulated, and cherry-picked data, refusals to abide with having outsiders vet their work, and allowing naked advocacy into the IPCC reports on climate change as if they were peer-reviewed science. "Truthout" -- one of the most preposterous names imaginable -- here advances the same political agenda. It is environmentalism wrapped in a lab coat.
The Canadians walked away from Kyoto; shall we ask if they, too, are anti-science? Or does that only cover the US?
Dog is my co-pilot.
"They take one of two routes: deny the science, or pretend the problems don't exist."
First, the analysis presented by the author is fraudulent, nonsensical, and just a creation of the liberal elite. Second, there's simply no issue with how politicians deal with scientific facts, I don't know why anyone would say something like that.
I'm going to take the latter course and pretend the risk to our country doesn't exist.
Can somebody reply and deny the article, so we cover all our bases?
Oooh look! Kardashians!
Give the greens who support you money so they can build uncompetitive solar plane plants
~running the military and special ops including HAARP and more terrifying weapons systems can't be good for this country.
Clearly we're supposed to do whatever we can to make reality match our expectations.
There is no -1 Disagree mod. Slashdot.org/faq defines mod options. USE IT.
This book is clearly proof of a huge conspiracy by high school science teachers. By pretending science should be important, they hope to keep their jobs and to be able to garner higher wages. Fortunately, we can count on the heroism of our politicians and bankers to protect us from such lies and reestablish the truth.
Here: Fact 1) The climate has changed and always will. Fact 2) We can't keep it in a solid sate (unchanging). Fact 3) Mankind directly affects the climate, and we KNOW this - we can see the Ozone hole above the poles. It was directly created by aerospray cans we created. Fact 4) Besides a static, unchanging thing, there is stomething called DYNAMIC STABILITY. Fact 5) Dynamic Stability can be achieved by careful monitoring and correcting of issues. Like say if we start pumping more C02 into the air, we can stop it.
Not saying that is what we have to do. Just saying that your logic is incredibally bad - you proved absolutely nothing but your own ignorance.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
http://www.google.com/search?q="rika+banare" (heh... wikipedia only suggests "rika banana")
Fact: asteroids have been striking our planet from the beginning of the Earth until present. Fact: Asteroids are going to continue falling on our planet until the end of time.
Clearly, this means we shouldn't do anything to protect ourselves. And if for some reason we strongly suspect that some of our own actions have the side effect of raising the chances of an asteroid striking us, well, we shouldn't do anything about it.
What's it like to be part of the anti-science crackpot brigade?
Not much. I am more concerned with doing something about the climate change that IS IN OUR CONTROL
You might want to ask the Fishermen in the North Atlantic how that idea that fish stock perpetually fluctuates is working out for them.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
Why not just make it correct "Are Americans Turning Away From Big Government?"
That is the real issue. Post WWII the government wanted control over science largely to accelerate certain military objectives. They ended up making all science a pig feeding at the government trough. In addition, more people are turning from the notion that government can solve all problems - and that is true regardless of the input being from "science" or anyone else.
Yes but we have "American Idol", "Dancing With the Stars", and last but not least, the "Kardashians"! p.s. How come the "Kardashians" never talk about the other sister "Khlamydia"?
"I say we take off, nuke the site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure."
It was sputnik that that put science and math back in vogue in the US, and even then it has been touch and go. I don't imagine that many who read this can imagine how hard it is to actually set up an advance math of physics class is school that are controlled by ex cheerleaders and english majors. They cannot understand the importance or the complexity. They think that the computers just magically appeared one day. They don't know the physics and engineering that was required.
Some of this comes from the religious fanatics, and some of these believe that the US is a christian state. While it is somewhat true, the beliefs of our founding fathers were not necessarily the beliefs of the christian fundamentalists and terrorists that want to divert tax a money from the public good to funding their mansions and sports complexes and terrorists cells. One example of this difference is the Jefferson bible. This bible is used by many christians as it focuses on the teaching of Jesus for those who follows his ways and habits, rather than the mysticism which is often used to tell poor people that they are poor simply because they have no faith.
Our founding fathers understood that religion was used to oppress them, which is why the fought against the aristocracy of England. It was understood that the aristocracy was no more chosen by god than a CEO is chosen by god. It was understood that the work of a person, not the lineage, should determine if a person was successful. Just because one was born into a place or a family should not determine if one was blesse by god. The blessed were the ones who would have faith and work. So the US was built on faith, but not the idea that we in the US were more blessed than other simply because we were born in the US. We had to work for the blessing.
This then is problem with math and science. If we are simply blessed because we are born in the US, then we can simply stay on our sofas and watch TV. But if god demands that we act, that we honor the creation, the Math and physics takes on a much greater importance, and one is not blessed simply because one watches Joel Olsteen on a 42" tv in a mansion. It is then required that we take an active role in exploring and expanding the good that the creation can do, which means that we have to get our lazy asses off the sofa and produce something useful, the antithesis to what is taught in too many churches.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
Climate changes over time, yes. Over thousands/hundreds-of-thousands of years.
This is within a scale of less than 10 decades.
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Everyone complains about the anti-evolution, anti-climate of the GOP. They fail to talk about the anti-chemistry/anti-rocketry views of the Democrats. Try to build a model rocket in a liberal state. Can't go to the store and get the rocket motors - they are illegal. Afraid of fireworks, etc.
The independents aren't any better. Some anti-science views are unpolitical. Similar problems exist with anti-computer. Can't have the kids do anything fun like hack their own phones. OH no, that pisses of the media corps. Who cares if experimentation is pro-science and it teaches people to think.
Then there is the anti-vaccination crowd.
The anti-science movement is not just republican. It is an non-denominational problem. We need to start making Science a focus. Make it a priority above and beyond pollution (climate change), above and beyond 'vandalism masquerading as safety concerns' (firework laws), above and beyond cultish stupidity (lies about vaccinces), above and beyond profits for media companies.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
The question isn't about Climate Change. It's about whether HUMANS are causing that change. Something I will admit to being skeptical about but am interested in seeing real data not corrupted by oil companies or extreme left wing professors interested more in grants than science.
The problem occurs when people start making policy based on fear. Our system in the US is designed to be very slow, the thought being that if things are slowed down and debate is forced on policy makers better decisions will be made. In practice our politicians have found ways around this by using fear and sensationalism. Just a year or two ago I recall the UN saying climate change would lead to end of the world scenarios in only 6-9 months. Al Gore has said very similar things about rising water levels, onyl to turn around and buy a multi-million dollar home right on the beach.
Politicians love fear. Fear will make you vote for them, it will bring you to the edge of reason and beyond to act exactly as they wish you too. Case in point, the adds against Paul Ryan showing him pushing old people in wheelchairs off of cliffs. The add recently by Newt Gingrich equating his political situation in the caucuses to Pearl Harbor. Politicians will say anything they can to make you afraid, or to align themselves as the good guys while their opponents are the bad guys.
They all do it, left or right. One side claims doing anything about climate change will bankrupt the world and make us all into Zimbabwe where they haul wheel barrows full of money to the store in order to buy bread, while the other side claims we'll all be dead in massive storms like in the movies.
The only answer to these assholes is to vote third party and stop donating to them. There is no logical reason why we have only two parties in the country with any power. The binary nature of our political system is what makes it so ripe for abuse. Voting MATTERS. Stop buying into either sides bullshit.
The article (yes, I RTFA) says very little about science other than climate change - What about alternative energy (regardless of greenhouse gases), computers, space exploration, advances in transportation, standard of living, food generation, medical care, etc. Science is everywhere, yet we either take it for granted or ignore what we don't want to confront. SOPA is correct in idea - we need to protect intellectual property, but flawed in science - the way they want to do it does not fit with how the Internet and networking was designed . . . I bet we ignore the science and pass a law because it is so important . . . Science doesn't do sound bites, so we won't find the Higgs particle in the US, nor will will solve many of the upcoming scientific grand challenges. We deserve the fate we select . . .
Hope is the worst of evils, for it prolongs the torment of man. -- Friedrich Nietzsche
The government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion. -- Treaty of Tripoli, Article 11. Signed by John Adams.
Anyone who tells you that dealing with climate change requires a "total overhaul of our economic system" is a liar. If you tell other people that, you become a liar. You don't want to be a liar, do you?
Even if we accept the science of climate change, the problem is too hard to fix.
No politician is going to tell its people to stop driving cars. It is much easier to deny the problem than to deal with the reality. Even the pro science politicians are only proposing ideas that are mostly for show.
If someone comes up with a solution to fix climate change without requiring major sacrifices from its citizens, then all the politicians will be conveniently pro science again.
Given the subject matter, I found it ironically frustrating that the article clearly received very little editorial review. Missing words, incorrect words and dubious grammar gave the impression of a hastily dashed off opinion piece rather than a thought-provoking analysis of a disturbing social trend. In fact, the sloppy writing/editing caused me to hit the back button before I had even finished reading the article in its entirety.
IMO, sloppy and imprecise thinking and communication is just as much of a danger for democracy as a "turn from science". In fact, the latter may just be a symptom of the former.
The Canadian conservative government pulled out of Kyoto not because they hate science but because they don't care. They see money from Alberta tar sands and that is all they can see. If the climate warms, they won't have to go as far south in winter! That is how they view it and they won't change until it's too late. New Orleans will disappear under the waves of the Gulf of Mexico this century and no conservative government, American or Canadian, will take climate change seriously until it does. Even then they will probably try to blame the victims saying New Orleans brought it on itself.
By some coincidence, just yesterday someone replied to a post of mine with a link to a relevant book on the topic. This was in the discussion of the report that a lot of security cameras are broken or were never installed correctly (or were fakes from the start), but it applies here equally well.
It's all part of a universal aspect of "human nature", in which groups (including governments, corporations, etc.) rarely respond to a problem until it has grown into a serious disaster. This is true even when a problem is well-understood by part of the population. There are often pressures to make decisions that produce short-term benefits to the decision makers. This typically involves ignoring unpleasant facts, and denigrating the people who push for acting on problems.
About all we can do is keep trying to bring the facts (including the science) to people's attention. But so far, we don't seem to have any effective ways to persuade them to listen. And society's leaders always seem to have good reasons to encourage general ignorance ("bread and circuses").
Maybe this will be the next big social advance, to follow the Enlightenment and Democracy after an unknown number of centuries. I wonder if there are any studies that have turned up any approaches that are verified to work? I haven't read of them, if they exist.
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
This quote sums up all you need to know about religion:
"Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful." – Lucius Annaeus Seneca (Seneca the Younger).
Back then, the religions he spoke of were different to today's, the cultures of the people were different to today's, and the nature of education was different to today's, but nothing has changed. Not even the hypocrisy of the rulers/politicians.
BTW, regarding your extraordinarily generous assessment of statesmen:
"Now I know what a statesman is; he's a dead politician. We need more statesmen." – Bob Edwards.
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
Or simply affecting that change. The climate is always changing, but human activities might be making it change faster, or to a greater extent, than plants or animals (including humans) can adapt without severe stress or hardship.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
Given that the article is somewhat focused on the ScienceDebate questions and with the notable exception of the one about climate change. The third option I'd see is that those questions are pretty unfocused and in one case - education a little deceptive.
For example are they referring to the OECD exam results? I downloaded and wrote that math exam and I found it to be weird. In some cases I'm not sure the questions were even about math and very often not the kind of math you use in science (there were huge numbers of graph reading questions). Not to mention that the purveyors of the exam themselves only recognized three statistically significant groups (those working at, beneath and above the median). Not to mention when people start throwing ordinal values around it often makes me wonder how much they actually know about science or math. Ordinals provide zero information about the distance between ranks which is far more important than being 1st or 17th.
Either silicon valley should secede or we should start up a nice commune down in Antarctica with safe Gen3 nuclear power. Just think of the efficiency at that delta-T!
Uh, Monsignor Georges Lemaître. Science and Christian religion can live harmoniously. Both have their good and bad points. Until you know all the knowledge in the Universe you cannot definitively say that there is no G-d, nor can you definitely prove all theories to be fact. Just because something is a theory does not mean it is 100% undeniable fact, the basic definition of theory includes words like "propositions", and "commonly regarded". A good example of a theory that was widely believed by a vast majority of scientists including some very noted big names, but now is regarded as false is the Steady State theory. As far as other benefits of religion, neither science nor own government are good at teaching morals, they both fail at that severely, however deeply looking into the New Testament yourself, not what some leader tells you, you will find some excellent moral lessons. Personally as far as creation is concerned, one question is "How long is one of G-d's days?" There was no earth so going by an earthly day would fail as such one has to wonder how long that day is. On the opposite side of the coin, and going back to the Big Bang theory, where did the singularity come from that started the universe? As far as stories changing, we now know through science, archaeology, that the good portions of the Old Testament and New Testament are the same as they were 2000 years ago. As far as everything being made up by some drunk, there are too many things from the Judeo Christian bible from past the first couple chapters of Genesis on that have been proven correct by archaeology. I'll probably get modded down, but these are just some of my arguments.
Kosh: "Understanding is a 3 edged sword, your side, their side, the Truth."
For most that use it, it is probably just a generic hate term for those that disagree with them. There's a lot of that which happens with political labels from both sides. So most of the time when you see it used it is just a conservative type saying "someone I don't agree with."
However the concept does have foundations in reality. The "liberal elite" would be people like some academic types that suffer from Smartest Motherfucker in the Universe Syndrome. Basically they are more intelligent than average, and more educated, so they start to get the idea that they know what's best for everybody, about all things.
I see that at work (I work at a university) in a few professors. Most aren't like that, most professors are just people who happen to choose research and teaching as a profession. However there are a few of them that are real high on their horse. They feel that they are better than the average person, and that they know best when it comes to any and every thing. In all cases they are highly liberal, hence calling them "liberal elitists" would be fair.
In general though, just a random put-down kind of term people throw around, which is why the GP chose it since he was being sarcastic.
If you ask me, this is a perfectly rational response to the current state of scientific "research".
Bingo. This is not a 'turn from science' but a turn from politically-motivated science. Scientists have proven untrustworthy and then complain that people don't trust them.
It's odd that Eisenhower's warning about the military-industrial complex is widely quoted, but no-one mentions his warning about government-funded science:
Akin to, and largely responsible for the sweeping changes in our industrial-military posture, has been the technological revolution during recent decades. In this revolution, research has become central, it also becomes more formalized, complex, and costly. A steadily increasing share is conducted for, by, or at the direction of, the Federal government.
Today, the solitary inventor, tinkering in his shop, has been overshadowed by task forces of scientists in laboratories and testing fields. In the same fashion, the free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a revolution in the conduct of research. Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity. For every old blackboard there are now hundreds of new electronic computers. The prospect of domination of the nation's scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present -- and is gravely to be regarded.
Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.
Check your budget numbers first, fool. The US government gives huge amounts of cash to oil, coal and nuclear power - far more than we give to solar powers.
As for 'uncompetitive' solar power plants are only uncompetitive if we let people dump garbage into the air for free. Wind power is now the cheapest power - assuming we enforce existing pollution laws. Water and coal are the cheapest if we don't track pollution. If we charge every company HALF the price to clean up air pollution then Wind, Solar and Nuclear are the only competivie plants.
The question is not 'which is cheapest', but "how much are we going to charge them for the right to poison our air".
To make it even more complicated idiots in the midwest like to pollute the air and don't care that their pollution gets blown east by the wind into the East.
If you want to claim "I can live with the pollution" that's one thing. But to stand and insist "its the cheapest" is just plain STUPID.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
we haven't been monitoring the ozone hole for very long, not even 50 years. maybe it is a totally natural thing that fluctuates in size mostly due to solar output.
Remember, a hundred years ago you could find plenty of scientists saying that we should sterilise the lower orders so they don't out-breed their betters. Eugenics was popular among 'scientific socialists' at that time and only became unpopular after Hitler followed it to its logical conclusion.
The separation of church and state was one of the most critical things the founding fathers did to ensure the success of the United States. We need to extend this same philosophy to the separation of science and politics.
Whether it is trying to stop stem cell research or medicinal lab animal research both main parties have a bad habit of trying to use or manipulate science to serve their agenda. Much like we set up the Federal Reserve Bank to operate at a certain arms length from daily politics, we need to do the same for science.
Science should never have a political agenda and it is inherently compromised anytime that it does, regardless of what that political agenda is. Science needs to be placed on a plinth above the daily back and forth of political agendas and left alone.
I suspect people have been making this same basic argument since the 1st century. But here we are today, developing an "app for that". On second thought maybe we have lost it and the US is doomed.
At the core of the religious and science differences is a very humanistic (and fallible) trait of 'we' vs. 'them'. It's what drives the whole diatribe of debate on both sides of the fence and what makes the problem irrational and unsolvable.
Neither science nor religion are based on 100% total fact. A scientific theory, (as is much religion), is based on what appears to be known about something from a given set of data. Can you explain Dark Matter with 100% certainty? No. Can you explain Intelligent Design with 100% certainty? No. You can make a lot of guesses but in the end those guesses are subjective.
Seems to me one set of weakly glued hypothesis and conjecture should not be insisted upon over another set of weakly glued hypothesis and conjecture. We are on one planet of zillions of galaxies. We have not seen all there is to see and cannot explain much of what we have.
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Who has money to send things into space when you spend 6x times more on your military than any other country.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_expenditures
Hey, it's fluctuating for sure. It's just always fluctuating in the same direction. This is to be expected, of course. There's no reason why a coin can't come up heads 27 million times in a row, and anyone who says otherwise is a PETA communist who hates Jesus and wants to impose their tree-knitting yoghurt-hugging hippy views on everyone else while stealing my Hummer and my guns.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
I read "Dark Sun", where it was explained that the success of the first U.S. H-bomb was the result of making as much shrimp and steak as they cared to eat available to the scientists at the test site. One guy ate a little too much shrimp and couldn't sleep and was restless, and he stayed up and figured out something with the test that would make it fail that had been bothering him and fixed the problem.
"I don't blame corporations because they are stuck in a system we have created and they can't solve it all themselves," he said in an interview. "I don't blame the Republican Party for going anti-science because there are a lot of factors that led to that socially, and I don't think it's a decision of Republican Party leadership to one day say, 'oh, we're not going to accept science anymore.' And it's not just because evangelicals got involved in politics. There's a lot of complex reasons."
I notice he doesn't blame the Democrat Party, progressives, labor unions, etc either for their "anti-science" positions. But in those cases, he doesn't mention them by name either. I don't know who did this, whether it was the author, Otto, or a bias of the reporter of that particular interview, but any discussion of "anti-science" shouldn't be taking sides else it falls into the trap it purports to study.
For example, perhaps the number one, serial abuse of science is in the field of economics. Everyone with enough money to hire a pet economist (the modern version of the chicken entrails-equipped soothsayer) can find a credentialed someone who can economically rationalize the wants of the client. Medicine is a close number two. Their saving grace is that they're a bit result driven. Past that, it depends on the stakes. Nobody is going to throw string theory, because nobody gains or loses (whether money, power, or some vaguer notion like firmness of conviction) no matter what happens. Climatology and ecology are different stories since someone stands to lose and gain by what conclusions are drawn.
When you get to the weird religion based anti-science arguments against the sciences having to do with Earth's and the universe's past, these tend to be high profile and low impact. For example, I know of no case where some US school board passed an anti-evolution curriculum which didn't result in the overturning of the school board.
It's not about religion vs. science per se. In the U.S. it's all about getting enough money to run a successful election campaign. Either you are independently wealthy, or you need big-time campaign contributors. These big-money donors have agendas that are often at odds with scientific opinion. I am old enough to remember when tobacco officially didn't cause cancer, despite overwhelming scientific evidence otherwise. The same thing can be said about the U.S. position on climate change, health care reform, banking system reform, military spending, etc... In all of these cases, scientific opinion requires making a change in how money is spent, taxes are levied, or on how regulatory burden or liability are allocated.
Another great example is science has shown though numerous studies that cannabis is quite safe, mildly addictive (less than alcohol, and much much less than tobacco), has anti cancer properties and has been shown to treat many illnesses and diseases. But when the president or the DEA speaks on the subject, they contradict every study and fail to acknowledge the existence of those studies. They go back to saying that the FDA has found no medical use and its highly addictive. They just ignore the facts and push what is in the interest of the lobbyists and "their" morals. Completely disregarding scientific fact.
The whole "science vs religion" debate is a red herring meant to distract us from the core issue: freedom vs politics.
We must have the freedom to agree or disagree with science (or religion). Without the freedom to choose, science loses and "scientific propaganda" prospers.
Many are rejecting the media's presentation of 'science' -- not for a love of religion or a hatred of science -- but rather for the way that political opportunists use and twist science (or religion) to meet their political agendas. The propaganda is so thick that people don't know what's real or fabricated. People aren't rejecting science, they are rejecting political opportunism.
Many of today's politicians (& scientists desperate for funding) are misrepresenting science just as the religious leaders misrepresented religion during the dark ages -- to increase their money and power.
We can't get sidetracked into a "science vs religion" debate when we need to be discerning about both. We do, however, need to be vigilant against those who would manipulate the "science vs religion" debate as a way of controlling people.
...is doomed. Enjoy your fascist idiocracy.
sloppy and imprecise thinking and communication is just as much of a danger
You should have written "are" instead of "is".
I am bothered by one part of this article, the idea that Science Debate 2008 was only moderately successful. True, they were unable to get the candidates to debate science topics live on television, but the organization DID succeed in getting the candidates to debate science. The organization gave the candidates a list of questions and then posted their answers online side by side for comparison (I wrote up a score card on who I thought gave the best answer to each question).
This was more than the Federation of American Scientists or Union of Concerned Scientists have accomplished in their decades of activism. This was HUGE for an organization that had just come into existence. This success is why I abandoned my memberships to these other organizations and committed my donations to Science Debate.
(Side Note: Newt Gingrich is a scumbag, but if he gets the nomination I can't wait to see him and Obama throw-down on Science... I've seen Newt destroy John Kerry on how to tackle Climate Change and I believe his nomination would bring scientific issues into the spotlight since Obama is something of a science geek himself.)
i ~ Celebrating Science, Cyberspace, Speculation
The problem here is, Eisenhower was wrong.
The image of a solitary investor, toiling in some basement laboratory is, for the most part, a fairy tale. It has very seldom been true. A huge percentage of inventions, even through history, are funded by government. That includes many of those scientists who are iconized in pop culture as solitary inventors, like Ben Franklin and Leonardo DaVinci. These two were heavily funded by the government and would not have been able to complete their research and fund all of their laboratory equipment and assistants, etc, without such funding.
So, it's neat that you are pointing out that Eisenhower had a very shallow understanding of the history and reality of scientific funding, especially seeing how much his government funded science, but it's not proving anything other than your bias.
"How are you going to get electricity?"
Don't you know? Electricity comes out of an outlet in the wall. Just like milk comes from a carton.
Thank heavens it has nothing to do with those stinky power plants or ecology drowning hydroelectric dams.
Pshaw, son. Even a 4 year old knows that. (And the average knowledge of infrastructure is little more advanced than that.)
I thought most of the founding fathers were deists. With respect to religion, people remember that the purpose of the law was to keep one particular brand of christianity from becoming the offical national religon, but seem to forget that some various states had various versions of christianity as their offical state religion, even until the early/mid 1800's.
Bring back the old version of slashdot.
What is the point of this post, other than the try to stigmatize both the words "scientific" and "socialist" in the same sentence?
Hitler was a far-right wing "facist" which is a very different thing than socialist, which is a pretty mainstream party in most places.
Anyone who tells you that dealing with climate change requires a "total overhaul of our economic system" is a liar. If you tell other people that, you become a liar. You don't want to be a liar, do you?
You might want to read TFA:
-- Shawn Lawrence Otto, author of the book Fool Me Twice: Fighting the Assault on Science in America
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
Mankind directly affects the climate, and we KNOW this - we can see the Ozone hole above the poles. It was directly created by aerospray cans we created.
I thought it was created by people with asthma
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
...is a danger for its democracy.... IMHO a too little thing to worry about anyways.
It's not particularly that scientists should make all the decisions, but rather, than we need an informed population and a very informed government in order to deal with modern problems.
In congress:
And quite a few are career politicians who moved up from state legislatures/etc.
In short, we're a nation run by lawyers and politicians, and have a tiny representation by engineers and scientists - people who have a demonstrated interest and capacity in how things actually work.
This is problematic because there simply isn't enough knowledge in congress to go around. Quite a few Americans, likewise, are voting from a position of complete ignorance and, instead of selecting a candidate who is very knowledgeable on the assumption that that candidate will make better decisions, quite a few Americans vehemently "vote their ignorance"; that is, they're looking specifically for a candidate who reflects their own biases and uninformed viewpoints.
As Isaac Asimov said:
This quote sums up all you need to know about religion: "Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful." – Lucius Annaeus Seneca (Seneca the Younger). Back then, the religions he spoke of were different to today's, the cultures of the people were different to today's, and the nature of education was different to today's, but nothing has changed. Not even the hypocrisy of the rulers/politicians.
BTW, regarding your extraordinarily generous assessment of statesmen: "Now I know what a statesman is; he's a dead politician. We need more statesmen." – Bob Edwards.
Religion or spiritual belief is fine when it's individual and personal. Like with so many other insanities of mankind, the problem kicks in when it becomes an organized corporate activity. Then it appeals to the need that insecure, weak people have to feel like a member of something greater than themselves because they do not have the courage to be individuals. Or you could say that courageous people satisfy the same need by being in this vast Universe; they can handle the vastness and the unanswered questions and do not need membership in a club of like-minded sycophants to give them self-worth.
Either way, that weakness and neediness is the exploitable vulnerability that rulers (cloth or crown, and lately media) have always exploited. I know some of you hate the term "sheeple" and for those I say, suck it up and learn to deal with it. Print it out and read it a few times until you desensitize yourself if that's what it takes. When you can handle a simple term, even one you wouldn't use yourself (the horror!) like a calm dispassionate adult, read the rest of this.
They are sheeple not because they join a group. They are sheeple not because they happen to do what others happen to do. They are sheeple because they need other people to define their reality for them, to give them a framework within which to interpret their own lives. That's how fundamental this is. It's about levels of consciousness arranged by framing of information. The need for this is so strong that almost any framework will do. It may be organized religion, it may be professional prestige, or nationalism, it may be hatred of a rival sports team, or it may be presented in terms like rich and poor, black and white, left and right. It doesn't matter -- they are all interchangeable flavors different prepackaged flavors appeal to different people who share this sick need.
It takes real strength to actually think for yourself, to not be deceived into falsely believing you know what that means, and to truly know the difference. It takes a certain kind of real purpose to observe all the frameworks and -isms, learn what you can from them, accept the tiny kernel of truth they often contain without hating them for the way they mislead, and move on without ever getting stuck in one.
The people with that unhealthy need get stuck as soon as they find one they like. The promise of acceptance and affirmation and fellowship lulls them into a slumber. They now have a loyalty and an interpretation to which everything else must be related no matter how much of a forced fit it requires. Almost everyone is so compromised. You could call it Satan or a thousand other names. I personally explain that it is to mind what viruses are to DNA. Either way, it's nothing less than the single principle which is wrong with the entire world.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
> we haven't been monitoring the ozone hole for very long, not even 50 years. maybe it is a totally natural thing that fluctuates in size mostly due to solar output.
Yeah, and maybe smog in the LA basin is a totally natural thing that fluctuates in size mostly due to bear farts interacting with sun spots. It *could* be due to cars, but there's no real evidence for this, and no evidence to prove it's not a natural thing. Yes, we understand how internal combustion engines *can* cause smog, but that doesn't mean they *are* causing smog. Why reduce engine emissions based on flawed reasoning? Anyway, smog is probably good for some lifeforms and we'll all just evolve to be like them.
The slope of change is always steepest at inflection points.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
Science tends to look at the world in terms of numbers, technology and confirmed facts. Religion tends to tell the world has been made by some imaginary person in the sky, tells you to pray towards said imaginary person and completely disregards science in favor of what someone wrote on paper 1500-2000 years ago. They are not compatible.
History shows that you are mistaken. Individual men of science and individual men of religion have occasionally created a false conflict but that was due to their personal politics and personal closed mindedness, not some inherent conflict between science and religion. For example when a Roman Catholic priest proposed the currently accepted cosmological model of the universe, the big bang theory - originally known as the "hypothesis of the primeval atom", some of the leading men of science of the day dismissed the theory not on its merits but because it came from a priest. I believe they said it "smelled of creationism".
...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georges_Lemaitre
The western tradition of the scientific method (observe, hypothesize, predict, experiment) was popularized by various bishops, who also promoted the idea that science should be based on mathematics. Your "look at the world in terms of numbers, technology and confirmed facts" characterization is precisely the sort of thing promoted by various members of the clergy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albertus_Magnus
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Grosseteste
Other men of science who were members of the clergy and who may be more familiar to readers:
Nicolaus Copernicus, Roger Bacon, Gregor Mendel,
The Catholic church explicitly addresses the compatibility of science and religion. It's official position IIRC is that faith and scientific findings are not in conflict, that science investigates the mechanics (the "how") of God's creation while philosophy and religion investigate "why" not "how". Other Christian churches have similar perspectives.
While beliefs of any shape or color may still be in vogue, organized religion is under assault (perpetual assault, mind you, it appears the same for every generation, ala "The War on Religion"). Rome? The Crusades? The Spanish Inquisition? The Salem Witch-Trials? You name it, it counted as the struggle of their day.
Anyway, the people who wear glittering robes and sit on golden thrones are, like any ruler, unhappy with the idea that they might be losing a little power. Mind you, these people need not have glittering robes or golden thrones -> the general rule is that they have some sort of holy book, and that they have enough cash (in American dollars) to make a makeshift throne out of $20s. And the first rule for any paranoid ruler, when he / she / it feels like a loss of power, is to find out why. To attempt to trace it, and put an end to it. Science, other religions, the State, and so on are all the usual suspects. Since science hasn't bared any arms yet against Religion is a reason why Religion favors going after it -> if a Religion is a problem, the State has, can, and will house by house to eliminate it. Other religions also pose a challenge -> their followers are as likely as the Religion's followers to have little qualms about killing infidels. But Science? Aside from some wars in the courtroom and classroom, it's been fairly calm. And the 'war' here is fought using words, which is every con-artists favorite weapon (a sly tongue, and a cunning mind).
Now, this is all good and nice, with Religion sapping away at Science. Faith before Reason, they say. The problem here is that weaponry has progressed to the point where Religion's attempt to sap Science's strength has and will result in the host State losing its technological prowess. No amount of faith can protect you from a ground-zero hit from a nuclear weapon. Or a biological plague. Or a chemical weapon. Or something worse (there are worse things than the previous three).
It's not the first time. Iron, steel, gun powder, and so on; all developments through the ages that, if a people did not capitalize on it, had them subjugated and their State / Religion altered / destroyed. Heck, the United State's education system cared nothing for science until Sputnik was in orbit; upon that announcement, the US went "oh sh*t!" and made science education mandatory.
And we've reached that point again. The US has been resting on its laurels, having enjoyed the status that came with promoting science. It has had a lead, helped in part by making itself the center of technological and scientific education (it can sit back, and pick up the best / brightest from other countries, when they send their young to be educated here). And through a combination of bad politics, economics, and religion, it is losing that lead. Which is mildly interesting -> all focus is on China as a competitor, citing its up and coming status, and relentless focus on science. The US propaganda machine has gone into overdrive to convince the US populace that they are safe, that the Chinese lack creativity and inventiveness, and if / when the times comes when the US and China come to blows, it is that creativity that will ensure the US's survival. Now, it's common for rulers to keep the people in the dark regarding potential problems, but it's uncommon for the rulers themselves to keep themselves in the dark regarding potential problems. Such approaches tend to end badly.
I am John Hurt.
Don't be daft, trivial to prove the man-made origin of smog. The "hole", on the other hand, is really a reduction in concentration of ozone, and though your green enviro-nazi teachers might not have mentioned it, there are naturally produced sources of ozone destroying chemicals (e.g. methyl bromide) which in combination with seasonal winds reduce the concentration of polar ozone. even the "ozone-hole" alarmists acknowledge those mechanisms along with the man-made ones.
I don't know how things are where you live, but here in the US there is no way my lazy ass can get off the sofa and produce anything at a cost competetive with cheap asian labor, who can live on a dollar a day while I most certainly can not. The best I can hope for is a lousy unexportable service sector job where I'll be underpaid and overworked. In jobs like those, there is no need for science. All you need to know is how to do as you're told.
All these arguments about the Founding Fathers and what they intended or wanted for this new country they were founding seems to lack a critical part: Who were they, really? How many were there? What were their names? What were their individual beliefs?
Seems to me that either side, the religious right or the non-religious left, are trying to claim the "Founding Fathers" as their own without really understanding who they were or what each of them believed, individually. I bet that if you study the Founding Fathers you'll find them as diverse in their personalities and beliefs as America is today. Personally, I think we should leave the Founding Fathers out of this whole argument, they lived over 250 years ago and the world was a much different place then than it is now. We should concentrate the discussion on the issues we face today and modern solutions to them.
Upgrade to what?
I could vaguely mumble something about new generation power, or smart grids and I've told you nothing.
Much of this is definitional.
I think one of the common definitions in these arguments is if it's written in a notably libertarian source like reason, it's actually republican propaganda.
Similarly, when advanced nuclear power studies or GMOs are mentioned, the reaction is, that's not science, it's just dangerous and evil.
Thus, since those opposing that sort of research are only opposing danger, they are not opposing science. Q.E.D.
(I'm still annoyed they shut down the TRIGA reactor at the university I worked at. Now we can't do neutron activation analysis here. *shrug* Guess that's not really science in the book of some.)
Where is the proof in the change from science in the US? Granted, every now and then there is a news story about some school board or some group wanting to push creationism, but almost always, those efforts fail and they are by far in the minority. I am not aware of any major university that doesn't teach science or any state that doesn't include science in their high school curriculum.
So, where is the data to show the turn from science, let alone how it is a danger for democracy?
it's that the government is presently in thrall to large corporations who spend money to countervail government regulation that threatens their business model or profitability, regardless of the scientific basis for the regulation.
I.e., it's certain corporations and their stooges who "don't like science" when the truth costs them money.
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
Actually, there is.
Any sufficiently unpopular but cohesive argument is indistinguishable from trolling.
"The banning of model rockets is not something Democratic Party candidates run on."
But the big driving force behind the changes that limited model rocket propellants being shipped were Schumer and Lautenberg.
See:
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/30/us/threats-responses-new-regulations-rocket-bill-stirs-debate-potential-for-terror.html
Somehow, I doubt you'd accept your own argument if the parties involved were reversed.
It's not particularly that scientists should make all the decisions, but rather, than we need an informed population and a very informed government in order to deal with modern problems.
Exactly what makes you think that scientists are any better informed than anyone else outside of their areas of specialization? Do people with science degrees magically become Renaissance Men, knowledgeable in all matters? I've yet to see that demonstrated.
Given that Congress is in the business of writing laws, is it really unusual that most people who aspire to congress have degrees in law? I'm not sure I buy the proposition that an education in science more greatly qualifies one to be writing laws than an education in, er, law.
Being well informed in matters of science is hardly a qualification for governing. I'd point that Albert Einstein's political view were basically communist. And if you really believe that having a science degree is essential to governing, I'll assume you'll be voting for the only presidential candidate that actually has one: Dr. Ron Paul.
American Third Position
Finally, a real choice!
(Sorry for the double post. Hit submit instead of preview before I was finished.)
"I have no problem buying model rocket supplies in the nanny city of Seattle."
Because Tripoli Rocketry and the National Association of Rocketry eventually won a 9 year long lawsuit to have the BATFE restrictions reversed.
The case of more general chemistry is less one sided, as many of the restrictions are related to the drug war. That's fertile ground for both parties.
Fact: The climate has perpetually changed from the beginning of the Earth until present. Fact: The climate will continue to change until the end of time.
But it hasn't always been cozy for human beings. Some of us would like to keep it cozy for as long as we can.
What exactly are politicians supposed to do about something out of our control?
The pollution that's causing the current phenomenally fast global warming *is* under our control.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
The submitter is basically complaining that democratically elected policy makers responding to the desires of those who elected them and refusing to kow-tow to a panel of "experts" is a danger to democracy. Come again?
American Third Position
Finally, a real choice!
Wow. Some A/C sure has been industrious with his trolling today. Did you just discover Slashdot?
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Lessee, from TFA.... science science science... political debate... science questions... science again a few times... ideology and rhetoric... Science, science science.... Conservation voters -uh oh, warning sign- and there it is: Climate Change. Only took eight paragraphs to get to the author's real issue. Ok, at least we know where he's coming from.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
When a geologist says "You're town is right in the path of a future lava flow..." and a politician says "building a big ditch to redirect the flow will harm our economy!", you think the politician is the guy who should get the upper hand?
And eugenics theory was never really a scientific theory at all. It certainly ran counter to Darwinian evolutionary mechanics (where variation is absolutely key to a species' survival), so the analogy is bad. Doubtless there were some scientists advocating it, but many of those, at the time, also rejected natural selection in favor of either racial purity nonsense or the more nebulous but equally vile economic purity concepts. At any rate, Darwin and his successors made very clear that the best way for a species to survive was diversity, which eugenics by and large rejects in favor of creating a very homogeneous genetic stock.
Besides what you've written is a red herring. I don't think anybody is saying scientists should run the show, but rather that the politicization of science harms science and ultimately harms people. Scientists should be free to publish their results without tampering and then it is up to the politicians and the public to decide what to do with it. If they decide digging a big ditch to redirect a future lava flow will damage their economy, then at least they were given the warning and understood the potential ramifications of their decision, rather than having politicians muzzle the geologist and try to put across the message that there's nothing to worry about.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
You are absolutely right, but unfortunately it seems pretty clear that this argument won't be fully resolved until the AWG deniers begin to fry along with the rest of us and will then become so unpopular that they won't even want to hear themselves, much less each other. Science requires experimentation and as usual so does evolution, its called natural selection. Everyone will have a ringside seat.
If I had to make a wager, in 5-10 years it will have already become so unbearably hot and the weather so unstable as to disrupt ecosystems sufficiently that the deniers will be seeking shelter along with everyone else.
Hitler was a 'far-left' socialist in terms of his social policy, he nationalized everything. In terms of his over all government policy and control of people he was indeed a fascist though. But he was by far more a socialist than anything, he just didn't like the ideas of communism as much and started his own religion(nazism).
Om, nomnomnom...
All those countries where the politicians or religious leaders mucked around with science are still there. I think the risk was overblown.
Meanwhile, look at Atlantis, where scientists were given free reign. See what happened there?
In other words, you're a sociopath that doesn't object to science providing it does not require you to actually do anything.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
This happened with Cholera! Read about how cholera's transmission was discovered. The british government at the time denied the science for decades before anything was put in place to stop hundreds/thousands of people from dying.
"John Snow and the Broad Street Pump" don't have the link sorry.
Politics, inertia, is definitely an enemy (if not always intentionally) of science.
-
Of course America turns from science, because America is based from greed and profit by any means necessary, that includes ignoring science if there's enough of a financial incentive to do so.
Get real.
Your regime prefers you to be subservient/defenseless.
Casteism
I think the real problem is politics. Special interests lead to some very stupid political decisions based on the "this is going to save the planet" meme. Ethanol made from food as a fuel comes to mind. People claiming to be environmentalists commit terrorism, criminal acts, and run scams for personal profit. Many "researchers" start out with their results already decided for economic reasons. A lowering of ethical standards in exchange for wealth or power. I don't advocate religion of any kind but I care about my family, community, country and fellow human beings so I believe it is wrong to harm them for profit. Do science honestly, report results honestly and keep it as far away from politicians as possible.There is no "good" political party.
JoeR
Sorry to disappoint you but I fully support nuclear power. I would still support it even if there was no AGW though.
Sounds like you're a long way from an ozone hole, and a short way from a smog basin.
Talking about religion or politics in a masonic lodge is one of the few things that will get you kicked out of the fraternity without process. The separation of church and state there is very strict, and they keep it that way because those topics are so inherently divisive. Many of the founding fathers were masons so it makes sense they would have transferred that organizational wisdom to the constitution of the US.
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
The problem with your dialogue is the underlying premise is wrong. There is nothing in Christianity that forbids or blocks science. Quite to the contrary, as good Stewards, Christians are called to reach out and forward. (And have, we just don't go around shouting “Eureka I have found it, and by the way I am a Christian”)
You can point out the ‘Dark ages’ of the faith, but my pointing out the ‘Dark ages’ of other systems would be akin to shooting fish in a barrel.
Sorry you are so disgruntled about something faith based, but try to stay logical.
Perhaps you are referring to other Countries in the world where their faith has them stoning, maiming and removing peoples heads.
To be human is to be weak and flawed. Christians are called to acknowledge this and strive to become better than this. It would seem others simple acknowledge and make excuses for the condition.
"The problem occurs when people start making policy based on fear. "
You mean like when we have to invade Iraq because we don't want the "smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud"?
People do all sorts of things out of fear, creating religion because of a fear of death is one of them. You are, however, right problems do come from it and this is precisely why we need to exercise what little reasoning skills we have to avoid it and precisely why we need to recognize that climate change is now primarily human induced and with 7 billion people on the planet pumping more and more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere it only stands TO REASON that we need to begin to do something about it lest we all soon get very uncomfortably warm and in a few hundreds years time make it almost impossible to find something to eat.
"The climate is always changing, but human activities might be making it change faster, or to a greater extent, than plants or animals (including humans) can adapt without severe stress or hardship."
When one recognizes that the global mean temperature is rising about 100 times faster than at any point in earth history it becomes evident that human extinction is a very real possibility. For the slow, this recognition will take longer.
I will have to read this book; I want to see his methods and analysis section. It's hard to believe that the entrance of evangelicals into politics and their influence is not largely responsible for the rejection of global warming. You have only to consult a political map and a map of denierland to see that where evangelicals have power is the same territory as denierland.
Furthermore, the basic message of evangelicals - that "man's knowledge" is limited and wrong but what appears in the bible written in the Bronze Age by people who had a only pre-scientific understanding of the world available to them is right, directly prepares the ground for denial on ANY scientific matter whatsoever.
There's a direct line to be drawn from the anti-evolution and the "young earth" hypothesis.. err sorry that's "young earth certainty" and the rejection of science generally including the science behind AGW, a rejection with the capacity to deconstruct the basis of civilization despite who changes their minds about what later on or what anyone living through it wants to do about it then.
Sure, libertarian psychopaths like the Koch Brothers and the sociopaths who helped Philip Morris murder hundreds of millions of people (and yet they walk free) are behind the tactics and methods of the denier movement,
http://motherjones.com/blue-marble/2011/09/chart-climate-change-spin-cycle
and yes they're funding it also, but it couldn't carry the day if it were not for the millions of evangelicals and the much smaller number of sick dominionists who believe in creationism and self serving narcissistic theories like "the prosperity gospel" (god wants you to be rich!) etc. etc.
This culture of scientific rejectionism is a clear and present danger to the national security of the United States of America and needs to be dealt with like the clear and present danger that it is.
Under what other lethal threat to not just the US's but to civilization itself, would we just stand by and do nothing? Would we do that if al Queda where in control of US politicians and a significant swath of the voting electorate?
The consequences for some events are so bad their eventuality has the power to re-write the rules of engagement, or more precisely, cause society to invoke and apply the existing rules of engagement in a manner which, while legal most people naturally find odious. But the Constitution is not a suicide pact, and it does provide the President - and by implication the direct action of the national security apparatus to its full effect under the Presidents' command - with the power to defend the nation against all enemies foreign and domestic.
Denierism is domestic terrorism in both intent- conspiracy:
http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/294714-1
and in effect-
http://global-warning.org/main/intelligence/
hundreds of millions dead and starving, billions homeless and wandering across borders, international chaos and lawlessness orders of magnitude larger than we have now, civil strife tending toward national disintegration and economic collapse.
It is an imminent threat to the national security of the United States of America and I call on the President of the United States to take ALL necessary measures to counter, undermine, disable, disband and otherwise stop the collective action of this group of American domestic terrorists using whatsoever force he deems necessary.... and may god have mercy on their souls.
You obviously don't study much biology do you? Do you have any idea of how rapidly ecosystems are now changing in response to global warming and that given the current pace of change, virtually every ecosystem on the planet will shift to an entirely new one within 300 years? Do you have any idea what will grow in Texas as the ecosystem shifts from one of grasslands to a far hotter and much more arid one like that of the central Sahara?
"Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite."
Yes we should be alert. However, if anti-science thinking like yours permeates the American body politic you can be absolutely sure that that "scientific-technological elite" will be Chinese and European. Keep in mind during the time you are referring to the US has gone from first in science and mathematics education to 29th. If you think your hardy, independent band of scientific tinkerers each huddled in his garage is going to win the race for scientific and technological superiority your future is about as delusional as your ideology.
Your quote of Asimov summarizes the problem extremely well. Thank you for bring clarity to the issue. Hopefully, others might reflect and learn from your post.
For a given function, at an inflection point there is no change at all. The slope is zero. You are confusing the first and second derivatives.
"Restructuring our economy" and "total overhaul" are not synonyms.
If you were a tribal leaders 1000 years ago, what would be the easiest way to control your people who may be spread out and without police or jails?
An all knowing, all seeing god that will punish you if you do any of these things.
It makes perfect sense for the time and level of communication.
Actually I've done coursework in graduate-level ecology and climatology. Your statement doesn't really make sense; I was talking about an economic issue, you're just talking about the scope of change.
"but any discussion of "anti-science" shouldn't be taking sides else it falls into the trap it purports to study."
The point that Otto seems to be making is that ultimately, whatever the science, it has a political dimension since science by its very nature is about unlocking the mystery and unexpected within things we had previously "thought" we understood. It does not lie within a single cycle of the application of the scientific method, but it does begin to "creep into" how and in which subsequent directions further experimentation manifests itself. Consequently, as is the case for all human activity, humans, whether they are scientists or not, have no choice but to take sides and live with the consequences. Its not something from which we can escape. Humans will face natural selection as a result of these consequences whether one "believes" it or not. This is what distinguishes Darwinian "[Scientific] Theory" from a mere hypothesis. At least with science, one has the perhaps vain hope that it will have been the "wisest" choice that could have possibly been made at the time and by "wisest" I mean providing the opportunity to try another experiment and extend knowledge further.
Otto's book is a bit slow in parts and does tend to focus on only a few contemporary anti-science issues, however it is interesting reading and does make a number of points well. I haven't quite reached the end yet, but expect to be disappointed by the lack of a more detailed look into the neurophysiology of political decision making. There are hints of this in the book, but so far (as of page 221) only hints. Ultimately, it will be this knowledge, understood at a molecular level from which hope might yet spring. Whether the implementation of the fruits of such research comes soon enough to prevent what will almost certainly be a planetary climatic disaster remains to be seen, but again one can only hope and try to support the science as best as one can.
As for those scientific abstractions having no relevancy to world affairs, just reflect on the effect of the use of the Blacks-Shoals models for computing the risk of derivatives in the most recent collapse of the world economy. Differential equations are funny and highly unpredictable things. Simply because one chooses the wrong parameters hardly makes them irrelevant to mankind's fate.
Not only were they cleared of any malfeasance by the numerous investigations, but those of us who read complaints about the emails were amused at the conclusions of the accusers.
And also dismayed, since this represents nothing more than people like yourself whose previously existing knowledge about how science gets done, about the behaviour of scientists and especially the subject matter of this science was essentially "none" nevertheless imposing yourself and your opinion into the business of how science should be conducted and how results should be interpreted and what should qualify as a valid scientific study.
So to make sure it's perfectly clear, the same people who decry the imposition of regulation for the public good upon industry by governmental experts fully qualified in the intricacies of those industries they regulate now declare themselves to be subject matter experts in climate change and seek to impose themselves, Stalin-over-genetics-like, over a field of science the price of earning legitimate authority to which is decades of hard work, none of which you've done.
The rebuttal to the purely stupid assertions of dishonesty lies with a fundamental misunderstanding of the idiosyncratic ways scientists use terms like "hide" and "trick" amongst themselves and is well documented here for anyone seriously interested in the truth of the matter:
http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/science_and_impacts/global_warming_contrarians/debunking-misinformation-stolen-emails-climategate.html#University_of_East_Anglia_Climatic_Resea
The point I want to make here and now is that someone needs to tell you to your face, and to you individually and specifically, that you're an idiot.
In fact, you're the worst kind of idiot history has to offer- the idiot who gets himself worked up into a froth and goes torch in hand, door to door, looking for the "the enemy" .
This gets you high. It fills you with a level of excitement and meaning and purpose which is otherwise absent from your dreary little life of Hannity watching and beers.
You need this the way a meth addict needs his next score. It lights up what passes for your brain in a way that nothing else does - getting ginned up against scientists and the left and the global warming conspiracy.
You're exactly the 21st century counterpart to the average, broke, angry, stupid, manipulated German going to a Hitler rally and letting himself become apoplectic over the conspiracies of the Jews and how the Jews are lying to Germany and how they're destroying Germany and how they're plotting to take over the world.
Or as your kind is wont to refer to it these days, it, Agenda 21. http://www.freedomadvocates.org/
This is the role you've chosen for yourself on this earth- that of a buffoon, one of the millions who get behind some misbegotten idea and bring only ruin to themselves, their nation, their families and everyone forced into action to counter them.
That is your historical context; that is what you actually are.
"Restructuring our economy" and "total overhaul" are not synonyms.
They are in this context. Unless you think you can provide some quantitative comparison.
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
Strange, the original article only mentions religion in a single sentence, to caution that it's only one of many contributing factors. Yet the ill-informed, hating first poster goes on and on about religion. Huh? "It's all the fault of religion". Totally unrelated to the article. Not related to any real issues that have been in the news lately. (Unless you assume everyone who is a skeptic of catastrophic anthropogenic global warming is so because they are "religious".) Totally ignorant of philosophy, history, and probably has never actually done science themselves.
The two actual factors we have to address are: 1) decades of emphasizing self-esteem rather than learning, and 2) the Wall-street-ization of our jobs. US students are very confident that they're "good at math", but in fact are not, and we're busy churning out business students and many of our students who actually are mathematically talented spend their lives inventing increasingly dangerous financial derivatives.
So long as the government tries to meddle in our lives and our choices by pointing to scientific theories that seemingly justify their actions, some of us are going to resist believing in those theories.
So what you're saying is there cannot exist any set of facts arrived at through the scientific method which could, even in theory, give a democratically elected government such as our own the authority to act for the purpose of avoiding an imminent mortal threat to the nation indicated by those scientific facts.
Because that's all we have here. Will it effect your life? So what if it does. The alternative is orders of magnitude worse. Or so says science.
BTW. The whole idea that the reason people don't get up in arms over physics theories is because they don't result in "policies being shoved down our throats" is laughable on the face of it since it was the government's acceptance of a specific interpretation of a series of results in physics which produced the Manhattan Project and the bomb.
This event single-handedly determined for decades nearly every aspect of not just our foreign policy but also domestic taxation and expenditures for defense and was the strategic justification for not one but three wars- counting Iraq- costing trillions of dollars and hundreds of thousand dead and wounded American causalities, not to mention innumerable other covert and diplomatic actions around the world and here at home.
Perhaps FDR and Truman should have left it up to whatever popular misunderstanding and distortions of the complicated underlying physical theories the scientifically illiterate know-nothings could generate circa 1942 before deciding to green light the Manhattan Project.
Hell, perhaps we should put all scientific knowledge up to a vote before we act on it and see what the FoxNews and Agenda 21 paranoid conspiracy crowd makes of it before we act, totally irrespective of danger what percentage of qualified scientists are emphatically and unequivocally stating we're in.
If we had listened to you, it's possible we'd all be doing the ole Sig Heil about this time.
No thanks. If it comes down to it, if they force the decisions upon us, then I'd rather they interred Americans in camps before they ignore scientists. It made sense during WWII to inter the Japanese because we had no way of knowing who might do what, sorry to say, and it makes sense now to do whatever it is we need to do in order to effect the changes the scientists are saying we absolutely must effect.
The reason people didn't get up in arms over the Manhattan Project is only because no one gave them any choice in the matter and that's a Good Thing. FDR and "give-em-hell" Harry Truman did what they needed to do to secure the national security of the United States of America and they didn't take a fucking vote it at every turn. They acted, and based their actions on science and what scientists were telling them.
It's some sort of namby pamby relativism that has infected the society and the right wing especially where by they think their entitled to not just their opinions but, their own set of facts about reality.
Their idea is - "you have THIS opinion and I have THAT opinion and they're all equally valid."
They're not all equally valid. Some opinions are better than others by dint of having been arrived at by the most rigorous process of falsity detection and rejection mankind has ever created, the scientific method.
The survival of any society is threatened by the ravings of its lunatic fringe and the government should proceed based on the best judgement of the collective opinion of sober, mainstream experts who are fully qualified in the relevant subject matter.
If you want to stop the US from building the bomb or taking action against AGW, then be prepared to be treated like the enemy of the United States you've turned yourself into.
There aren't any theories based on loose conjecture. Ideas can be based on loose conjecture, but experimental confirmation is what turns those ideas into theories (or fails to do so).
But aren't all your worldly senses, the experiments which confirm evolution, the lack of observations to suggest its inaccuracy, Ceasar's? For example, by the late 1880s, would not a follower of "render to Ceasar that which is Caesar's" been allowed to doubt Newtonian mechanics, as failed to accurately predict what people were measuring with their worldly senses? Faith didn't really require rejection of Einstein's 1905 work, did it?
Technology which results in instruments which can measure things with greater accuracy, and insights which reveal ways to run experiments that were previously not thought viable, keep moving the line which distinguishes between what is "of this world," and what isn't.
There was a time, over a century and a half ago, when if someone had suggested evolution, it would have been merely a neat idea, and rejecting it would not have outed anyone as being anti-science. It was a question of faith and opinion. But then someone came up with a theory to check it against the world. The line between worldly and un-worldly knowledge moved, just like it did for Galileo.
To say evolution is on less solid ground than, say, relativity and quantum mechanics, is to reject observation, the modeling observation inspires, and the experiments which confirm or destroy the models. That's a rejection of science.
Being anti-science is ok. There's nothing necessarily stupid or dishonorable about saying "evolution hasn't happened," as long as you hold that what we see isn't real, or say that in real life things don't work consistently so it's foolish to try to model them, or adopt other mystic ways to reject the inferences that science draws.
But to reject science and also say you're not anti-science -- don't you see how everyone will think you're either being dishonest or clueless? (You say you don't mind that people think that, and presumably you think of yourself as not dishonest or clueless, but you do at least see why everyone would (mistakenly?) think that, right?) Why can't evolution deniers embrace their anti-science? What the hell is so important about science, that lip-service must be paid even if you're totally and absolutely convinced that science is wrong?
Does "give to Caesar what is Caesar's" require accepting science? If it does, then why don't mystics really do it? And if it doesn't, then why can't mystics just let science go? There's gotta be a better way than pretending ignorance of the evidence, or lying about it. Getting along just can't be this hard.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
How about just logic classes?
"this really heavy metal which gets really hot when you put a bunch of it together"
70000 Tons of Metal?
A bunch of metal bands playing for 4 days on a cruise ship out of Miami. Seriously sizzling.
Give me one the most "impressive" and "obvious" "absurdity" from that list and we will talk on one item, because I do not have time to discuss all the points.
How about starting with these:
15:19 "And the earth - We have spread it and cast therein firmly set mountains and caused to grow therein [something] of every well-balanced thing." The earth is flat? How can a omniscient allah ignore that earth is spherical? same in 50:7
21:33 "And it is He who created the night and the day and the sun and the moon; all [heavenly bodies] in an orbit are swimming."? The sun & moon orbiting the earth?
In concordance, then we get 27:61 "Is He [not best] who made the earth a stable ground and placed within it rivers and made for it firmly set mountains and placed between the two seas a barrier? Is there a deity with Allah ? [No], but most of them do not know." Earth doesn't move?
Here is MORE MATERIAL http://www.islam-watch.org/Others/Muslims-Science-in-the-Quran-Fantasy.htm
Yeah well you caught my typos.. you're good for something anyway.
and likewise its relatively trivial to demonstrate that global warming is occurring. One only has to look at the fact that nearly every single glacier on the planet is receding. Exactly how do you propose to explain this if either its getting colder or the temperature is remaining the same? Keep in mind that there are no measured changes within the ranges of what we know with respect to the solar cycle that are of sufficient magnitude to suggest that any change in solar radiance could be a causal factor?
Indeed, this is the burning question those who seem to think global warming is not occurring seem to go to great lengths to hide from explaining.
However, to the contrary, science has known since 1896 that carbon dioxide can and does create a greenhouse effect and can and does cause global warming.
15:19 does not mean that Earth is flat.
21:33 The sun and moon are orbiting the earth.
That's true. Have you heard of system of reference? Inertial and what not?
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
You are confusing the first and second derivatives.
Wow, I have to respond with something I thought I would never respond with. No, you are! Inflection point is the point where the 2nd derivative is 0. The assertion in gp stands.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
Some Christians have no problem with evolution. Even evangelical Christians. They simply understand that, throughout history, absolutely NOBODY has gotten Biblical interpretation correct when it comes to understanding the natural world through the lens of the Bible. Why should they believe that a group of creationists has gotten it right now?
Unfortunately, we evangelicals who "get" this are a very, very small minority within evangelical Christian circles.
Do you know that before the 1900s, almost no Christians believed in young-earth creationism and flood geology -- except for 7th Day Aventists? William Jennings Brian, of the famous Scopes Monkey Trial, certainly didn't hold this point of view. The modern "creation science" movement, along with flood geology, stems directly from the 7th Day Adventist church in the mid-1850s. Fundamentalist Christians picked up these 7th Day Adventist ideas not on their own merits, but because they were fighting a general erosion in Christians' belief in the Bible during the early 1900s. Don't believe me? Read "Searching for Truth with a Broken Flashlight" by Michael Hawley. Or any number of other books that are referenced on the site below.
http://truecreation.info/
The only reason that you think that "the Bible says this" and "the Bible says that" with regard to SCIENCE is that you have been socialized to think that way, with ideas that have been generated for you. I'm sorry to be so blunt about this, but it's in your best interest to do some serious research to understand why you believe what you believe regarding the currently in-vogue evangelical interpretation of Genesis chapters 1 and 2.
And again, I'm sorry to be so blunt, but you have no idea what science is. Science does not require faith. Science is an analytical method. You can use the scientific method to examine evidence and draw conclusions. As an individual, you can personally either accept or not accept those conclusions. But when TENS OF THOUSANDS of scientists over the past 150 years, in fields ranging from chemistry, nuclear physics (for radiometric dating), and numerous sub-fields of biology who PRACTICE THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD all reach the same conclusion regarding evolution -- REGARDLESS of their own varying faiths and political temperaments, you better understand that they have arrived at a truth.
What you need to get into your head is: the truth they have arrived at, in no way conflicts with the Bible. Again, I'll ask you to read the site referenced above.
While people alive today might be willing to believe the United States is all about claiming some religious basis, it was founded under progressive, pro-science Enlightenment Era philosophies. Many of the framers were known Deists who epistemologically demonstrated they felt mentioning God was a means of managing a moral base as the ideas of Rights v Powers had yet to make it clear that what many would claim as moral is often nothing more than a protection and clear definition of Rights.
Had Communism never been founded on pushing away the position or right to religion, the United States would not have undergone the near bizarre shift from which it will likely not recover. While people may insist it was our claim to religion that won the Cold War, it was really openness to cultures and development of the Sciences. For the fictional golden age of Jesus everywhere (as the personal interpretations would solidify, especially ex post facto), the reality is easily as obtainable from the media of the time: Nuclear development, computing advancements, rocketry and astrophysics, industrialized mass transit, affordable access to Universities, intensive educational programs from Middle School on, focusing on Science and Math.
When people seeking the fictional golden age just want to see a near Theocratic America, they forgot the advancements made by the Technocratic Americans. Proto-scientists founded the United States. Modern scientists won its political, economic and social contests. If you were an absolute ruler of a new nation, theocracy only wins you some supporters...nuclear weapons give you a seat at the big boy table.
"Yeah...it was the numbers that were irrational, not the murderous cult of vegetarians...." -- Hippasus of Metapontum
15:19 does not mean that Earth is flat.
21:33 The sun and moon are orbiting the earth.
That's true. Have you heard of system of reference? Inertial and what not?
System of reference? A PHd in physics can't get a better excuse? The ones awarding your PHD should be sued. How do you explain Aristarchus having it clear that Earth was not the center of the Universe and Allah not? How come Eratosthenes even had estimated the diameter of Earth with awesome accuracy and Quran shows ZERO scientific foreknowledge, having the same stupid scientific flaws that ignotaant people of such time had? Please honor your PHD and answer DIRECTLY and with CRITICAL THINKING.
Allah tells us what we need to know. Qur'an is not a science book. It's a book of guidance. For 99% of all practical purposes earth-centric system of reference is what is needed. We say sunset and sunrise, not "earth rotating from/to darkness to/from sunlight".
You started from the things you found in Quran and found questionable (never mind they are from somebody else's site - "critical" thinking my butt), when I gave you very simple explanation, now you are complaining about things you DON'T find in Quran.
BTW, the Greeks you mentioned had many other theories, none of which became dominant and revolutionary in their times because the scientific method did not exist at that time as an established paradigm of thought.
If you are going to continue insulting my faith by using terms "stupid", "ignorant" and "crappy", please, let the parent comment be the last one, I am not going to answer any of your questions anymore.
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
Allah tells us what we need to know. Qur'an is not a science book. It's a book of guidance. For 99% of all practical purposes earth-centric system of reference is what is needed. We say sunset and sunrise, not "earth rotating from/to darkness to/from sunlight".
You started from the things you found in Quran and found questionable (never mind they are from somebody else's site - "critical" thinking my butt), when I gave you very simple explanation, now you are complaining about things you DON'T find in Quran.
BTW, the Greeks you mentioned had many other theories, none of which became dominant and revolutionary in their times because the scientific method did not exist at that time as an established paradigm of thought.
If you are going to continue insulting my faith by using terms "stupid", "ignorant" and "crappy", please, let the parent comment be the last one, I am not going to answer any of your questions anymore.
Because religion has no basis at all. What evidence do Allah would have, to be more believable tan fairies? Show me one VERIFIABLE evidence please. Why not keeping it quiet instead of dictating nosense like such stupid pseudocientific assertions? How about sexism? Do you agree to consider women inferior? How can a rational person be muslim, when you know that? EXPLAIN PLEASE.
No. No. No.
The subject of the topic was "scientific wrongs" in the Quran. Admit that you lost, and we will continue.
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.