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.

Comments

The Best People

[bestweasel]

Space? This Bridenstine guy will probably turn out to be a Flat Earther as well.

Re: The Best People

[shilly]

This is not about whether he "knows" science. This is about appointing someone who *doesn't believe in science* because it produces results that don't fit his politics.

If you can't characterise the problem effectively, you'll waste your time sneering at a strawman, which is exactly what you've done.

Re: The Best People

[Smallpond]

Yes this. We already have one agency for climate, why do we have to use nasa for it as well. Oh I know, the grand money grab the thing driving all of the climate research.

Yes. What does building satellites have to do with weather and studying the Earth? oh, wait.

Re: The Best People

[shilly]

I know jack shit about him other than *his own words and deeds*, many of which are in the public domain, and which are enough to come to an informed view of him.

But let's just say you were right and I knew "Jack Shit [sic] about him". What more would you know, then? Nothing more than me, correct? So what makes *your* original post qualify as "thinking for yourself" vs mine? Just the fact that you agree with your own views and felt the urgent need to defend yourself. That reflex reaction to defend -- that's not thinking for yourself. Thinking for yourself would have involved a step back, reflecting on what I wrote, and responding in a positive and constructive way.

I feel no such compunction to do any of that in my first response. I was content to point out the (obvious) flaws in your position. But then, I didn't need to, as I'm not the one lecturing other people on how they ought to argue online, so I wasn't the person at risk of being shown to be a hypocrite.

Re: The Best People

[archer, the]

Watch Nova's Decoding the Weather Machine. The science is settled. Global temperatures are rising. Sea levels are rising. Severe weather is getting worse.

The only uncertainty is whether we Americans will get off our collective ass and help fix the problem we helped to create.

Re: The Best People

[Layzej]

The very first item in the list of mandates from the original 1958 NASA act is:

The aeronautical and space activities of the United States shall be conducted so as to contribute materially to one or more of the following objectives:

(1) The expansion of human knowledge of phenomena in the atmosphere and space;

Beyond that, NASA is interested in predicting the atmosphere and habitability of distant planets. There are a few planets that we have access to and can study directly. None are so convenient as Earth, upon which we have (tens/hundreds of) thousands of sensors. Why should we render NASA blind to the one planet that we can readily study?

Re: The Best People

[joe_frisch]

Science isn't a yes / no. Certainly we don't completely understand climate.

If you want a yes / no, you need to ask a very specific question:

Does human activity affect climate? Yes - obviously.

Should we we reduce CO2 emissions? That isn't a "science" question, it is a political question that takes (or should take) as inputs climate models and economic models.

The real questions are things like:

For various CO2 emission scenarios, what are the likely ranges of sea level, and climate changes in different parts of the world. These are being worked on, but there is still a large range in the simulation predictions.

Are we missing any important inputs to climate? (like the cosmic ray / solar wind effect on cloud seeding issue).

If the science were settled there would be no point spending more effort on it. (Newtonian mechanics is "settled", no one does research on Newtonian mechanics).

Re: The Best People

[joe_frisch]

How is a policy decision a science question?

Science can tell us what will happen in different scenarios, but it can't tell us what we SHOULD do about it because science says nothing about what our goals are. There world will be different under different policies, but its not the job of science to tell us which of those futures are better.

Should we kill or sterilize everyone with genetic defects? Science will say that course of action will very gradually decrease the number of defects in the population, and the Nazis used this as an argument that we SHOULD take that action. Most people today, myself included, think that is a terrible course of action because we are not trying to optimize the genetics of the human race, that isn't the goal.

In the case of climate, I think that science provides input that makes a political decision to reduce CO2 emissions a good choice, but it remains a political, not scientific choice.

Re: The Best People

[jmccue]

The only uncertainty is whether we Americans will get off our collective ass and help fix the problem we helped to create.

I can answer that, we Americans will do nothing about Climate Change, just look an the attempted conversion to metric. Only when not using metric is expensive we will change to it. Defence and most health industries have already converted but the general population ls no clue that happened. So for Climate Change, Americans will need to have a real cost to ignoring it. My first step is for the government to stop subsidising flood insurance and state "due to Climate Change, doing this is too expensive"

Re: The Best People

[gtall]

We know he doesn't have a PhD in science. That should make him bang out of line right there. But when has the Trump administration ever cared about qualifications other that sucking up to Trump?

Coal rockets and a gay ban in space?

[dontbgay]

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.

Re:Coal rockets and a gay ban in space?

[dontbgay]

Shitposting of the highest order. There is an actual conversation to be had here but instead we get this foolishness. Can't they leave that junk for Reddit?

Re:Coal rockets and a gay ban in space?

[Dutch Gun]

The article answers some of that better than the ridiculous flame-throwing summary.

Mr. Bridenstine, a former Navy pilot who is now in his third term in the House of Representatives, has become immersed in space issues. In 2016, he sponsored a bill called the American Space Renaissance Act, which proposed broad, ambitious goals for the nation’s space program, including directing NASA to devise a 20-year plan. Although it did not reach a vote, some of the ideas were incorporated into other legislation.

Seems like the guy has some plans already in mind. Probably why he got the job.

Mr. Bridenstine has since moderated his public views, saying he supports NASA research into the causes of extreme weather.

During his confirmation hearing, he agreed that human activity “absolutely” contributed to climate change, but sparred with Senator Brian Schatz, Democrat of Hawaii, over whether it was “a contributor” or the “primary cause.”

So, in the face of new evidence about climate change and its causes, maybe he changed his mind. We should be welcoming news that people like this are coming around. And no gay people in space? Coal-powered rockets? Really?

In his confirmation hearing, Mr. Bridenstine tried to make a distinction between views he espoused as a politician and how he would act as the manager of a large federal agency. “I want to make sure that NASA remains, as you said, apolitical,” Mr. Bridenstine said to Mr. Nelson.

And more...

Other than the confirmation hearing, Mr. Bridenstine has spent much of the last seven months keeping quiet. He largely stopped making any public statements and voting on bills to avoid conflicts of interest.

He attended the first meeting of the National Space Council meeting, a panel revived by the Trump administration to coordinate space issues between various federal agencies, but did not speak or participate.

And during Mr. Trump’s State of the Union address in January, he brought a guest: Bill Nye “the Science Guy.”

Many people probably don't agree with his views, but that doesn't necessarily mean he'll be imposing those views on NASA. He's clearly stated otherwise in his confirmation hearings. I suppose there's the possibility he's just lying, but he's on public record, speaking to Congress, stating otherwise.

Re:Coal rockets and a gay ban in space?

[Kohath]

Has CNN connected to dots to Russia yet?

Re:Coal rockets and a gay ban in space?

[Layzej]

During his confirmation hearing, he agreed that human activity “absolutely” contributed to climate change, but sparred with Senator Brian Schatz, Democrat of Hawaii, over whether it was “a contributor” or the “primary cause.”

Scientists believe that it is extremely likely that most of the observed increase in global average surface temperature over the last half century was caused by the anthropogenic increase in greenhouse gas concentrations and other anthropogenic forcings together. In fact, some studies put the human contribution higher than 150%. That is, non-anthropogenic factors have had a net cooling effect. Human factors have caused all observed warming and also masked that cooling effect.

Mr. Bridenstine is promoting an extremely fringe position that isn't supported by the evidence. I'm not sure why we should celebrate that.

Re:Coal rockets and a gay ban in space?

[Kohath]

And you are right. Knowledge of the future isn't helping me. It sickens me to think of the problems the next generations of humans are going to have.

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.

If the Marshall Islands become submerged in 2050, will you see the news and say, "Not my problem, I didn't cause it."?

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?)

I'd solve it myself if I could, but this problem requires a team effort at solution. We should be able to make significant progress on this with a few deniers, but not when one of them is the president.

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?

Norfolk, Virginia is having flooding problems due to rising sea levels.

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.

Ignoring the large group of well-informed people that is warning us that much worse is in store is idiocy, def. "foolishness".

And being upset about some vaguely-defined potential future problem you can't change is wise?

Re:Coal rockets and a gay ban in space?

[l0n3s0m3phr34k]

His American Space Renaissance Act is actually pretty awesome. Ideas like:

"the United States should maintain a continuous human presence in low Earth orbit and, to the extent practical and consistent with national security priorities, should utilize commercial capabilities for operations in low Earth orbit."

" to develop and publish standards and specifications necessary for on-orbit habitats to house NASA astronauts and science experiments in low Earth orbit. "

"NASA continue its commercial partnerships for resupply and crew movement to the ISS and future low Earth orbit platforms. "

"Expresses a sense of Congress that space debris is a growing threat to space access and that the United States does not currently have a plan for developing space debris remediation capabilities."

"Space Transportation Infrastructure Matching Grants – Updates the Space Transportation Infrastructure Matching Grants program and funds it by setting aside one half of one percent of funding in the Airport and Airway Trust Fund. "

"Recognizes that startup space companies are often limited in their ability to offer cash compensation to employees. For stock or option compensation, defers employee tax liability until liquidation."

"space-based weather data and services can help mitigate gaps in critical weather requirements, increase architecture resilience, and augment legacy government weather systems."

"Electromagnetic Spectrum – Expresses a sense of Congress that commercial launch providers require access to spectrum during launch. Requires NTIA and FCC to ensure access to frequencies and reduce the number of authorizations required per launch." - this was actually a issue on one of SpaceX's recent launches when they were denied broadcasting.

I could go on, but I think everyone will get the point. For a thought experiment, let's say that he is able to turn his bill into NASA's operating policy. It's a very coherent policy that could push the US and all of mankind upwards. Weather monitoring is mentioned several times, as is working with foreign governments. Personally, I think the ASPA has amazing potential. None of Trump's other appointees have ANYTHING like this already outlined.

Re: Coal rockets and a gay ban in space?

[c6gunner]

Basically - no. We can test for a Santa Claus, since pretty much everything about the man says he physically manifests himself, slides down chimneys, and places presents under Christmas trees around the world.

Not my Santa. He's metaphysical. The presents get delivered but parents often take credit for them. Some other believers claim that Santa actually acts through the parents, guiding their actions; I do not agree with those heathens, though.

Now, how about a metaphysical higher power, that influences our emotions and impulses, who will only be seen after you are already dead?

If nobody sees him until after they're dead, then basically anyone who claims to know that he exists (let alone know anything about what he is like, or what he wants) is just making shit up.

No tangible interference in the physical domain to document, strictly an emotive, internal "nudge" - the source of conscience, for example? How do you test for that?

That's up to those claiming that it exists; in science we go with the null hypothesis. Why would you believe something which you not only have no evidence of, but also cannot ever find evidence of?

There are a near infinity of things which people can invent out of whole cloth and which you cannot test for. If your position is that we should believe everything until it is proven false then you are at best gullible. How exactly you've managed to convince yourself that "real scientists" have to believe things which they have no evidence of ... that's truly mindboggling.

Re: Anti-LGBT ??

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Problems with Bridenstine do not justify last bit

[JoshuaZ]

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).

Re: Anti-LGBT ??

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re: Anti-LGBT ??

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Senate confirms climate denier

[burtosis]

The guy is an idiot. Everyone knows climates are real.

how Slashdot has fallen

[ooloorie]

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.

Looks like Slashdot has gone from "News for Nerds" to yellowpress-style hit pieces.

Re: Anti-LGBT ??

[alexo]

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.

Re:Problems with Bridenstine do not justify last b

[argStyopa]

"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.

What is needed at the NASA helm

[Kiliani]

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 ...