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In the Trump Administration, Science Is Unwelcome. So Is Advice. (nytimes.com)
Anonymous readers share a report: As President Trump prepares to meet Kim Jong-un of North Korea to negotiate denuclearization, a challenge that has bedeviled the world for years, he is doing so without the help of a White House science adviser or senior counselor trained in nuclear physics. Mr. Trump is the first president since 1941 not to name a science adviser, a position created during World War II to guide the Oval Office on technical matters ranging from nuclear warfare to global pandemics. As a businessman and president, Mr. Trump has proudly been guided by his instincts. Nevertheless, people who have participated in past nuclear negotiations say the absence of such high-level expertise could put him at a tactical disadvantage in one of the weightiest diplomatic matters of his presidency.
"You need to have an empowered senior science adviser at the table," said R. Nicholas Burns, who led negotiations with India over a civilian nuclear deal during the George W. Bush administration. "You can be sure the other side will have that." The lack of traditional scientific advisory leadership in the White House is one example of a significant change in the Trump administration: the marginalization of science in shaping United States policy. There is no chief scientist at the State Department, where science is central to foreign policy matters such as cybersecurity and global warming. Nor is there a chief scientist at the Department of Agriculture: Mr. Trump last year nominated Sam Clovis, a former talk-show host with no scientific background, to the position, but he withdrew his name and no new nomination has been made.
"You need to have an empowered senior science adviser at the table," said R. Nicholas Burns, who led negotiations with India over a civilian nuclear deal during the George W. Bush administration. "You can be sure the other side will have that." The lack of traditional scientific advisory leadership in the White House is one example of a significant change in the Trump administration: the marginalization of science in shaping United States policy. There is no chief scientist at the State Department, where science is central to foreign policy matters such as cybersecurity and global warming. Nor is there a chief scientist at the Department of Agriculture: Mr. Trump last year nominated Sam Clovis, a former talk-show host with no scientific background, to the position, but he withdrew his name and no new nomination has been made.
That expire in 6 hours, time to use them!
The people giving advice on Korea have been fucking it up for 60-ish years, and REALLY fucking it up for 25 resulting in a viable nuclear program. So I wouldn't listen to them either.
The only thing Trump believes in is money, and money has "In god we trust", so who the hell needs science. And the problem with science advisors, they know WAY too much that Trump does not understand. And as for all the GREAT PEOPLE that Trump knows....he'll probably end up pardoning most of them, including himself.
White House science adviser or senior counselor trained in nuclear physics.
Why would you need EITHER of those people to meet with someone like Kim Jong-un?
They are not going to meet about science. They are not going to talk about how nuclear weapons are constructed.
They are going to meet for the purpose of North Korea *giving up* nuclear weapons and rejoining with the south.
What kind of "experts" can really help you here? Kim Jong-un is not exactly well balanced. What you need is someone who can steer a power-mad and basically unbalanced person into doing something you want them to do, to point out how it's really in their best interests also.
Trump is probably the ONLY president who can pull this off. Because unlike any of the past presidents for many decades, he will speak plainly, and as a result he actually will be more trusted and respected by someone who doesn't really know who to trust.
Trump also has the experience in handling unbalanced megalomaniacs in spades, thanks to his working with real-estate construction all around the world, but most especially New York City. I defy anyone to claim that Kim Jong-un is harder to work with than the upper echelons of the Teamsters.
One last point - the very LAST person you want to bring to a nuclear disarmament party is a nuclear weapons expert, that just screams you are not truly serious about them getting rid of nuclear weapons and they would act accordingly.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
...if this meeting was something other than a photo-op. I don't think anything of substance will be discussed, and the only question is when exactly will the name-calling start again.
Rome taught me patience and assiduous application to detail. Virtues which temper the boldness of great, general views.
science was also unwelcome when it came to facts like sexual dimorphism, the 'wage gap', and 'patriarchy theory.'
Ideologues hate inconvenient truth.
Many people like to blame Trump, but he is a symptom of the US Environment. When Education is constantly cut for a period of 40 years and constant hate towards educated people, this is how things end up.
On TV you see nothing but Reality Shows and shows talking about Ancient Aliens and other such things. You end you with a population that believes Science is fake and thinks Angels and other such things will come and 'save us'.
More people seem to believe in pseudoscience (wikipedia) than anything else, thus you get a Trump and I do not see that changing
... because the Americans are anti-science, anyway.
The People voted and it's their right to reject science.
They have the right to want coal and oil jobs, and to prevent nuclear power plant shutdowns.
They have the right to elect politicians who will deregulate industry so sales will go up.
Americans want to be an isolationist, nationalistic, under-educated, Evangelical Christian, English-speaking country and that's their right.
If and when Americans decide to change direction, they will communicate such via the election booth.
Until then, all's right with the world.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
This is exactly the discussion the leaders of the G7 are having today about Donald Trump.
And what luck are they having? None at all it would seem. Trump steamrolled them at the G7 summit and uncovered a lot of uncomfortable facts about a long-time status quo the G7 would rather have remained obscured (like a 270% tariff on dairy going into Canada, a very real and chilling fact about which I had no idea previously).
Meanwhile Trump has actually gotten the U.S., NK and SK together in a room to talk for the first time in decades.
So many Trump knows something the megalomaniacs running the EU (if you don't think every single person running each country is a kind of megalomaniac you are an idiot) do not. It's not like their own countries are faring well enough they make great examples to point to for how to run anything.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The only way North Korea will rejoin with the south is if Kim Jong-un is allowed to rule it. Will you consider that a victory? I certainly would not.
I wouldn't consider that much of a victory but I also don't consider it a possibility so it really doesn't warrant any thought.
Kim Jong-un isn't going to give up control of the North
Oh, you didn't mean ALL of Korea. (or did you? Not very clear). Nor does he have to, he just has to open up borders and trade between the two countries. That *is* very possible. And is very much a massive victory.
Trump might, however, create some kind of deal. The only leverage he has is lifting economic sanctions or war.
"The only advantage Trump has are these giant massive levers here". Um, yes, those are actually two massive advantages. NK is dying as a country, Kim Jong-un knows this, all he needs is a path to a graceful exit rather than a blaze of glory - and Kim Jong-Un as crazy as he is, obviously is a person who wants to live in luxury rather than die in fire. Have you paid no attention to how he lives?
There's no guarantee that the North would either negotiate in good faith or adhere to the "new rules".
Oh they will not, but long term it will not matter if the people of the two Koreas are allowed to freely mix.
The problem isn't the intelligence, prior attempts, or the people who worked on the problem before...
Then why have there never been talks like this before? Instead all we saw, was countries getting played via telephone from North Korean leaders. Trump is not someone you can play like that because he knows the game, and is will to actually pull the levers unlike previous leaders who NK knew would never ever touch them - even in the face of nuclear weapons being built by North Korea.
All politicians are sociopaths.
Yes, but Trump is actually a strong sociopath unlike presidents for decades before him.
That doesn't guarantee intelligence or good decision making.
Neither does it preclude the same; Not having a nuclear war is great for Trump, it just also happens to work out for everyone else really well. Obama invited conflict (like invading Libya) so he could prove how tough he was. Obama really was the ultimate God of War.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Of course they do but South Korea credits Trump for talks with North Korea - wouldn't they be in a little better position to know who to credit than you?
I mean, for decades there has been the opposite of progress, with North Korea developing nuclear weapons unchecked, killing soldiers from South Korea and America without repercussion. The government of South Korea has been as it is for a very long time.
The only variable in this large equation that has changed is the introduction of Trump. So yes South Korea aided this by being open to talks, but it would not have happened (because it DID NOT HAPPEN) without Trump. End of story.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Sorry for bringing logic to a shit-flinging party, can't help myself.
Unfortunately, you didn't. You have to look at absolute numbers, and not percentages, because the subsidies have a multiplicative effect. They not only change the profitability of milk, but they encourage overproduction (because the subsidies are based on production), which drives down prices.
Indeed, according to government numbers, the US has a 5-1 price edge against Canada in dairy pricing due to subsidies. That should call for a 500% subsidy to fully correct for, and yet we only charge a 270% tariff.
You'd expect if the tariffs were completely out-of-line that nobody in Canada would import dairy form the US, and yet in 2016 alone we imported more than $631 million in dairy from the US. For a population smaller than that of California.
Again -- talk to your own government first. I'd be more than happy to see both of our countries (and the EU, which has the largest dairy subsidies in the world) drop dairy tariffs -- but the unfair subsidies have to come down first. It's the subsidies that have caused the tariffs, not the other way around. Canada is hardly in some power position where we can drop our tariffs and hope for some form of "general goodwill" that the US will stop unfair subsidies and attempts at dumping. The Canadian Government has been clear in the past that if the subsidies go away, we won't need the tariffs anymore.
Yaz
Well, at least they haven't started WWIII over the issue up until now.
They very much did by allowing to let North Korean (and Iran) get within one launch or a smuggled shipping port nuke away from starting WWIII (or at least a nuclear conflict).
You can start wars through inaction as well action, you know.
Just because the nuclear shot has not been fired does not mean the war has not begin.
I mean, we have dead U.S. soldiers (from Iran and North Korea) and everything... how is that not a war?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
What I find odd is that there's so many pro Trump folks on /. (which is ostensibly a site for pro-science nerds)
Many folks here on /. are indeed pro-science nerds. Many are also libertarian and don't like government regulation. Of the viable candidates, Trump was the most likely to reduce government regulation. Personally I am not a big fan of the president, but his election wasn't a surprise to me, nor is the support for him here on /.
until Saddam & Gaddafi. In both cases we secured promises, backed up by extensive international inspections, that they would not develop weapons of mass destruction. And in both cases we proved to be untrustworthy and brutal and arranged for both men to be murdered (Gaddafi died with a bayonet twisting in his gut).
Kim would be a real mad man if he stopped trying to get nukes after seeing what we do to people who relinquish them
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See recent Slashdot submission titled Petroglyph Explanation Remains Ignored After 15 Years. This situation with Trump lacking a science advisor is not especially different in that the person making these petroglyph claims, Anthony Peratt, is a government scientist specializing in high-energy density plasmas and nuclear physics, and has even advised the US government on the Non-Proliferation Treaty.
The Submission ...
The Slashdot community does not itself seem especially concerned about warnings from nuclear scientists, as the submission has had plenty of time by now to make it to the homepage.
who can speak intelligently about nuclear weapons vs nuclear power?
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The summit only exists because of Trump because he is the only one reckless enough to agree to it. This is what the North Korea's want, to be at the big boy's table, a respected and legitimate nuclear power, but what does it give us? Other presidents could have easily done if they wanted to, if they thought it would have accomplished anything for us.
I know we are in a 1984 post truth age and have always been at war with Eurasia, but the relationship with North Korea has always fluctuated up and down because they are duplicitous and skilled at using extortion to extract concessions. Trump's policy towards North Korea has been similarly schizophrenic, talking about "little Rocket man" and threatening with nuclear war, now switching back and forth to the nice nice, but what makes you think that if this doesn't provide the magic results that only those in the cult of personality seem to believe will occur that we won't go back to "fire and fury" on failure. John Bolton seems to have been brought in explicitly for the purpose of fire and fury.
The gratuitous f-bombs and hostility about posters on this subject suggest to me that the parent may just be a troll and treating it in good faith is a foolish endeavor, but if this what represents a widespread consensus of thought then we are in serious trouble.
Do you have any examples (specific quotations would be awesome but I think that might be asking too much) of bad science advice people have given with regards to Korea?
Well the scientists working with intelligence agencies have been wrong about the speed at which North Korean could develop nuclear weapons and delivery technology basically forever - from the most recent example:
" At the start of Donald Trump's presidency, American intelligence agencies told the new administration that while North Korea had built the bomb, there was still ample time - upward of four years - to slow or stop its development of a missile capable of hitting an American city with a nuclear warhead."
But this kind of terrible under-estimation goes back decades.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
and there's plenty to support Trump being anti-science. To wit:
His EPA chief is ignoring air and water quality research and reducing controls on water and air quality
He called Global Warming a Chinese hoax, despite the overwhelming condenses of peer reviewed science recognizing it
He opposes Net Neutrality and ignores studies that show eliminating it would have negative effects on the free exchange of ideas.
He and his VP support Abstinence based education even though it's been shown to be completely ineffective (again, by science).
Two words: Clean Coal.
Two more words: Betsy Devos
I could go on and on. The scientific position to take is that Trump is, in fact, anti-science. He doesn't believe in evidence and facts, preferring the "I substitute your reality with my own" school of thought. To call him anything but anti-science is itself anti-science. It's an attempt to ignore or refute reality itself.
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correcting because your own farmers can't produce milk at the same price because they are more inefficient is very much protectionism
Canada has higher food quality regulations than the US does. We don't permit the use of recombinant bovine somatotropin (rBST) in milk producing cows for one. We also don't permit the high levels of antibiotic use the US dairies are allowed to use in the US. The maximum Somatic Cell Count permitted in Canadian milk is nearly half that allowed in US milk.
So yes, in some ways Canadian dairy production is slightly less efficient, but only because we don't feed our cows growth hormones which are detrimental to both bovine and human health, and don't allow all the blood and pus and other non-milk cellular material the US permits in their milk products.
But again -- if US dairies are willing to meet our dairy requirements and stop with the subsidies worth more than the entire Canadian dairy industry is worth -- you'll find Canada ready to talk. Again -- the tariffs were in response to continued US Government subsidies, and not the other way around.
Yaz
Out and out editorials, no facts, nothing at all. Just a pure, garbage opinion piece.
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
Actually, NAFTA does allow permit this for dairy products:
NAFTA, Annex 703.2, Section B, Part 7 states:
7. Notwithstanding paragraph 6 and Article 309:
a) the rights and obligations of the Parties under Article XI:2(c)(i) of the GATT and those rights as incorporated by Article 309 shall apply with respect to trade in agricultural goods only to the dairy, poultry and egg goods set out in Appendix 703.2.B.7; and
b) with respect to such dairy, poultry and egg goods that are qualifying goods, either Party may adopt or maintain a prohibition or restriction or a customs duty on the importation of such good consistent with its rights and obligations under the GATT.
Appendix 703.2.B.7 lists the specific items which qualify under this part.
Likewise, Article 712 states:
Right to Take Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures
1. Each Party may, in accordance with this Section, adopt, maintain or apply any sanitary or phytosanitary measure necessary for the protection of human, animal or plant life or health in its territory, including a measure more stringent than an international standard, guideline or recommendation.
Right to Establish Level of Protection
2. Notwithstanding any other provision of this Section, each Party may, in protecting human, animal or plant life or health, establish its appropriate levels of protection in accordance with Article 715.
Scientific Principles
3. Each Party shall ensure that any sanitary or phytosanitary measure that it adopts, maintains or applies is:
a) based on scientific principles, taking into account relevant factors including, where appropriate, different geographic conditions;
b) not maintained where there is no longer a scientific basis for it; and
c) based on a risk assessment, as appropriate to the circumstances.
Non-Discriminatory Treatment
4. Each Party shall ensure that a sanitary or phytosanitary measure that it adopts, maintains or applies does not arbitrarily or unjustifiably discriminate between its goods and like goods of another Party, or between goods of another Party and like goods of any other country, where identical or similar conditions prevail.
So in effect, dairy is exempt from most NAFTA rules, and setting human health standards for products is perfectly legal, so long as it is non-discriminatory.
Yaz
Yaz Said..
Sorry for bringing logic to a shit-flinging party, can't help myself.
Unfortunately, you didn't. You have to look at absolute numbers, and not percentages, because the subsidies have a multiplicative effect. They not only change the profitability of milk, but they encourage overproduction (because the subsidies are based on production), which drives down prices.
Indeed, according to government numbers, the US has a 5-1 price edge against Canada in dairy pricing due to subsidies. That should call for a 500% subsidy to fully correct for, and yet we only charge a 270% tariff.
You'd expect if the tariffs were completely out-of-line that nobody in Canada would import dairy form the US, and yet in 2016 alone we imported more than $631 million in dairy from the US. For a population smaller than that of California.
Again -- talk to your own government first. I'd be more than happy to see both of our countries (and the EU, which has the largest dairy subsidies in the world) drop dairy tariffs -- but the unfair subsidies have to come down first. It's the subsidies that have caused the tariffs, not the other way around. Canada is hardly in some power position where we can drop our tariffs and hope for some form of "general goodwill" that the US will stop unfair subsidies and attempts at dumping. The Canadian Government has been clear in the past that if the subsidies go away, we won't need the tariffs anymore.
Yaz
Great post Yaz. Very informative. Surprised someone is trying to mod you down.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
Where is the science that any of that is actually bad for either cows or humans? The FDA has some of the strictest regulations in the world, yet you say they're letting farmers poison the population with milk?
Fortunately, Health Canada puts their research online:
Executive summary: it's much worse for cows than for people, but there are still some concerns about immune responses in some people. So it's mostly about the health of the cows (and the milk produced by potentially unhealthy cows) rather than a direct effect of rbST in milk on humans.
Yaz
73% of US dairy farmers' revenue is from subsidies. https://www.realagriculture.co... so, fine to get rid of them, but get rid of crop insurance, Price Loss Coverage, Agricultural Risk Coverage, Stacked Income Protection Plan, Margin Protection Program for Dairy Producers, Dairy Product Donation Program. Then there is below cost (aka subsidized) water for irrigation, subsidized electricity to pump it. "The total value of irrigation subsidies provided by state and local government has been estimated at between US$10 billion and US$33 billion" so pot? meet kettle!
I'll just respond to one of the parrots of this "interesting" talking point being spread by the Hive Mind.
Just because the known facility was destroyed does not mean they could not simply move on to another..
They have a very large one sitting right next door for example. Or the entire ocean... maybe during a training exercise by other nations. Oops!
Basically the thought they would have to be done because one facility is close to collapse is idiotic and ignores the realities of a nuclear weapons program.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
It takes resources to do Science; the best thing we've got to create flows of resources is a Free Market.
That's weird, I could have swore that the USSR was the first country in space. I'm also pretty sure that what has made the U.S. such a scientific powerhouse has been tons of federal grant money that flows into our universities for basic research. The free market turns that into money afterward. There's also the issue of all those nifty advancements brought about through NASA's research.
The free market is important, but when you make it the be-all, end-all, you'll find that things don't work out as well as Ayn Rand's stories would have you believe.
"From the depths of my skeptical and rationalist soul, I ask the Lord to protect me from California touchie-feeliedom."
Even if I grant your couple of [citation needed] deaths, I wasn't talking about typical low-level friction (and your definition of any death of any soldier anywhere as a "war" is just plain stupid). I specifically said "WWIII", which is well known by everyone, apparently except you, to mean a major, probably nuclear, war amongst superpowers.
We are not now, and have never been, fighting WWIII. Even the Cold War, which had plenty of dead soldiers on all sides, was not WWIII.
Both you and Yaz are falling for Trump's gimmick. If you think this is about DAIRY TARIFFS, you've already missed what happened.
Trump wants to destabilize the existing relationship so he can "renegotiate" a mafia strong-arm position that puts the US in an isolationist posture. He's going to do it on every front, Mexico, Canada, G7, everywhere. The exact tariffs themselves are just dog and pony shows. The fact that you guys are mired in discussions about dairy tariffs shows that you are missing the forest for the trees. Trump would do this NO MATTER WHICH TARIFFS are at issue.
And he insulted Trudeau as part of his bully strategy. Trudeau didn't say anything that he hadn't already said before. Trump would have taken any statement and pretended it was offensive. The goal of Trump is to bully and harass, laws and regulations be damned. He's the King of the US and he doesn't care what you, or any of the voting public think. He can break the law, shoot some guy on the street (his point, not mine), and pardon himself.
You're witnessing the birth of a Putin-esque oligarchic faux-capitalist government with a Supreme Leader. Stop arguing about milk and pay attention to the big picture.
So the trump administration is going to be the first administration in the past few decades to negotiate de-nuclearization in North Korea without a senior White House science advisor at the table (or even in the administration, right?
And every other administration for the last few decades has had a senior White House science advisor at the table for such talks, right?
Well, honestly, every prior administration that negotiated with North Korea got rolled and wound up pouring money, aid on North Korea while they kept working on getting the bomb.
Do we really need to repeat the failures of prior administrations? Why didn't the presence of a senior White House science advisor prevent all the prior administrations from signing flawed agreements?
Ken
I work with a lot of physicists. I have three masters degrees myself. There is no such thing a 'scientist' is the sense that there is someone who is qualified advise on nuclear weapons, cybersecurity and AGW. As I said I work with physicist and to many of them think they are competent to speak on any subject, which is of course bollocks.
If you want to know about nuclear weapons find a nuclear weapons expert, who might be a physicist, but more likely is a nuclear engineer or might even be a historian or a political science major, who has specialize in disarmament and disarmament verification.
if you want to know about cybersecurity ask a cybersecurity expert. Having a physicist science adviser and asking them about cybersecurity makes as much sense as asking a biologist or a philosopher.
As for AGW I'm sure there's a propagandist around to give pointers on how to use panic to transfer wealth or you could find someone who knows statistics and model building to explain to the credulous how science really works.