The Problem With Congress's Scientific Illiterates

Lasrick (2629253) writes "Brian Merchant at Motherboard examines the March 26th House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology's 2015 budget request hearing. White House adviser Dr. John Holdren addressed the committee to defend funding for science programs. Video clips show comments that are difficult to believe, when you hear them. From the article: '"So, when you guys do your research, you start with a scientific—what do they call it—postulate or theory, and you work from that direction forward, is that right?" Representative Randy Weber (R-TX) said. "So, I'm just wondering how that related, for example, to global warming and eventual global cooling." He paused to make a joke about getting the scientists' cell phone number so he could call to ask when to buy a coat, before concluding that science just isn't up to the task.'"

Comments

Don't bother.

[Petersko]

All you can do with somebody like that is just look them over, wince, be perplexed for a moment, and then move on. They aren't interested, nor would they listen to any attempt to aid their understanding.

It's not a winnable battle, so don't start the fight.

Re:Don't bother.

[Berkyjay]

And this is why we fail. We get so defeated by ignorant politicians and just throw up our hands and say "what can you do?" But we get the government we deserve and most of this country is horribly undereducated and ignorant of how the world actually works.

Re:Don't bother.

[JohnVanVliet]

"All you can do with somebody like that is"
is to do EVERYTHING possible to have them removed from office ASAP!!!!

Re:Don't bother.

[MickyTheIdiot]

I think you're maybe half right.

We have a little less than half of the people that throw up their hands and give up because it is just so dumb.

We have another group at a little less than half that are so worn out with work, the 3 kids society said they should have, the junk they spend their money on, etc.. etc.. that they don't have the time to pay attention.

So you have 2% that are pissed off that our leadership is dumb as hell and are willing to fight the idiocy. And that's not enough.

Re:Don't bother.

[lonOtter]

It's not even that they're tired, or that they give up. It's that most people are apathetic and unintelligent, all in one convenient package.

Re:Don't bother.

[Jason Levine]

The problem is that these people aren't just ignorant. People who are ignorant can be educated and then they're fine. These people are willfully ignorant. They are purposefully ignorant. They take pride in their ignorance and will do everything in their power to stay ignorant. Trying to educate these people is a losing proposition because they won't listen no matter what you say or how much proof you show them.

It would be tolerable if these people were just conspiracy nuts ala the "moon landing were faked" folks. We could laugh at them and move on with our lives. These people, however, are in seats of power in the government and are making big decisions about scientific funding. Again, perhaps we could laugh at them if we knew that the educated populace would toss the ignorant politicians when the next election rolled around. Unfortunately, the purposefully ignorant politicians are representing purposefully ignorant people who keep voting them in and who actively oppose educated politicians. To make matters worse, the willfully ignorant politicians gerrymander their districts so that it is nearly impossible to get them voted out of office. They might be purposefully ignorant about science but they are very intelligent about how politics works - a very dangerous combination.

You can't reason with these people. You can oppose them, but it can be very frustrating when you are derided for wanting someone who is educated to make these decisions instead of someone who thinks God *poofed* everything into existence 10,000 years ago as proved incontrovertibly by a book that they take literally. In the end, I can understand why some people throw their arms up in frustration.

Re:Don't bother.

[Jason Levine]

There's also the group that see idiocy all around and, knowing they can't fight it all, fight some battles and toss their arms up on others.

For example, my wife and I are fighting against EngageNY, Common Core, and the high-stakes testing that New York State has implemented. Without going too much into it (since it is off-topic), let's just summarize to say that New York's Board of Education is highly corrupt and this was rushed into to benefit politicians and funnel money to corporations, not students or teachers. In fact, it is actively hurting students. So we're fighting this fight.

Unfortunately, we can't fight every fight. I doubt anyone could. Even if you were single, with no kids, and were able to fight these fights every day, I doubt you would be able to battle all of them. At some point, you need to pick and choose and people are more likely to pick the battles that affect them immediately (schools) and less likely to pick battles that might affect them later on (science funding). This isn't to say that science isn't important - I definitely think it is, but you can't fight all the fights all the time.

Before you judge someone for throwing up their arms in frustration at this instead of fighting, take a closer look and see what other battles they're fighting.

Re:Don't bother.

[flaming error]

This is about science in general, not AGW in particular.

But if you want to make it about AGW, the science is not based on surveys, nor is it based on computer models.

It is based on old school physics that's been developing over centuries.

CO2 is a greenhouse gas. Not the most potent, but the primary driver.

Since the industrial revolution began,
a) Atmospheric CO2 has gone from 280 ppm to 400 ppm (40% increase)
b) ocean pH has gone down 0.1 (30% increase in acidity).

What each upcoming season's weather will be we aren't sure.

But we are sure our changes to the atmosphere are warming the planet, acidifying and enlarging the oceans, and displacing and killing living things.

All your denialist microquibbles, character assassinations, and FUD are red herrings.

The core science is not in dispute. It is accepted by every established scientific association on the planet, for every branch of science.

It's basically accepted by everyone except one political faction in one scientifically illiterate country.

Re:Don't bother.

[meerling]

Considering the positions of power and influence those fools hold, your statement is pretty much the equivalent of being somewhere lost at sea with a navigator that won't let anyone else navigate despite the fact that he has no idea how to do it, and thinks the compass is some kind of fancy combination lock on a secret stash of fairy dust. The idiots are going to sink the F-N ship and there are NO LIFEBOATS !

It's generally considered unwise to ignore the creep with the gun to your head, no matter how stupid and irrational he is.

Re:Don't bother.

[al0ha]

>> most of this country is horribly undereducated and ignorant of how the world actually works.

Yep and that is part of the cloaked Right Wing agenda that is turning the US into an oligarchy. Every politician since time imemorial has stated education is their top priority, but the facts of the state of the educational system in America proves they are liars, every one of them. Now the worst of the Bush II Presidency has just been revealed with the latest Supreme Court ruling on money in politics.

In the government and in politics it's far worse than simple ignorance of scientific fact, there is active anti-truth campaigns funded by big money Super PACs. Now with the recent Supreme Court folly the Tea Party and other scientific denier whackos will have even more Super PAC money to continue their dirty work in the name of the 1%.

Our only hope to continue as a true Democracy is to figure out how to use the Internet to get money out of politics completely. That is what every brilliant mind should be working towards if we want any hope for the future generations.

Re:Don't bother.

[flaming error]

" I can keep shooting you down all day"
Perhaps you could. Shoot down Stephen Hawking and Neil deGrasse Tyson, and I'll join your team.

Re:Don't bother.

[msobkow]

Possibly because, given the nature of the committee, and the presumption that people appointed to it would have at least some vague idea about the subject matter, the politician's questions was akin to your mechanic asking you where to put the key in your car. :P

Re:Don't bother.

[umafuckit]

It would be tolerable if these people were just conspiracy nuts ala the "moon landing were faked" folks. We could laugh at them and move on with our lives. These people, however, are in seats of power in the government and are making big decisions about scientific funding.

And they're there because they were voted in by people who sympathise with these views. We get the government we deserve because, as a nation, the bulk of the US is scientifically illiterate. There will continue to be illiterates in power as long as the people are illiterate. Somehow we need to find a way to promote science as a way of thinking and do so without hurting the feelings of the religious right.

Re:Don't bother.

[Anonymous Coward]

How was this list generated? I took a quick look at a couple of the more recent papers toward the end. This paper, "The Pacic sea surface temperature,
Physics Letters A, Volume 376, Issue 2, pp. 128-135, December 2011, doesn't mention AGW at all. And this one, "Hydroclimate of the northeastern United States is highly sensitive to solar forcing, Geophysical Research Letters, Volume 39, February 2012, has an implicit acceptance of "anthropogenic greenhouse gas forcing" in the final sentence.

Re:Don't bother.

[pla]

Are all the childless people really making more of a difference? I didn't know that clubbing, going to the movies, and trying to get laid really was that effective at motivating political reform!

We also vote, and have the disposable income (that in your case goes to crap like paying for all those antibiotics you keep ruining as placebos to treat viral ear infections) to contribute to our preferred candidates. And hey, the USSC actually just raised we mere humans to the level of corporations as far as "money as free speech" goes!

That said, let's not get sidetracked by the breeder-vs-DINK arguments. We have one very simple, fundamental problem with getting scientifically-literate people in office:

None run.

We have, as a nearly unanimous pool of candidates, complete fucking morons (with nice hair, oh and "ironically" enough, a median net worth in the eight digits). So whether we vote for Tweedle-dee (D) or Tweedle-dum (R), we still all lose.

Re:Don't bother.

[SuperTechnoNerd]

People think that politicians on committees are by default, advocates of what that committee represents, in this case science. However in government, it is a powerful tactic to form a committee with the sole purpose to subvert, control, or even destroy that which it supposed to support and represent. What better way to change something that you don't like than to be in a position of making important decisions about that thing. There is a calculated reason why there are no scientists on such committees. That explains why they make no attempt to even have a high school level of understanding about science and it's methods. Because it's not about the science to them - it's about control. They already have their opinions formed and the rest is just window dressing. As you said they are very intelligent about how politics works. Why else would people so out of touch with science, who even hate it, want to be on a science committee if not to throw a wrench into the works and control it, and to use it to support their political (and religious) agenda.

Re:Don't bother.

[Anonymous Coward]

Holy shit. Oh yes, let's not argue with Science Guy here who shows REAL EVIDENCE that because heating in a box appropriate for a fucking real greenhouse, you know, with plants and shit, seems to be dominated by convective heat transfer, that this THOROUGHLY DISCREDITS the whole fucking fields of observational and theoretical chemistry, and THOROUGHLY DISCREDITS real fucking measurements of in-welling and out-welling radiation measurements. Oh my fucking God, are you that fucking stupid, or that fucking arrogant that you actually believe that you understand this shit? You know (well, YOU probably don't know) that we've sent stuff up into space, measured the amount of radiation coming down onto the earth, measured the radiation that makes it to the earth's surface, and measured the radiation that leaves the earth, and you know what?? It all can't be explained by some fucking air-filled cardboard boxes with plastic film stretched on them. Imagine that!

There is nothing wrong with not understanding something, but do yourself a favor and don't try to sound like you understand something when it is clear you have no fucking clue what you're talking about. Parroting technical shit to browbeat someone who doesn't understand something is bad enough, but don't try it on someone who actually understands basic physics and chemistry and expect to not be held in ridicule. The link you provide looks like a nice experiment that seems to have been well thought out and executed. I could even offer some opinions on the way it was done, how it could be improved, and the conclusions drawn (exercise for the student: look up the transmission spectra of CO2 and silica windows and polyethylene, and look up the emission spectrum of CO2 and see if you can find one issue to be addressed). But then to take that and run with it because it THOROUGLY DISCREDITS the whole concept of what is referred to colloquially as "greenhouse gases" makes you sound like a complete fucking tool who can parrot all that great "science" and "facts" and shit from other dumbasses with blogs.

And another thing, your list of refereed papers is pathetic. What is the point, besides AGAIN trying to overwhelm the unaware with a long list of references. Big fucking deal. I read papers like that, so I looked a bit through your papers. First off, a list of random references is completely meaningless if you don't provide context. What is the fucking context here? Why were any of these papers put on this list, because most of them you can't tell from their titles. So let's look at a few of these papers: The Knorr paper, where he says "I expect atmospheric concentrations to have increased, but my modeling suggests it has been relatively flat. We need to understand this better." HOLY SHIT! Tear down the walls! What is the point of this paper on your list? This sounds like a real science paper, not some shocking expose that the emperor has no clothes. Oh, here is one from Iron and Steel Technology. As fine a journal I'm sure that is, I'll think I'll look to another source for climate science related issues rather than one that uses the term "alarmist" so frequently. How about the 2009 Essenhigh paper? Oh, look, as I was googling for it, one of my first links came up with a paper that points out that Essenhigh is repeating a common misconception (and the author thanks Essenhigh for useful comments on his paper to boot). Or how about that 2001 Essenhigh editorial, yes, editorial (even in peer-reviewed papers, editorials don't follow the peer review process).

Look, learn some basic science, look at the research going on, get involved (intelligently) in the discussions, and leave your pathetic armchair science distortions with the bozos on the radio where you get your other opinions.

Re:Don't bother.

[artor3]

Somehow we need to find a way to promote science as a way of thinking and do so without hurting the feelings of the religious right.

No, see, that's the problem. You're aiming at the wrong group. These congressmen aren't ignorant because they're religious. They're ignorant because certain entrenched interests pay them ENORMOUS SUMS OF MONEY to remain ignorant. You can never, ever compete with that. No education, no promotion of science, will ever make a dent.

If you want it to get better, you need to get serious campaign finance reform. And that can't happen until you get rid of the current SCOTUS. Which means that our one and only chance to fix this is in the next presidential election, since the winner might, maybe get to replace a conservative justice. If we get a Republican president, Scalia and Kennedy will retire, and we will be damned to another 20 years of oligarchy.

If we manage to get a Democratic president, Scalia and Kennedy will try to hold on as long as they can.

Absolute best case scenario (barring a miracle heart attack), we might be able to start fixing this around 2025.

It will probably be too late by then.

Re:Don't bother.

[Electricity Likes Me]

Pro-tip: to someone else, so are you.

The reality is people are really stupid when they go outside their field of expertise. Some people have a lot fewer of these then others.

Re:Don't bother.

[lonOtter]

Pro-tip: to someone else, so are you.

And? To some ignorant person, Einstein might seem stupid. Someone's going to be wrong. The mere fact that someone else might deem me unintelligent is not something that makes my observations incorrect.

The reality is people are really stupid when they go outside their field of expertise.

It's not just that they're ignorant; they're unintelligent and have almost zero critical thinking skills. Examples of this are people who buy into the "Nothing to hide, nothing to fear" nonsense, accept the TSA or NSA surveillance, keep voting for 'the lesser of two evils', or do any other such thing, and (this is the important part) continue to support these things even after it's explained why it's a bad idea.

That and most people don't even seem to have the ability to truly understand (not just memorize) even trivial math makes it seem extremely likely that most people are unintelligent.

Re:Don't bother.

[BoberFett]

Ah yes, it's a right wing conspiracy. Nothing the left wing could be doing might be even remotely possible for damaging education in science.

"Little Bobby and Suzy are special snowflakes, they don't need to answer the questions correctly, as long as they tried we'll give them gold stars and boost their self confidence."

Pretty sure that's not a right wing attitude.

Re:Don't bother.

[sjames]

It's called learned helplessness. Put a rat in a cage and shock his feet. Provide different colored areas on the floor, lights, buzzers and levers. No matter what he does, shock his feet.

American voters are that rat.

Re:Don't bother.

[flaming error]

You seem to have the impression I conceded defeat, and that I was challenging you to next beat someone else.

My point was only that I am an anonymous layman, and if you managed to defeat me in a debate it would prove nothing. This isn't a frivolous political argument at a donut shop.

If the science is wrong prove it on scientific turf. Show NASA where they got their physics wrong, teach NOAA how the climate really works, show the field biologists where all the specimens they couldn't find are hiding.

You haven't disproven a thing. All you've discredited with your lie ("Greenhouse gas theory... has been thoroughly discredited"), esoteric microquibble (" the experimental apparatus..."), and innuendo of bias ("Fourier's conclusions about his friend's experiments") is yourself.

Re:Don't bother.

[fyngyrz]

No. The way to tell if someone is fighting is to check and see if the system has invested the effort to squash them. If not, they're having no effect, even if they *think* they're fighting.

You will not beat the establishment. Ever. It may beat itself out of sheer lumbering stupidity, with which it is copiously oversupplied, but you won't have had any hand in it. Not in the USA, in any case.

Re:Don't bother.

[DamnOregonian]

I think you are very confused about Fourier's theories on the greenhouse effect...
Fourier always knew that his friend's experiment formed a real greenhouse. His postulation was that the atmosphere, and "greenhouse gasses" within it could function to similar end, with various gasses of various levels of opaqueness to light wavelengths forming the stable barriers that the glass did.

That theory is in fact not discredited one bit. Space is the glass. It very efficiently prevents the convection of the atmosphere with the non-heat conducting void beyond. What you cited as being discredited is the theory that physical greenhouses retain their temperature because glass blocks long-wave radiation. I'm not really familiar with this theory, but it's pretty ridiculous on its face. Anyone with elementary understanding of thermodynamics can tell you that the lack of air exchange will greatly outweigh the radiative energy. But the best part is- that has *nothing* to do with the greenhouse effect. It's some kind of weird red herring straw man to distract someone from looking up what the greenhouse effect really is, and to see that you have absolutely no clue what the hell you are talking about.

The basic physics behind the greenhouse effect are so damn settled, that you have to undo our entire knowledge of the universe, relativistically, and quantum mechanically to alter them. The spectral absorption lines of various molecular gasses are *known*. Some simple thought experiments will lead you to the correct conclusion. Short-wave solar radiation hits something, say the ground. The ground absorbs it, heats up, and emits appropriate black-body radiation (long-wave). In a happy, greenhouse effect-less world, that emitted black-body radiation goes back out to space, and the Earth is a very fucking cold place. In our (thankfully obeying the laws of physics) world, a percentage of those long-wave photons hit something that is opaque to long-wave radiation on its way back out to space. Let's call this substance a greenhouse gas, since its existence will make the Earth retain heat- like a greenhouse retains heat. It is then refracted, with some of the incident photons going back to space, and some going back to the ground for re-absorption. The Earth just netted some thermal energy. It's a good deal for us, and it's entirely necessary in order for this planet not to be a spherical skating rink.

To call the "greenhouse effect" discredited is to claim that thermodynamics, relativity, and quantum mechanics are all wrong, and everything we know about heat transfer, photon absorption and emission and energy are all wrong. You must be some kind of fucking genius. I can see why you don't appeal to authority- you *are* the fucking authority.

Re:Don't bother.

[Anonymous Coward]

> Has happened at least 12 times in the last 100000 yrs?

Nope, global CO2 has never been as high as 400 ppm in the past 800,000 years at least, and it's only been this high a few times in the past 20,000,000 years.

Re:Don't bother.

[VortexCortex]

Then there are those who grew up as scientists then wondered why the scientific method wasn't used for all policy and law, then looked into the systems of governance and found them defective by design largely due to gerrymandering. That's a process whereby your votes do not matter anymore because whomever draws district outlines selects the winners (Protip: don't register as a party [they ask at the DMV] nor answer political surveys unless your population is nomadic). Some places are trying to fix this particular blatant exploit of our democratic-republic, but found the powers that be one step ahead so our vote tallies themselves have been hacked. And now that we don't have paper ballots to verify the insecure digital tally with, we might as well just ask the NSA or CIA or FBI to appoint people they like.

Speaking of which, if you apply a bit of observational power you'll discover those secret agencies answer to no one and have a long history of silencing any form of activism -- you know, because protest was the only avenue left to affect the government. It's hard for a scientist to survive mentally in a country that's hell bent on leveraging disaster capitalism regardless of public benefit: Humans will do whatever it takes to survive the disasters our government plans for us -- including compete for lower wages offered by immortal corporations.

Some of us have taken a step back, done some calculations and realized that some fights are entirely unwinnable: We've got to the point where the House Subcommittee on Energy and Environment allows a senator to read a passage from the bible and declare it as proof man can't change the climate -- only god can. Listen up, newbie, that's corporate oil interest speaking, leveraging religious fundamentalism against science from the very panels addressing climate change -- What can you do? Replace them and get a new panel bought off? It's not just congress, your executive and legislative branches are sock-puppet parades too. The government fights wars at the behest of corporations and Habeas Corpus has been revoked, FFS. It's not that everyone is stupid and we're "getting what we voted for"; The 'republic' part of our democratic-republic is designed to fix that: The dumb elect folks who are smarter, but our forefathers didn't count on the majority of congress being corrupt so the whole system became utterly broken. They did leave us the option to call an emergency session of congress and wield a vote of no-confidence, so next time you see the "fire congress" carousel go round, hop on board (not that it'll fix anything, but it'll scare some straight).

So, what? Organize some activism and try to fix the illegitimate rulership system that has benefited the powerful all too well for well over a hundred years? Then you're an "anti-government extremist" / terrorist, and the plan to silence that disastrous shit is already so firmly in place they can keep the worst of it even if PRISM is leaked to the public. To me the innefectual occupy movement was a test to see how quickly the elites and FBI will work their magic on the police to silence dissent, and to see how effectively the news is controlled by corporate statist interests. There were protesters shoulder to shoulder filling a large swath of Wall Street one day of the protest and the local news in my southern town mentioned nothing. Days later I had to pull up video and images of the event to convince my clueless friends and neighbors it even happened. They scratched their heads, "Why wasn't this on the news then?" -- indeed. Can you

Re:Don't bother.

[N1AK]

The reality is people are really stupid when they go outside their field of expertise.

No. People are uninformed about things outside their expertise. They are only stupid when they try and comment on other fields. I'm not stupid when it comes to combustion engines. If someone asked me if a V8 or V10 were better I'd say I had no clue, stupid would be going V10 on the basis that 10 sounds better and I heard of a good V10 car once. In a way it's our own fault that our representatives express uninformed opinions: the politician who regularily says "I don't know" would be judged as ignorant or stupid.

Re:Don't bother.

[TapeCutter]

More depressing clips: A guy called ClimateBrad has a large collection of clips from US politicians doing their very best to make up their own facts and rules of logic.

Up until I reached my 40's I thought people like Senator Inhofe in the US and Tony Abbot here in Oz were uneducated, stupid, or more likely both. They are none of those things, they're just plain immoral by normal western standards when it comes to honesty (even the good ones). To paraphrase Shaun Micallef - "The media is called the fourth estate but behaves like a fifth wheel", like the political system it revels in conflict and is trained in the (in)humanities. If it can't find controversy in a story then it invents some (say) by equating a "one jump away" lobbyist's press release from one of their major sponsors to a meticulous scientific report. The Iraq war and "Climategate" are both prime examples of commercial media being worse than useless in clarifying a complex issue, particularly in the US.

The honest self-skepticisim required to be successful in the scientific and engineering world is a career killer in the political world. They have a different worldview that says everything boils down to an opinion, and all opinions are equal. Therefore social skills are more important than evidence and manipulation is more useful than reason. OTOH we have way too many Phd's in the hard sciences who have never stepped foot in a "Ph" class in their life and would not know Popper from Popoff.

Thing is, the political worldview is our natural behaviour, it's instinctual and we all do it to some degree because...well..it almost works. Critical thinking is a learned behaviour that basically refines "common-sense" using agreed rules of evidence and logic, it is the foundation of The Enlightenment, a radical shift in human behaviour barely 500yrs old. It's unsurprising that it hasn't permeated to everyone in the modern world that the "age of reason" created with extraordinary speed over the last 50-100yrs.

"I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time -- when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the 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..." - Sagan, Demon Haunted World (Science as a candle in the dark)

Re:Don't bother.

[mrchaotica]

That said, let's not get sidetracked by the breeder-vs-DINK arguments. We have one very simple, fundamental problem with getting scientifically-literate people in office:

None run.

That's because, for the most part, they're well aware of the fact that they're unelectable. I myself would be interested in running for local office, but

1. a) my platform would be too logically-consistent (and therefore "non-mainstream" compared to the standard Democrat or Republican platform),
2. b) I'm not charismatic enough to get sufficient funding in using grass-roots campaigning,
3. c) as a consequence of both previous points, I wouldn't be able to get endorsements or funding in the "traditional" (party-backed) way either, and
4. d) solving any of the previous issues -- not to mention, doing the "wheeling and dealing" required to be effective after getting into office -- would require altering my character in a way that I am not able, let alone willing, to do.

I strongly suspect most scientifically-inclined people run into the same problems. Even if one were to overcome them, the best one could hope for is to match Jimmy Carter. He managed to make it to the Presidency, sure, but the widely-held view (deservedly or not; it doesn't really matter) is that he kind of sucked at it...

Re:Don't bother.

[doggo]

One of the huge problems in the geek community is the propensity to assume other people are stupid. Despite it's being true in many cases.

This is, typically, a coping method for self-esteem. That is, if you assume everyone around you is an idiot, then you feel better about yourself. Which is fine, as far as it goes.

It becomes a problem when it causes you to become blind to your own ignorance.

Technological and scientific expertise does not make one a whole person. How many of us bemoan our lack of dates? How many of us have issues with social interaction?

Elite coders often are completely ignorant of law (and vice-versa). A psychologists may not know his browser from his OS, but he, or she, may know how to help you cope with the loss of a loved-one. Etc.

The point is, think carefully before pointing your finger at someone and crying, "Stupid!"

Re:Don't bother.

[lonOtter]

One of the huge problems in the geek community is the propensity to assume other people are stupid. Despite it's being true in many cases.

I am not assuming anything. I have observed the world we live in and came to a conclusion that is almost certainly true.

That is, if you assume everyone around you is an idiot, then you feel better about yourself.

Not necessarily. Even if you think everyone around you is unintelligent, that doesn't mean you think you're particularly intelligent. If you think your level of intelligence is underwhelming, it may not make you feel better to think that most other people are idiots, although it might.

It becomes a problem when it causes you to become blind to your own ignorance.

I am by no means blind to my own ignorance.

How many of us bemoan our lack of dates? How many of us have issues with social interaction?

I bemoan neither of those things, and am not interested in them.

The point is, think carefully before pointing your finger at someone and crying, "Stupid!"

Ignorance is not the same as lacking intelligence. You can cure ignorance.

And I do think carefully. When I see people supporting the TSA, the NSA surveillance, DUI checkpoints, and other such things that violate our freedoms, they are almost certainly unprincipled and unintelligent. There are many people like that, but those are by no means the only sign that someone is unintelligent.

Re:Don't bother.

[serviscope_minor]

Do you really think you will be taken seriously if you put the f-word in every one of your sentences?

Fuck yes.

Re:Don't bother.

[cusco]

The author of TFA assumes that the congresscritters don't act because they are uninformed, that perhaps with the adequate education they would change their minds. He's wrong. It's not that they don't understand the science, it's that they don't CARE what the long-term affects would ever be. Climatologists say things like "within a century" and "in 50 years", which clues the pols that they don't HAVE to give a shit since they'll be out of office and maybe dead by then. They are, as a herd, immensely self-centered and short-term thinkers. The only way to get them to act is to somehow demonstrate to them the IMMEDIATE value of action, how either they're going to get a lot more money or a lot more power by acting. Want Inhofe to act? Promise him the presidency if he does, or offer him the chairmanship of a bank. No other incentive would ever work, and he wouldn't give a flying fuck whether he understood the science or believed in the climatologists' conclusions.

Re:Don't bother.

[Jason Levine]

I don't oppose improvements to education, but New York state's implementation of Common Core is worse than the old way, not better.

I didn't want to get into this here, but...

First off, it gives teachers scripts that they must follow. For this ten minutes, you need to say these words to the students in this manner and ask them this exact question using this exact example. They must answer you in this exact way. Next, you must move on to this topic in this manner. There's no room for teachers to adjust their teaching techniques to either assist kids who'd learn the material in a different way or to help advance kids who are ahead of grade level. All kids *MUST* learn in the exact same way.

Secondly, EngageNY is idiotic with math. There's no more working with numbers. If you have 1.62 divided by 0.27, you don't actually do the math. Instead, you draw 162 little boxes. Then you circle them in groups of 27. Then you count how many circled groups there are to get your answer. This doesn't teach kids how to do math and, even worse, it doesn't scale. What if the problem was 1.625 divided by 0.25? Would they need to draw over 1,600 boxes?

Thirdly, the high stakes tests are tied to teachers' jobs. If their kids do poorly, the teacher could be booted. So any chance the teacher would stray from the provided curriculum is reduced. The teacher MUST teach to the test because any time spent on non-test preparation increases the chance that their kids will fail. Add in the fact that the content of the tests is super-secret. Nobody is allowed to see them except the students taking them. Not parents, teachers, administrators. Nobody. The tests are taken, mailed to Pearson where they are graded and destroyed. Then the scores are released. How does knowing that Johnny had a grade of X help the teacher teach Johnny if you don't know what he got right and what he got wrong?

Finally, this constitutes an attempt by corporations to take over and profit from education. The big supporters of this curriculum are big corporations who will profit quite nicely over it. (Bill Gates Foundation, Pearson, Wal-Mart, etc.) I don't trust big corporations to write a "one size fits all" curriculum that will help my boys succeed. In fact, since they make more money off a kid who fails than one who passes (additional books, courses to help students/teachers/administrators, etc), they have a monetary interest in kids failing.

Don't mistake change for improvement. There are plenty of ways you can change education to improve it. Common Core/EngageNY/High Stakes testing is *NOT* one of those ways.

Re:Don't bother.

[Artifakt]

Right now, as the very end of the tax season looms, I have exactly 20 clients scheduled who I know are engineers. 10 of them are my usual clients, and 10 of them did their own taxes last year and assumed that they were smart enough to figure it out, and got an IRS letter for their trouble. I've already heard three rants about the stupid, stupid government designing forms that the smart engineer can't use, and have two clients who are swearing they will go to prison for life rather than yield an inch on their interpretation of the regulations. One of those last has the soon to be ex wife's lawyers to deal with over what he tried to do last year and they already have a court order restricting his filing times and methods so they can get copies in time to file their own cleint on time. He's actually argued with an IRS agent on the phone, telling him that being required to divulge to his wife whether he has taken itemized deductions or not is unconstitutional and he has half a mind to punch the agent in the snoot, and because of that, I have already gotten a formal letter requesting I disclose any information I have indicating if he poses an actual threat before he goes in for an in person hearing. This guy is the first to brag about how much smarter he is than these dummies who make up most of my customers, and of course, the IRS.
          I get these persons referred to me because they usually ask something along the lines of whether anybody at the firm has a science or engineering degree or experience. I usually work corporate, and only take a few individual clients a year outside my old regulars. This has been an unfortunate year where I've wasted many of the spare slots on people I don't partcularly want as regular customers.We will be refusing service in the future to some of these people before this is over (and the firm's only actual lawyer partner is strongly recommending we should refuse service to a certain one this year despite what will obviously be a lawsuit if he stays out of prison long enough to file it - we are not real big about one of our phone numbers being used to make a threating call).
          When you say "one of the huge problemss...", I don't think it's hyperbole. . .

Re:Don't bother.

[microbox]

I don't believe that stupidity comes from "not knowing", as you suggest. It is more a case that moral values drive a world view that "facts" are shoe-horned into. And if you're wrong about the facts, then that is like being a bad person -- and almost everyone thinks of themselves as a good person.

Examples: patriarchy is socially constructed, because otherwise women will be oppressed for ever. (Obviously fallacious.)

Whether or not vaccines cause autism, they are unnatural, and harm the body's natural ability to fight disease. (Obviously fallacious.)

Global warming must be wrong because it is immoral for the government to interfere with the economy. (Obviously fallacious.)

Every hot button issue I've ever encountered has this quality to it. And the very same psychological defense mechanisms are always present. For example, we all see ourselves as "nuanced" and "reasonable", so it must be the other guy who is an ideologue. Projection, denial, externalization and intellectualism all derive from the need to resolve this type of cognitive dissonance, and at the heart of it all is the notion of what is "right" and "sacred" and must be protected -- which itself seems to be quite arbitrary.

Just my 2 cents.

The symptom, not the true problem.

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is AMERICA's scientific illiterates. How do you think the idiots get to congress? I'll never vote for anyone that speaks out against evolution.

Re:The symptom, not the true problem.

[arth1]

Indeed. I shouldn't be, but am quite amazed with how people abuse their votes, and WILLFULLY put ignorant imbeciles in congress. And then don't even have enough shame to rectify the mistake.
Congress should have our very best people, not dregs.

Re:The symptom, not the true problem.

[Anonymous Coward]

But you'll gladly vote for someone equally anti science just because they have a D in front of their name.

Re:The symptom, not the true problem.

[Anonymous Coward]

They do this because the buy the lie that to vote for anyone other than Imbecile #1 or Imbecile #2 is to throw away their vote.

Captcha: disobey

Re:The symptom, not the true problem.

[Anonymous Coward]

If you're going to eat a dog shit sandwich and the only difference is the breed of dog, does it really make a difference?

Re:The symptom, not the true problem.

[Anonymous Coward]

look, he may be an idiot, but he's not that idiotic. he's trolling. same
as what bush jr did. classic bullying, pretending to be so unbelievably
stupid just to get a rise out of your target

the problem isn't the the electorate is putting idiots into office,
its that they've decided that the entertainment value of
putting a bully into office is more important than governance

Re:The symptom, not the true problem.

[Anonymous Coward]

Congress should have our very best people, not dregs.

It does. It has our people who are the very best at lying through their teeth to accumulate more power and wealth for themselves.

Yeah, we should probably be aiming for those who are the very best at other things, but unfortunately the voters don't seem to agree with me.

Re:The symptom, not the true problem.

[arth1]

If you're going to eat a dog shit sandwich and the only difference is the breed of dog, does it really make a difference?

If given a choice between a Teacup Yorkie sandwich and an Irish Wolfhound sandwich, I think you would be able to state a preference.

I think voters who live in an area where all they have is a choice between Tweedledum and Tweedledee might want to consider moving when the first good opportunity comes along. I sure wouldn't want my children to grow up in a place where science is considered a swear word and obvious fairy tales are considered truth.

Re:The symptom, not the true problem.

[Xyrus]

Every time I think congress can't lower the bar anymore, yet another complete fucking moron in Congress finds a new way to do so. Well played Mr. Weber.

Yet another day of watching Rome burn.

The saddest thing isn't that he believes this.

[rmdingler]

It's that the Congressman is so sure his remarks will be lauded widely within his District that he doesn't care whether they're accurate or not.

Typical politician... say what you think they want to hear.

Lest we forget....

[DKroos]

Takes the crown. https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Re:AGW Jihadists are the culprit

[bunratty]

If you look at the latest IPCC report, I don't think you'll see a single instance of "we're all gonna die!" So nice strawman. You can see some of the highlights of the report here: http://billmoyers.com/2014/03/...

what stuns me

[confused one]

What stuns me is that someone that ignorant of the process and so critical of science in the first place, can get themselves put on the Science Space and Technology committee in the first place. You couldn't have picked a worse group of persons to make budgetary decisions about our countries science future. They might as well just go ahead and deny all science spending, kill NASA, DOE, NSF and NIH, and call it a day.

Re:what stuns me

[Nimey]

It's because these people speak Party orthodoxy and can be relied upon to keep politically-inconvenient science tied up.

economics

[jafac]

These guys have no problem accepting the validity of an economic theory based on an "Invisible Hand" - yet when it comes to actual solid science based on actual method and process (as opposed to expensive silk suits), they start looking for conspiracy theories to explain the results.

Re:economics

[Tablizer]

have no problem accepting the validity of an economic theory based on an "Invisible Hand" - yet...

It's not invisible:

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/imag...

He let them know what He thinks of Trickle Down theory.

Twain

[McGruber]

"Suppose you were an idiot, and suppose you were a member of Congress; but I repeat myself." - Mark Twain

Obligatory xkcd

[mjvvjm]

http://xkcd.com/154/

America is the new Roman Empire

[Ogre332]

It's only a matter of time before we collapse.

Re:America is the new Roman Empire

[hey!]

I was making just this point about the Supreme Court striking down limits on campaign contributions. The Romans never quite admitted to themselves that their republic was defunct. They remained deeply attached to republican forms and institutions, even when those things had withered to ceremonial appendages of a corrupt imperial state. It was necessary for people to go through the motions of democracy; the ambitious plutocrats needed to maintain the fiction they were serving Rome, when in fact Rome was serving them.

Re:Idiocracy

[Gavrielkay]

The problem is more fundamental than that. It is us as Americans. The politicians know their market very well, and in fact pay lots of money to mold the market into ever more gullible sheep. Most Americans have a cursory education in science at best. We've got it drilled into us to treat everything we don't want to hear with skepticism and to think elections are pointless because they're all losers so we may as well vote for the one with the most TV ads.

Until Americans stop considering educated people to be elitist and stop voting for the guy they'd want to sit next to at an outdoor bar-b-que, you aren't going to get anything fixed.

Re:Common core manufactures them

[Gavrielkay]

While I agree the left isn't doing a good job, the right is no more interested in a scientifically literate populace. Our two party system has nicely carved up the population and will continue to trade power back and forth while nothing really changes. And people like you spouting partisan nonsense are part of the reason they get away with it.

Re:Sure the comment was stupid but ...

[TubeSteak]

I'm sure with 438 men and women in Congress, stupid things get said everyday.

And most of them are 60 or 70 years old and don't understand things like the internet, cell phones and haven't been in college or highschool in 50 some years to know what science is.

These particular idiots are members of Senate/House Committees responsible for Science.
Of all the people in the Congress, they should have some basic understanding of how science works.

anti-science pols always Republican

[globaljustin]

I object to the false dichotomy presented by TFA and general media...

Sure, **absolutely** Congress does things that are anti-science...but that's not the end...**who votes for these anti-science policies**???

ITS ALWAYS REPUBLICANS

climate change denial? Republicans
creationism in schools? Republicans
defunding research? Republicans

there is a solution to this...don't vote for Republicans & call out their BS every time

always Republicans

[globaljustin]

look at the actual votes on policy...it's always Republicans doing anti-science policy

creationism in schools? Republicans
climate change denial? Republicans
defunding research? Republicans

Congress isn't "all idiots"...for every bullshit anti-science law Congress passes there are Democrats/Progressives who vote against it

Any discussion that does not take these facts into account is pointless and will continue infinitely

Re:always Republicans

[Maritz]

Real Christianity has always been about choice. Its the other religions (including greed and self worship) that are the ones indoctrinating.

I can't tell if this is a genius wry, sarcastic comment. I hope so.

On the off chance it isn't I suggest a quick glance at years 100-2000 or so and see just how much 'real choice' was offered by the Church..! I suspect 'recant or burn' was a common one.

link is about GMO crops

[globaljustin]

Again, AC has posted that link saying it somehow is evidence of Democrats being "anti-science"....ITS NOT...

the link is a Nytimes article about GMO crops...opposing or regulating GMO crops is not anti-science in any way...maybe anti-factory farming...but not "science"

link above is not counter-evidence

Re:Cosmos

[lonOtter]

There is more faith in science's belief than there ever will be in religion.

The very same science that's responsible for the technology you're using right now to communicate with others? The very same science that's responsible for just about everything in the modern world that improves people's qualify of life? Betting on something with that kind of track record is nowhere near the same as the kind of "faith" you're talking about.

And that's putting aside your ignorance of the actual science and what the actual scientific theories are about. You go on to talk about how science says that "Nothing created something." as if cretins like you haven't said that same sort of nonsense millions of times already, to no effect.

Which is easier to believe: Nothing created something. Truly absolutely vast quantities of nothingness. No atoms, no quarks, no foam. Just emptiness. And that created something. OR A immortal being who existing in a different reality created this one and because he created it, he is omniscient and omnipotent in it.

Which is easier to believe? Any explanation that doesn't involve all-powerful, infinitely complex magical beings creating entire universes.

There are gaps in our knowledge, yes, but that doesn't mean you can make up bullshit about all-powerful sky daddies, claim it's the real answer simply because we lack knowledge at this point in time, and expect to not get laughed at by anyone who is even remotely intelligent. You will get laughed at, and rightfully so. You are the problem.

Until that day, they must be able to have open, frank and honest discourse without arrogance.

So, you're saying that you expect intelligent people to take whatever nonsensical garbage you can make up seriously? Good luck with that.

Reconciling the Irreconcilable

[turkeyfish]

"Somehow we need to find a way to promote science as a way of thinking and do so without hurting the feelings of the religious right."

The religious right are NEVER going to accept science, since science inconveniently exposes the inconsistency and irrelevancy of religion to understanding the natural world and hence this makes the scientific method a threat to the religious right.

The outcome is pretty clear, either science wins or humanity looses. The reality is that there is only one of these two outcomes to choose from. Take your pick and take your stand. One can either be for science and survival or against science and for human-sustaining ecosystem collapse. One cannot stand on a fence made of razor wire as there is no middle ground.

Re:Reconciling the Irreconcilable

[locofungus]

The religious right are NEVER going to accept science

I'm in the UK and we don't really have a "religious right" here. I don't think we have as bad a problem as the US but the impression I get is that scientific illiteracy is something that people in the UK are less ashamed of than say people in Germany.

But the fundamental problem isn't the "religious right" it's that people are very emotionally tied to opinions they hold and it's very hard to accept that you are wrong.

(Good) scientists fight this natural human tendency all the time. I'm sure everyone who has ever done any sort of statistical analysis has got a result they didn't like (expect) and then pored over the calculations for hours looking for the mistake. Ditto, they've got the result they expected and then had to eat humble pie when someone else points out that they've slipped a decimal point somewhere.

Scientists, with all their training to look at things objectively and derive conclusions from the data, find this hard to do. How much harder must it be for people who can't repeat the calculations and just have to accept it when a scientist says "you're wrong".

Because science (nature) is brutal. It doesn't care what your opinions, hopes, beliefs are. It will trample over them as effortlessly as it will support them and with as little feeling.

Re:Reconciling the Irreconcilable

[Jason Levine]

There are plenty of people who are religious but don't take the bible literally. I actually happen to be one of them. My personal belief* is that the bible is an allegorical text meant to teach moral lessons, not to teach history. If God wanted to teach us history, Genesis 1:1 would have started "In the beginning, there was a Big Bang...." (It would also be a LOT longer to read ala "How It Happened" by Isaac Asimov.) If anything, I think religion is enhanced by science. Sure, you need to give up the "God magically poofed the world into existence 10,000 years ago" belief (then again, that should have gone away over a hundred years ago), but the "God of old" ruled over Earth and a sphere that essentially had stars painted on it. The "God of people who embrace science" rules over an unimaginably vast Universe.

* I think that all religion should stay as personal beliefs and I wouldn't think of trying to force someone else to follow my religious beliefs. So long as your religious beliefs don't hurt anyone else, I say go for it. I happen to be Jewish, but if you think Christ is the savior that's fine by me. If you follow Budda or Islam or Wicca or any other religion, I'm ok with it. I only take issue when some people - e.g. the Religious Right - think it is their religious duty to force me to follow their religious rules (to "save me").

Re:Sure the comment was stupid but ...

[confused one]

It won't go down like that.... It'll be more like

.

scientist: Oh no! there's a 5 km asteroid going to hit us in 150 days."

Politician: How do I know you're right? You've been wrong in the past. Earth has never been hit by an asteroid, not in my lifetime or the lifetime of my father's father's father. I don't believe you."

one week later

Scientist: We've projected the orbit and can confirm with 99.99% certainty the asteroid will strike the Earth on the west coast of Africa in 139 days at exactly 10:43pm EST. It's 4.2 km and when it strikes it will be a civilization ending event, killing a projected 83% of the human population unless you fund the rocket we need to stop it.

Politician: So, you're not 100% certain? And you're saying it might strike Africa. And I thought you said it was only 5 km. Now you're saying it's 4.2km. You all don't even know how big this thing is... How much is the rocket going to cost? Do you have any idea what percentage of the U.S. GDP that is!? That's U.S. taxpayer money you're talking about. I think you might be wrong about the collision. You all were wrong about that asteroid... Apo something, right? Why should we agree to spend American taxpayer's money to stop a rock that may strike Africa. That's on the other side of the Atlantic ocean, half a world away. You scientists just don't know what you're talking about with your heads in the clouds looking at your stars all the time. You need to get down to Earth with the rest of us regular folks and do something useful.

not counter-evidence the GOP is anti-science

[globaljustin]

LOOK AT POLICY VOTES...that's all that matters to this discussion...Republicans oppose science and prop up Oligarchy

the only time the GOP cares about science is when it can enrich their corporate donors

the GOP votes to:

> put creationism in textbooks
> defund research
> deny global warming

You have no answer for these and the countless other ways Republicans are anti-science

Nope

[fyngyrz]

Video clips show comments that are difficult to believe, when you hear them.

No. This is just what I expect; all the evidence points this way on every other subject, why not on science as well?

The Scientific Method eliminates poor hypotheses

[Overzeetop]

On the contrary - you come up with a hypothesis and then you test to see if that hypothesis is true.

You make guesses from observations, such as "God strikes down the unworthy" and then you attempt to find worthy people and unworthy people and follow them to see whether the unworthy are striken down in supernatural events at a statistically greater rate than those who are worthy. By using a second set of scientists or clergy who are unfamiliar with your research, you can sort into various forms of unworthiness to see if there is a type bias - sexually deviant, unfaithful, unrepentant, vanity, boastfulness, and others. Your belief that certain unworthiness will result in smiting by a deity is then tested and you review your data.

You may find that God's wrath is not statistically biased towards the unrepentant sinner. Being wrong isn't a problem in science - it's just a path to being right. So, for instance, if you find that your original hypothesis that God strikes down the unworthy is not just incorrect, but backwards. If it seems the virtuous are more likely to get stricken down, and that those of greatest natural virtue are our youth, you can then present this. It may, in fact, then be used to change behavioral patterns and encourage participation in activities. The great researcher into this particular effect, Billy Joel, was instrumental in bringing this research to light, indicating in one of his more widely distributed papers "only the good die young."