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Senate Confirms Climate Denier With No Scientific Credentials To Head NASA (nytimes.com)
On Thursday, the Senate confirmed Trump's NASA nominee Jim Bridenstine, seven and a half months after being nominated to lead the agency. "The Senate confirmed Mr. Bridenstine, an Oklahoma congressman, as the new NASA administrator in a stark partisan vote: 50 Republicans voting for him and 47 Democrats plus two independents against," reports The New York Times. "The vote lasted more than 45 minutes as Republicans waited for Senator Jeff Flake of Arizona to cast his lot." Slashdot reader PeopleAquarium writes about some of Bridenstine's anti-LGBT and non-scientific views: Bridenstine ran a planetarium once, and peddled a debunked argument made by climate change skeptics, claiming that global temperatures "stopped rising 10 years ago." He said "the people of Oklahoma are ready to accept" an apology from then-President Barack Obama for what Bridenstine called a "gross misallocation" of funds for climate change research instead of weather forecasting. In further news, our rockets will now be coal powered, and gay people aren't allowed in space.
Space? This Bridenstine guy will probably turn out to be a Flat Earther as well.
Come on, editors. Wtf? How is that relevant or helpful to the conversation? Are the people posting really that partisan? What are the new administrator's goals for the agency? Does he have a vision that includes manned space missions? Is he going to burn the agency to the ground? I can't tell. All I know is the poster liked Obama and doesn't like Trump which probably shouldn't be in the summary at all.
Sig not found.
I don't care if he thinks the moon is made out of green cheese, as long as he can reign in the cost overruns and get rid of a lot of the red tape and conservative engineering that has hobbled NASA since the Apollo days and is costing the US it's position of leadership in space exploration. I'm willing to give the guy a chance and not jump to conclusions.
It's not because he believes in physical genders, it's because he thinks gay people are " sexually immoral," and has been known to allow his religion to trump his reason... publicly.
It's not a great attitude for the head of an organization that has 14,000 employees of all walks of life, and that is primarily science based.
Publicly admitting that he hates some of those 14,000 employees for religious reasons is going to wreck his ability to lead, and get the agency mired in distracting lawsuits.
NASA doesn't need a scientist. NASA does not really do science and the science they do is certainly not ecological but 100% physics and its application: developing better rockets. They do adminstration, engineering and lots of politics. If they put some science satellite in orbit, they do it typically for someone else. In the case of climate science, usually for NOAA or such. In case of Kepler for astronomers on some collge. For NASA these are just another payload for the federal government like any other.
So: how good a politician is he for pushing the cause of NASA? How good of an administrator is he for leading a big agency and helping his engineers to build better, cheaper rockets, developing cool new mechanisms like VASIMR? We all know NASA did a piss poor job with these things for decades now. These are importan the important topicst for this post, but are sorely lacking in this stupid piece by morons who call themselves journalists. NASA is no fucking LGBT advocacy, it puts rockets into space ffs!
I couldn't care less if he saves the climate and the dolphins or the queers: it's not his fucking job. For battling AGW, kick the assholes who need to do something: assholes in congress and white house, not some federal administrator who has to implement the braindead policy that congress decides on.
I agree that this guy is very suboptimal but the summary isn't very fair either especially the unnecessary snark that "In further news, our rockets will now be coal powered, and gay people aren't allowed in space." There's a legitimate criticism about his views on climate change and that should be expanded, especially as a major part of NASA's Earth observing work is precisely to understand the global environment and how it is changing. But the summary doesn't mention the primary criticism of Bridenstine. Prior administrators have almost always had a combination of adminsitrative and scientific skills. For example Griffin had a background in physics and engineering https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_D._Griffin, Lightfoot the current acting administrator is an engineer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_M._Lightfoot_Jr., Bolden was himself an astronaut https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Bolden. Etc. Putting in someone whose primary qualifications are political rather than scientific is very suboptimal; NASA has suffered enough the last few years due to congressional politics and politics dictating goals rather than science and engineering. The SLS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Launch_System is a really good example of this. Putting in a head of NASA whose qualifications are political with no real experience is very bad, and that would be bad even if he weren't a climate change denier (which does admittedly make it worse but at this point given who is in charge of the EPA should be about expected for this administration).
He sponsored a bill opposing marriage equality, among other things. Two minutes of googling and you can find all his anti-LGBT, pro-invisible-man-in-the-sky bullshit. Plus his egregious lie about climate change.
Why do positions and beliefs like that have any bearing on his fitness to run NASA? Are we going to have 'morality police' roaming around, like in Iran, arresting people who don't prescribe to a specific set of beliefs? Should people who are not pro-gay be sent for re-education?
If he kept that opinion to himself, then I'd say he's allowed to have it. However, you can't effectivly lead 14,000 employees if they already know you hate 10% of them from day one.
Everyone at NASA should walk out in protest. Everyone at the EPA should walk out in protest. Everyone at NOAA should walk out in protest. Everyone at....
Putting someone with anti-science beliefs in charge of a science agency is like putting the Klan in charge of your Martin Luther King day barbeque. It's just a shitty idea.
Just because you think a behavior is immoral doesn't mean you hate or even dislike the person.
All of that is true, but, thankfully, between W/Griffin and then O/Bolden/Garver, we now have several new companies that are actually pushing low cost launches and missions, as opposed to simply have companies that want to feed off the costs+ funding. SLS has been a HORRIBLE waste of money. CONgress has forced us to spend over $32B on it and Constellation (and that was end of 2017).
BUT, because we DO have cheap launches, it is now possible to go to the moon sooner, rather than later. What is needed is for Bridenstine to push service contracts for inexpensive habitat for private space stations, followed by more contracts for lunar basing. Thankfully, he has been quietly suggesting that is what he will do.
Windbourne (moderating).
WTF are we still in 1600? What is immoral about it? Does it harm someone? If your morality is based on maximizing the number of little Christians that are produced, like it was defined for a long time, to increase the power of this particular religion, I will argue that you are the moral disaster. There are already enough humans on Earth, we don't need you to have 15 children that will fight over the remaining resources of the Earth. Unprotected heterosexual sex is much less moral than gay sex or masturbation, if your moral compass is not fucked up by some ancien illogical customs.
The problem is that it is plain stupid to consider things people are born with "immoral". It is unfair, irrational and discrminatory and it's therefore a good indication of being totally incompetent in leading people that do science, which is all about rationality.
0x or or snor perron?!
Are we going to have 'morality police' roaming around, like in Iran, arresting people who don't prescribe to a specific set of beliefs?
Yes. If you don't stand up to them, then yes. That's exactly what you will have.
The NASA budget of 19.5B is 0.4% of the budget and adds $10 to the economy for every $1 spent. There are plenty of wasteful programs all across the federal government that spend more than NASA.
Saying that something is immoral is not the same as hating someone. Typical redefinition of words, gaslighting from the left.
So excluding someone because of their beliefs is discriminatory. Hmm. Seems you should reexamine your argument. You seem to dislike this guy because of a belief he holds. It seems to me that you are also discriminating against him because he feels differently than you do. The beliefs of one group do not override the beliefs of another. That is true equality. If you want to discriminate against one group because of their beliefs then expect the same from that group.
You think raves are immoral? Raves?
Just for this shits and giggles, and not at all because we'd all like to laugh as you try to spell out a position that is not, in your phrasing, "demonstrably weak", how about you spell out why raves are immoral?
The guy is an idiot. Everyone knows climates are real.
Looks like Slashdot has gone from "News for Nerds" to yellowpress-style hit pieces.
and judging by your +5 post it worked. Hell, got me here too...
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they matter lots. You do know we use satellites to monitor climate change, right? You do realize he's in a position to control access to said satellites, right?
That's the trouble with corruption, it's a bit on the subtle side sometimes. I remember a story I read in my local paper about a real estate developer who wanted some land but couldn't get it because there were a bunch of endangered goats on it. So he bought the land near by, put up a short fence, and put some sheep on his land who just happened to have syphilis. Sheep jumped the fence, goats and sheep did what animals do (try not to think too much about it) and goats, who are apparently much more susceptible to the side effects of syphilis died. Goats gone, problem solved and he got his land.
It sounds crazy. It was all documented though since somebody was tracking the goats (they were endangered after all). So yeah, sometimes corruption isn't all that obvious.
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Conservative Christians don't consider "being gay" immoral, they consider gay sex, and in particular promiscuous gay sex, immoral. You aren't born having gay sex. Furthermore, they nature of their objection to gay sex has little to do with sexual orientation, and more with the fact that they believe that people ought to have sex only inside a heterosexual marriage; so they object to pre- and extramarital sex as much as they do to gay sex.
And the beliefs of conservative Christians contradict rationality... how? What rational argument can you make that extramarital sex is not immoral? I happen to disagree with the views of conservative Christians (I think some extramarital sex is moral), but that's a moral judgment, not a rational belief.
Furthermore, I think you are projecting your own behavioral patterns onto others. While it is certainly true that a progressive managers will frequently act with intolerance and hatred towards employees holding what they consider "immoral beliefs" (e.g., conservative, libertarian, Christian beliefs), the reverse isn't true. Christians generally believe that people can be saved and redeemed from their immoral actions through reasoned argument and teaching.
As a classically liberal gay man, I'd rather work for a Christian manager than for a progressive manager; progressive managers make your life a living hell if you don't agree with their party line.
Not necessarily. One chooses their actions. For example, whether or not I cheat on my wife with a woman I find attractive is a choice, just like being married was a choice and ever having sec at all is a choice. It is the action the relates to the morality.
But homosexual sex *is* immoral and contrary to the natural law.
Wrong.
If you don't believe that then literally nothing is immoral
Logical fallacy. Instant fail. Thank you for playing.
(I believe this one is called "equivocation fallacy", but I never bothered memorizing their names).
including pedophilia, bestiality, and polygamy. You can't pick and choose.
Pedophilia is a mental disorder and has nothing to do with morality. Actual sexual exploitation of prepubescent children is child abuse.
The main arguments against bestiality are public health and that animals cannot give consent. However, if those concerns are proven not to apply, while I am personally disgusted by the practice, I don't give a rat's ass if you want to boink your pet platypus.
Polygamy is a legal construct, as it concerns marriage. It is by way legal in about 30% of sovereign states. If we stick to the subject of sexual conduct, polyamory is legal in most jurisdictions.
You are misrepresenting their position. They don't think that "being gay" is immoral, they think that people choose to have gay sex and they consider that choice to be immoral; in Christianity, morality is about the choices you make and the actions you take.
And they generally aren't saying that that choice should be made illegal, they are saying that it shouldn't be promoted or subsidized or encouraged by government.
almost two decades. That's if you want to accept there was any at all in the 90's with the computer models. All of that is up to debate and moce and more evidence has been released to show the data was fudged. (To be generous)
Second, NASA shouldn't be concerned in the least with "global warming" or "global cooling" or any other bullshit. NASA can't even put an astronaut in the space station. We have to pay the Russians for that. You think about that for a minute.
Third, without being political, google what the three things the previous president charged Charles Bolden, the head of NASA, to do. I'll give you a hint' none of the three were about space.
Charles Bolden, a retired United States Marines Corps major-general and former astronaut, said in an interview with al-Jazeera that Nasa was not only a space exploration agency but also an "Earth improvement agency".
Mr Bolden said: "When I became the Nasa administrator, he [Mr Obama] charged me with three things.
"One, he wanted me to help reinspire children to want to get into science and math; he wanted me to expand our international relationships; and third, and perhaps foremost, he wanted me to find a way to reach out to the Muslim world and engage much more with dominantly Muslim nations to help them feel good about their historic contribution to science, math, and engineering."
NASA should not be politcial.
I think having good political and management qualifications is far more important than having scientific qualifications when leading large teams of scientists.
And a politician and manager is far more likely to be able get the scientists at NASA what they need than a scientist in a suit. That's because a politician and manager can listen to the people who work for them and communicate their needs to Congress. And he can do that without letting his own scientific biases and preferences influence his actions.
Spot on. The "conservatives" I know - I use the term quite loosely - fall into two categories: those with reasonably-functional brains, who don't give two shits whether or not someone's gay or not - and those that do... either because they're gay themselves and are filled with self-loathing (for example, I've yet to meet a youth pastor who didn't set off my 'early warning' worse than a squadron of Soviet bombers)... or because they're just really stupid.
It is true that in the past administrators have been selected principally on their ability to oversee and execute the programs of NASA. That left leadership on NASA's portfolio principally in Congress because the political skills to advance NASA's mission were a secondary consideration at best. This time, the political ability to advance NASA's mission was the principal concern. Will the oversight and execution of NASA's programs be compromised when left to secondary political appointees or careerists? I think that this is the experiment to find out.
Many think that NASA's prominence is slipping away without political push from repeated administrations. Personally, I am not as concerned about that as some because I'd rather explore our oceans than outer space. But I understand the concern of many including huge numbers of former astronauts. If you go to events at the Adler Planetarium in Chicago, it is not hard to meet former astronauts who despair at NASA's erosion over time.
He can have his anti-LGBT beliefs, but that disqualifies him to lead. The moment he fires, lays off, or does not promote someone that is homosexual, there will be no way to prove the intention was not seeded in his beliefs. Leaders need to be inclusive and unbiased.
Some people with more left-leaning opinions seem to think of Flake as some kind of hero for his minor rebellion against Trump, but really, he is just as bad.
Here he is, voting with Trump to appoint a clearly unqualified person. What for? Did he get some other commitment from McConnell that McConnell won't deliver on?
There was a story in This American Life about how he was ultimately unable to get a bill on the Senate floor to do something about the DREAMers and/or DACA. He was screwed over by his own leadership.
He is leaving the Senate, but he behaves as though he is just as beholden to Trump as all his other fellow cowards.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
It sounds idiotic. It is not a shorthand to "climate change denial," as it is a phrase that does not need shortening. Removing "change" changes the phrase's context entirely, and makes ambiguous the part the person being called a "climate denier" is taking issue with - which, if I am not mistaken, is about CLIMATE CHANGE. You can't deny a climate. You can - whether foolishly or otherwise- deny climate change. It's not hard to keep that one 4-letter word in there, people! Jesus Christ!
If you believe in privacy, and believe you have "nothing to hide" at the same time, you're a goddammed idiot
"Putting in someone whose primary qualifications are political rather than scientific is very suboptimal;"
That seems to be a logical assertion, but I'm not sure it's proved to be true.
Putting former astronauts and scientists in charge HASN'T seemed to have caused NASA to flourish, has it? Maybe because these individuals *didn't* understand the *politics* necessary to succeed in the intensely political atmosphere of Washington DC?
I mean, the NASA admin isn't designing space craft and piloting rockets: he or she is a BUREAUCRAT, begging other bureaucrats for money and other resources. Seems like a position where a politician might be more successful.
-Styopa
Take a look at this image. If someone says "the science is settled", then they are clearly NOT being scientific. At best you may have an idea, but to call it settled - when we're seeing the EXACT SAME THING repeating itself over 60 year cycles, is the antithesis of science.
Skepticism used to be the foundation of science; now it's badgered and attacked as "anti-science".
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
The facts on the ground are, well, facts. Not opinions.
Thank you. Good day.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
- Record high stock market
- Record low unemployment
- Skyrocketing consumer confidence
- Increased US Manufacturing
- North Korea giving up all their nukes
- Record high stock market is easy when companies are allowed to poison people and the environment, in addition to taking financial advantage of them whenever possible. No more Consumer Financial Protections for us.
- Record low unemployment is easy when you inherit most it from your predecessor.
- Increased US Manufacturing and consumer confidence, and NK are all good things, but Trump isn't the only one who can achieve those.
- As for Stormy Daniels, I'm considering it to be slightly better than President Clinton's scandal with Monica Lewinsky. I say "better" because, while both were affairs, Stormy wasn't on Clinton's payroll. There was still a lot of hubbub about the Lewinsky scandal.
You did leave a couple things off, however:
- Increased health care costs due to more health problems from pollution.
- Further increased health care costs due to people not getting their health problems treated early, thus requiring them to go to the expensive emergency room.
- Increased property insurance costs due to climate change.
What you want at the helm of NASA is someone who is enthusiastic about the agency, who knows how to schmooze the right people (especially Congress – and yes, you can take this as a pun, presently), who can advertise NASA, who respects the input from the scientific community (he said he would do that), who does not get too much in the way of the inner workings but recognises when NASA screws up and helps set the ship right (yes, NASA screws up more than you think).
Being a scientist is most of the time not a good qualification in itself – those guys sit already one level down. Listening to and accepting advice from scientists (internal and external), on the other hand, is vital for that position. You also do not want a bean counter (if that's all they do), or someone who does not care.
Even if I don't agree with Bridenstine, he is definitely enthusiastic about the job and really wanted it. NASA administrator is not the jumping board to become the next president (or senator). Bridenstine is fairly young. Wanting to lead a 20+ billion USD agency that is full of people smarter than you is a bit nuts. But, because of that, it's also the #1 federal agency in terms of employee satisfaction, and it's still "cool".
NASA could have done a lot worse. This will be nothing like the EPA or CDC, for example. I would predict that NASA will mostly continue on its path (which is having to do too much with too little money to do it). Maybe it even helps that he comes from Congress. Congress holds the purse strings, and one of the worst problems of NASA, which needs to engage in long term projects, is the eternal budget uncertainty.
I'd give him a chance. Just imagine it would not be him but Rick Perry ...
Do your own thing. And overdo it!
they matter lots. You do know we use satellites to monitor climate change, right? You do realize he's in a position to control access to said satellites, right?
You claim he's anti-science, because he's skeptical of AGW. You do know that those same satellites basically show that any heating is much, much less than modeled, right? So why would he turn off access?
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
Conservative Christians don't consider "being gay" immoral, they consider gay sex, and in particular promiscuous gay sex, immoral. You aren't born having gay sex. Furthermore, they nature of their objection to gay sex has little to do with sexual orientation, and more with the fact that they believe that people ought to have sex only inside a heterosexual marriage; so they object to pre- and extramarital sex as much as they do to gay sex.
Right... A simple thought experiment disproves this claim. Trump supporters and Evangelicals are generally ambivalent about Trump porking porn stars on the side or engaging in serial adultery.
Now imagine if Trump had sex with a gay porn star! Do you think they would be that understanding?
NASA languished under Obama, Trump has much more interesting goals than Obama could ever dream of - after all, to Obama any agency that was not funneling money directly to friends was rather a waste.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Look at some point you have to point out that flat earther are completely wrong. There is no "two side" of the coins for some stuff, there is 96% + scientific, against a few denier, denier which keep touting the same debunked stuff. Once people start putting denier it is beyond politic , it is simply across the aisle against science. And before somebody attacks me "blah blah you are practicing religion blah blah there is no consensus in science blah blah" they are free to present peer reviewed article showing climate science wrong. But until somebody has anything valid, peer reviewed , reversing the null on global warming, then what we do have as consensus *IS* what we should base policy on, until consensus is reversed or falsified. Would you accept somebody denigrating vaccination at the head of a medicine comity , and would you give the same objection when pointed out the consensus is that vaccine help fight infectious illness ? No ? Then Stuff you when you refuse the same to climate science.
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What fucking conversation ? Would you pretend there is a conversation to be had with flat earther ? At some point you have got to admit there is no conservation possible, as the other party already rejected the basis of reason completely. If they were merely misinformed it would be something else. But this is willful rejection of reason. There is no conversation to be had.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
... more with the fact that they believe that people ought to have sex only inside a heterosexual marriage
It's a traditional belief based on observation.
Some guys looked around and saw who was strong:
- villages with families and children
- strong ties over generations
- hard work to support and protect the family and the people of the villiage
- putting the needs of the group ahead of momentary self indulgences
And they also saw who was weak:
- homeless, fatherless children
- drunkards
- people who always seek their own pleasure over the needs of their family and the people around them
- people used by others for sex (and then abandoned or disposed of)
They picked the one they thought would work out the best, taught it to their children, and it became a tradition. Some other guys presumably picked the opposite one and that became their tradition. One of those traditions lasted a few thousand years in the west — with mostly similar traditions elsewhere in almost every non-Western culture for the same time period or longer.
But WTF did they know, right?
Senate confirms former astronaut to head NASA?
So we had observations where the temperatures weren't rising as fast as theories predicted.
When observations don't bear out predictions, science would have you look for a new theory. Bridenstine merely joined in with those pointing out that the data didn't agree with the theory, thus engaging in the scientific process.
Maybe the guy doesn't have a background in science, but then he's a bureaucrat running a department with a focus on aerospace engineering. Even so, he was promoting the scientific perspective with his stance.
Yes, there was a pause in temperature change that wasn't and still isn't completely explained. Researchers are employing different methods to try to make sense of it, studying both the data and the theories to see how they might be reconciled. It's anti-scientific to try to paper that over, especially in the course of personally attacking a politician.
It's going to blow his tiny mind when he realises the Earth is not flat! I want to see that reaction!
I dislike the smell of Somali food. I don't hate people who cook it, and I don't hate people who eat it; I just want them to do it where I donthavr to smell it.
Dr. Roy Spencer was a NASA scientist and worked at the University of Alabama Huntsville. No "global company" there. The satellite record is pretty straight-forward. Just because it doesn't fit with your concept doesn't mean it should be trashed; rather, we should continue looking for what is really happening, and try to understand why models often diverge from data. Look no further than my sig line, from Dr. Phil Jones, who lead the CRU Anglia, one of the biggest proponents of the IPCC models. The 1910-1940 warming was statistically the same as 1975-1998. Wouldn't that at least cause you a little pause to figure out how much of the heating we're seeing is natural, or even if it's real?
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
Understood, people who have unmarried sex can only be drunkards, selfish, homeless, etc. No biased argument at all.
No need to get defensive. If you don't understand the difference between one type of behavior and another, that's 100% ok with me. One type tends to lead to growing old and spending time with your grandchildren. The other type doesn't. That's all. It's hard to pass down traditions to people who never exist. Or if you believe in nothing, it's also hard to pass that down as a tradition. I hope you're having fun.
What matters is it's happening, it's going to impact the food supply
Awesome, I'm all for longer growing seasons. Especially after what this winter/spring have been like.
which will lead to global chaos, wars.
I'm not sure how greater food availably will lead to those things but, in case you haven't noticed, we already have chaos and war.
but I don't think you're considering the consequences of evangelical belief systems. God punishes the faithful for the sins of the heretic. Famous examples include Sodom & Gomorrah and the Flood, but there are plenty other's in the bible. This is why, for instance, Pat Robinson has literally said gays cause earthquakes
Now let's imagine for a second you honestly believe that, rather than tectonic plates, God's wrath is causing earthquakes. Wouldn't it be reasonable to take measures to prevent God's wrath? And let's imagine God declared Homosexuality a sin that incurred his wrath. We can argue scripture but as mentioned above it's a fact that this is what evangelicals believe. And again, God punishes the faithful for the sins of the heretic. Your "sins".
It stands to reason that your being gay represents an existent threat to their continued well being. In a best case scenario you'll be treated as a sick man and given "treatment". In a worst case you'll be locked up and/or killed to protect society from God's wrath.
You ended your post worried that a progressive would punish you for not towing their "party line". But you don't really know that. If asked a Progressive would say, no, they would not do that. They might lie, but at least some of them wouldn't. A conservative, OTOH, is also likely to be an evangelical (again, we're talking likelihood) and they _will_ punish you for your sexual orientation. Just as they would punish any other dangerous person.
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Climate change is being appropriated for political objectives, its a highly politicized thing that is far from being just "science". Once policy actions enter the fray, its no longer just about science any more. Many of the big proponents of climate change policy agendas are doing this for other reasons and do not care so much about the climate, and may not even believe doomsday scenarios themselves. The climate change agenda is being pushed to expand the power of government, reduce the rights of the individual, and is tied to ideas that the US is a terrible country, that it needs to be punished and made to suffer, and that reparations need to be paid, and globalist wealth redistribution schemes. This is why third world countries are lining up in support of climate change agendas.
Client predictions are based on computer models which are far from being "fact" and are subject to the impossibility of prediction of as complex a system of the earth 50 years into the future. Establishing cause and effect is also a problem considering that there are many things that impact earth climate so you cannot just assume its due to CO2.
Most of the policies require drastic effects on the well being of people. There are some which could be implemented without major impacts, like multi-use developments with housing and jobs within the same walkable distance. Why don't all these liberal companies like Google put their money where their mouth is and put employee housing on the same walkable complex as their offices. Why dont these liberal companies allow telecommuting? The telecommuting itself would lead to major reductions in fuel use. So why dont these companies do it?
Pedophilia is a mental disorder and has nothing to do with morality...
There hasn't been much legit research done into pedophilia.
There was quite a bit or legitimate research done. It's even in the DSM-5.
Nobody in their right mind would destroy their career by publishing "wrong" conclusions.
Witch hunts, herd mentality and peer pressure are not staples of good science.
Are you sure you want to call something that predates our species and as you said yourself is amoral a mental disorder?
1. "predates our species" -- citation needed.
2. "as you said yourself is amoral" -- Not to confuse amoral with immoral, "amoral" means "has nothing to do with morality". Mental disorders are amoral, acting upon them can be a different question.
3. "Are you sure you want to call [...] a mental disorder" -- I am not a mental health professional so as a lay person I use lay terms. Some call it a paraphilia, some call it an orientation, Wikipedia calls it a psychiatric disorder.
Was it a mental disorder 50K years ago? May be 2K? How about 200?
Yes. What's you point?
Reminds me of the following:
Q: What was the largest island before Greenland was discovered?
A: Greenland.
True, but what that means is that other folks should always be looking for other theories that might better fit the data. Unfortunately, most of the folks on the other side seem to think that "unsettled" means "I can ignore this because it is inconvenient," which is not the same thing.
The problem is that their alternative explanations only fit the data over a very short period of time, geologically speaking. These theories have been debunked repeatedly by trivial comparison with the actual data. At some point, after you've heard dozens of variations of essentially the same thoroughly disproven theory, you have to start assuming that the people repeatedly suggesting them are not actually being skeptical, but rather are just trying to distract from actual science.
Don't get me wrong. I'd love it if all the global warming folks turned out to be wrong. But until there's a model that fits the data back through multiple ice ages and predicts that things will level out, we should still assume that they are right. Why? Because if they're wrong and we assume they are right, then we spend a lot of money making our air cleaner that we didn't have to spend, but we're otherwise no worse off, and if they're right and we assume they are wrong, then we doom our civilization. So if there's even a 50/50 chance that they are right, we have to assume that they are right (and the odds are much higher than that).
That said, there's a lot we don't know. It is possible (nay, almost certain) that we will eventually hit an equilibrium point at which more plants are growing, and the temperature change levels off. The big unanswered questions are how many major cities will be underwater when it does, whether we will have enough arable land to feed the earth's population as temperatures and rain patterns shift, and whether the cost of reducing our greehouse gas emissions exceeds the cost of dealing with the effects of climate change over the long term. And *that* is where there is a lot of room for speculation, debate, etc.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
and more with the fact that they believe that people ought to have sex only inside a heterosexual marriage
Clearly beliefs are a sliding scale. I know quite a lot of people who were happily fucking all over the place yet have quite the problem with gay people, specifically not just gay sex but any signs of homosexual attraction (e.g. men holding hands).
See my reply above.
To avoid nitpicking, let's call it "a way a particular brain is wired". This in no way shape of form invalidates the point, which is pedophilia and child molestation are not one and the same.
And it's a good tradition. What isn't good, however, is when tradition becomes dogma or is imposed through government authority.
What differs greatly among cultures, however, is how they deal with choice. In a free society, what traditions you follow ought to be up to you; government shouldn't interfere, but it also shouldn't subsidize. Christian conservative politicians want to interfere with sexual behavior they don't like and subsidize traditional marriage. Progressives want to interfere with "irrational" religion and subsidize irresponsible sexual behavior. Both are simply variants of authoritarianism or totalitarianism.
In a free society, you make your choices and you live with the consequences. You can sleep around, but you pay for the STDs and the illegitimate children yourself. You can try to turn yourself straight and lie to your wife, but you need to deal with the damage that does to your wife and your kids. Etc.
And yet, homosexuality, promiscuity, and extramarital sex have persisted for many millions of years of mammalian, primate, and human evolution. Obviously, if those traits were so harmful or incompatible with successful societies, they would have been eliminated long ago.
As I was saying, I'm sympathetic to the idea that traditional marriage is generally a good thing. However, the conservative reasoning you exhibit is as brain-dead and authoritarian as that of totalitarian leftists.
Oh, you're absolutely right: fascists, socialists and communists used to consider homosexuality to be a symptom of bourgeois Western decadence, while happily fucking around like crazed bunnies among themselves.
And yet, homosexuality, promiscuity, and extramarital sex have persisted for many millions of years of mammalian, primate, and human evolution. Obviously, if those traits were so harmful or incompatible with successful societies, they would have been eliminated long ago.
The fact that a behavior exists isn't an argument for it. Granted, a few acts of that behavior didn't completely wipe out humanity.
But every behavior exists. Think of some type of behavior. Has it been completely eliminated? No. Some types have been mostly eliminated. But none completely.
As I was saying, I'm sympathetic to the idea that traditional marriage is generally a good thing. However, the conservative reasoning you exhibit is as brain-dead and authoritarian as that of totalitarian leftists.
It's merely an explanation of how traditional relationships became a tradition. Judge it whichever way you prefer. The guys who made it a tradition were more interested in protecting their societies than in whether they might be called an "authoritarian".
I’d say totalitarianism is more of a threat than non-family-oriented behavior these days.
I'm not making an argument for anything. You made an argument based on cultural evolution about homosexuality and that argument doesn't work.
Yes, and your explanation is wrong. Cultural evolution is not necessary to explain traditional family structures; traditional family structures and pair bonding are biologically natural for the majority of humans. The only way to destroy traditional families we have ever found is to subsidize single motherhood; stop that, and most people go back to living in traditional families. Homosexuality is a red herring when it comes to the destruction of the traditional family.
Whether it's left-wing authoritarians or right-wing authoritarians, they all want to tell people how to live their lives and they all say "we need to force you at gunpoint to do something" because of "what's best for society" or "what's best for you even if you don't know it".
True, but what that means is that other folks should always be looking for other theories that might better fit the data. Unfortunately, most of the folks on the other side seem to think that "unsettled" means "I can ignore this because it is inconvenient," which is not the same thing.
No, not at all. That's the strawman constructed and attacked. Go check out Watts Up With That, and you'll find 99.9% of the posters acknowledge some warming, but are skeptical that it is all man-made and it all comes from CO2. Rather, the appearance of trends as I linked tend to show a high likelihood that much of the warming is natural. So perhaps we need to re-think our priorities and budgetary allocations based upon data, rather than models that simply do not match the real world.
The problem is that their alternative explanations only fit the data over a very short period of time [skepticalscience.com], geologically speaking. These theories have been debunked repeatedly by trivial comparison with the actual data.
Actually, no. Not a single IPCC model accounts for the rise of temperature from 1890 to 1940, then the plunge from 1945 to 1975, let alone the general pause in the 2000s. However, there are models that correlate nicely with the past and also have predicted - more reliably than the IPCC models - the current 2000s. They come from geologists, though, not from climatologists. In fact, looking at past inter-glacial periods, we see a continual cyclic pattern of ever-increasing temperatures until the entire system "flips" into deep cooling. In other words - what we see today, is not unprecedented.
That said, there's a lot we don't know. It is possible (nay, almost certain) that we will eventually hit an equilibrium point at which more plants are growing, and the temperature change levels off.
When it levels off, that's when it starts falling. A few hundred million years says that's the way it happens. Typically glaciated over most of the Northern hemisphere, with occasional blips of warmth - like we have now.
The big unanswered questions are how many major cities will be underwater when it does, whether we will have enough arable land to feed the earth's population as temperatures and rain patterns shift, and whether the cost of reducing our greehouse gas emissions exceeds the cost of dealing with the effects of climate change over the long term. And *that* is where there is a lot of room for speculation, debate, etc.
Sea levels historically happened 4X faster than now, food production is skyrocketing, and there still isn't any real effect from increasing CO2.
Rather than sweat over something that has NOT been shown to be a cause of disaster (CO2 increases driving climate change), I fully agree with Bjorn Lomborg that we should look to spend our money on real, defined, understood problems.
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
You made an argument based on cultural evolution about homosexuality
Not that I’m aware of. Some guys said "X behavior will make us stronger, Y behavior is counterproductive, let's encourage X behavior and discourage Y behavior". They made it a tradition. It stood the test of time. Others independently came to the same conclusions and also did well. That's all I was saying. You want to make it more than that. But there is no more.
Cultural evolution is not necessary to explain traditional family structures;
But it does explain the fact that they're considered a tradition.
traditional family structures and pair bonding are biologically natural for the majority of humans.
Yeah, those guys pushing the tradition weren't exactly fighting an uphill battle most of the time.
Whether it's left-wing authoritarians or right-wing authoritarians, they all want to tell people how to live their lives and they all say "we need to force you at gunpoint to do something" because of "what's best for society" or "what's best for you even if you don't know it".
Totalitarians are a threat to everyone now, so yeah.
The traditionalist guys wanted the young folks to stick to their wives, have some kids, till the fields, and have an existential reason to protect the villiage from attack by the tribe across the river. They were sometimes mean to folks who wouldn't go along with that, as you say.
There's no tribe across the river any more, but totalitarians threaten us all.
In your words:
That's an argument based on cultural evolution, the implication being that if we don't impose these traditions, we will die out as a society.
That means they were traditionalist totalitarians, as opposed to traditionalist classical liberals who limit themselves to teaching their own kids and don't otherwise impose their views on "the young folks" in general.
Well, that's because totalitarian thinking is pervasive among both the left and the right; it's so pervasive that you don't even perceive it as a distinct viewpoint but think that it's just "tradition".
I just hope he doesn't have a brother called Frank.
Frank Bridenstein.
DidyaseewhatIdidthere?
Garry Knight
I fail to see the down side of this approach.
Some days I get the sinking feeling Orwell was an optimist.
we get droughts followed by floods that kill crops. Global warming makes weather more extreme. You know this, you're just being flippant.
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He's based his opposition to global warming on his religion. If you'd bothered to read the wikipedia page you linked to you'd know it. In science this is what is called "Working backwards from your conclusion". A phrase I learned from this gentleman.
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That's utter nonsense. The majority of Christians in the US even support gay marriage. What the "conversion therapy" issue is about is whether conversion therapy for kids should be legal; a small minority of people wants to have the option of subjecting their underage children to conversion therapy, and some states are banning that. It's far from clear whether such bans are a good idea, since even legitimate counseling might fall under them.
Nor is conversion therapy a specifically Christian issue; medical treatments to cure homosexuality have been used by anybody who believes that homosexuality is a disease. Historically, the biggest offenders there were not Christians, it was socialists, communists, and progressives. Christians historically just viewed homosexuality as a sin, and sin isn't treated by doctors.
Even better would be someone who has good political and management qualifications AND is a scientist. Or if not a scientist, then someone who believes in scientific theories. We've done this before, and could easily do it again.
The fascinating thing about Obama's administration is that it had just about the fewest REPORTED corruption and scandal incidents of any presidency in the last 100 years
Fixed it for you.
If "secret plane load of gold bars to Iran" or "we'll have more flexibility after the election Putin" is just fine with you, you probably need some updates in your CORRUPTION_RECOGNITION submodule.
Just the fact that Clinton was secretary of state for years? Pretty obviously you had THE MOST corrupt administration in history, which you'll understand in five to ten years.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The IPCC was chaired by a railroad engineer, Dr. Rajendra Pachauri, and the Left never complained. He even shared a Nobel prize with another non-scientist, Al Gore, in 2007, not because of his scientific work but for his political connections, just like Gore. Protected from corruption charges by political cronies, Pacharui lost their support when sexual abuse accusations were leveled at him, because an accusation sexual abuse is equal to guilt in Leftist theology, and he resigned in 2015.
So, you don't have to be a scientist to hold positions of power in the AGW community. Your only requirement is to remain loyal to the AGW agenda.
Lots of posts in this thread contain what the posters think are funny putdowns about flat earth and other nonsense, but they swallow hook, line and sinker one of the greatest examples of Lysenkoism the Left has ever produced.
Running with Linux for over 20 years!
His views on whether or not global warming exists has no bearing of any kind on whether not he'd be a good administrator. He's got more important thing like getting us a mission to Mars.
Ferret
Sic gorgiamus allos subjectatos nunc
Science isn't about "belief", it is about evidence.
What we have done with NASA is create an institution that has held back space exploration by decades and wasted vast amounts of money.
How about we all just accept that about 1 in person in 10 is attracted primarily or exclusively to the same gender, and move on?
I don't care who you sleep with, as long as you don't think it's going to be with me or my wife.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
Somebody might see an ankle, or maybe even a knee. Oh, the horror...
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
Given world history, it would be good if a lot more people would let religion trump their reason.
I've not even finished my coffee, and you've already managed to say what'll undoubtedly be the stupidest thing I'll see or hear all day today.
Congratulations!
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
Does that mean we have to have a conversation about the personal social views of everyone that knows what an antenna is?
No, just the ones who actually have their hands on the receiver controls.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
I have a head start of 4 or 5 years in learning Mandarin, so I'm not worried.
It's gonna suck a lot if you're a typical monoglot American, though.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
Please don't bother responding to comments that you don't understand.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
...and Ru Paul will become the next leader of the evangelicals.
We can't have that--people might start to enjoy going to church.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
Republicans and Democrats are becoming Hatfields & McCoys, where hate prevents any kind of peaceful living. For an outsider like me, the situation is nevertheless worrying, because it also prevents any kind of improvement in other aspects of life.
Try being from there, being away for a decade or two, then coming back--it's like, "Who are you people, and what did you do with America?"
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
... non-ideal is better than appointing someone who wants to dismantle the agency and give away the money saved to oligarchs.
It's OK, you're still allowed to say "EPA". I think.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
Yes, and...?
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
Bridenstine is not only not good at science, he's only good as a politician because Fossil Fuel companies like him kissing their ass.
What the heck is wrong with Slashdot that this is labeled insightful? Are the Koch brothers hiring people to ruin discourse on this website or are people being "sub-optimal" for free?
Where'd all the smart people go? This getting ridiculous.
>>"ad space available -- low rates!!!"
Humans have always had problems. They always will. It gets easier and easier to deal with them as time passes and resources and knowledge increase. Note: it's "deal with them", not "prevent them" like some characters in a movie who won't listen to Jeff Goldblum's dramatic warnings.
Nope. We're pretty good at preventing problems, too. For instance, we've stopped putting lead in paint and gasoline, because we found out they caused problems. Easier to prevent lead poisoning than fix it. Similarly, we've developed a set of rules for installing electrical wiring when constructing homes and buildings. These rules prevent fires and electrocutions. If a fire does start somehow, buildings and homes are also built to a set of rules to increase the probability people get out alive and with minimal harm. Considering the cost of renewable energy is now as cheap as gas electricity, there's no reason not to start switching. We won't be able to *finish* until storage gets less expensive, but we can wait a little longer for that.
The Marshall Islands? 2050? The possibility that they — the people of the Marshall Islands — might have trouble with high sea levels 30 years from now? Is that really one of the things that matter most? (Why? Are the 2050 Marshall Islanders the chosen ones? There's no one today, in your home town, who needs help?)
The chosen ones? Be serious. It's just an example. The problems we will face through inaction are too numerous to list here. The more we can do today, the shorter that list will actually be. As for local people needing help, I am more concerned about those who will have problems because of my actions. If someone gets hooked on opiates, I know I wasn't involved in that. (Yes, that is just one example.)
There's zero reason to believe it matters very much. You had a climate guy for 8 years. How much did it truly matter? A little maybe? You want to be upset about maybe a little difference?
Thousands of people smarter than either of us think this problem is one of the most important. We aren't going to go bankrupt doing it. We'll actually be better off once we do. Not only will we reduce future climate-related problems, we'll reduce future health problems. No more pneumonia cases or asthma attacks caused by air pollution from fossil fuel combustion. Yeah, the last president understood. This problem takes more than 8 years to solve, and he can't do it with half the government fighting common sense.
That area is subsiding. It has been for a very long time, just as sea levels have been rising for a long time. Virginia is a rich state, especially right near the coast. Perhaps they should formulate their own plan to use their own resources to deal with their problems.
You're assuming I want to fix Virginia's problems. You're wrong. I simply want to reduce the size of the problem they will face as much as possible.
And being upset about some vaguely-defined potential future problem you can't change is wise?
It's only "vaguely defined" if you are unwilling to listen. We already have inexpensive solutions to mitigate some of what's coming. The more quickly and more broadly we apply these solutions, the smaller the problems will be.
Golly! Who knew that a government agency could be used to further or impede a political agenda? Or that people would have hopes or fears that that might happen?
Gosh!
There's no time like the present. Well, the past used to be.
Climate CHANGE Denier. No one is denying thereâ(TM)s a climate. I hope.
NASA should build "Ark B" now and offer all the "really special people" (Jim Bridenstine, Trump, etc) the first ride in it. Seriously. There are no down-sides to this plan!
Yes, heaven forbid that someone who disagrees with you NECESSARILY must be a Koch brothers shill. And must, ipso facto, also be stupid?
Do you understand that you - precisely - are an example of EXACTLY the sort of seething, emotional, corrosive toxicity that's wrong with adult discourse in the US today?
What's so funny is that "your side" excoriated former-president bush for his grade-school simplistic "with us or against us" mentality.
Try this, just once: assume that the person that disagrees with you on something is a) another rational human being who simply sees things differently and b) also wants the best for humanity and their society as you do. THEN write your comment?
-Styopa
You had best not argue with him. According to you there is a 50% chance he's God.
He did budgets during Truman's term.
The clearance system sounds logical. It is not. It is completely arbitrary. -- John Bolton