Bush and Science

[werldhed]

Maiden is partly correct: yes, as a scientist, I am pissed that I'm not getting as much money as I'd like, but I'd bitch about that no matter who cut the funding. Everyone is going to have different views about where money should go, and I happen to believe it would be better spent on science than on defense. Other people, regardless of political leanings, will feel different. I don't think scientists bitch about it because more of them are liberal; if a democrat cut funding, we'd still bitch. It's because a LOT of what science can do depends on how far funding can go.

However, the really worrisome part about MQ's post isn't that George wants to spend money on other things (every president will have different ideas about how to fund programs), it's that he and his administration are completely uninterested in science at all -- to the point where they will restrict its voice. My example of funding simply illustrates how my lab has to find loopholes and pose as patriots ("I pledge allegience") for Bush to care what we do.

Bush and Co. will continue to speak about "intelligence" when it helps them (WMD's, anyone?) but care nothing for intelligence on other threats such as global warming.

[werldhed]

And pressuring researchers to change their results or to avoid making them public is just fucking wrong no matter who you are. We do have some hardcore republicans/bush supporters here that would be repulsed by this sort of thing.

[Maiden]

Yeah, I have no doubt that things are going downhill for science under GW and that we should be very concerned about it. I have had the pleasure of working with some of the leading minds of science and medicine and lack of funding has always been an issue. I am just curious if it is easier to point the finger at the big dickhead running the show and if science is really any worse off than the rest of us proportionally.

[werldhed]

Yeah, I have no doubt that things are going downhill for science under GW and that we should be very concerned about it. I have had the pleasure of working with some of the leading minds of science and medicine and lack of funding has always been an issue. I am just curious if it is easier to point the finger at the big dickhead running the show and if science is really any worse off than the rest of us proportionally.

That is something I can't personally answer, because I've only been in the field since Bush has been pres. :icon26:
So I can't say what things might have been like during the Clinton admin., for example. However, I do know that my lab enjoyed ample funding during the years before I joined, but I can't tell you if that's a result of who was in office or if it was for some other reason. My personal experience tells me that Bush, his administration, and his followers are (for the most part) unhealthy for the future of research and the credibility of science.

Oh, and as for being proportionally worse off than everyone else, I would say probably not. Unless you're an oil tycoon, a CEO, or a radio host, we're all the same distance up shit creek.

[Massive Quasars]

honest discussion :icon14:

[Canidae]

I think all the rich guys have gotten secretly together and fund their own research on scientific advances that they reap and only share with the public if there is money to be made.
If near immortality is discovered the common man is not getting a piece of that action, morelikely it will signal a program of mass depopulation and consolidation of world control.

[Massive Quasars]

The threat is more general (i.e., it is an assault on rationality and the employment of evidence as an argumentative tool). No one since Hitler has politicized science, rationality and argument more than this uncurious prick.

It's not only Bush. Most republicans are in step with his policies and views. It doesn't look like this will end in 4 years though, I think Americans will simply re-elect another republican not unlike Bush. The democrats don't have a strong candidate for president.

What does this means? Perhaps scientific progress stifled somewhat, the imposing of conservative bioethics policies, and further politicization of science.

[tnf]

Read "The Politicization of Science in teh Bush Administration" in the latest issue of Skeptic. Sums it all up.

Imagine being a science educator in the midst of all this. The ignorance that pervades this nation is becoming staggering as people follow the lead of this non-progressive, backwards thinking dipshit who could hardly pull a decent GPA in a BUSINESS PROGRAM. No offense to business majors here - just pointing out that we have a BUSINESS MAJOR determining our science policy (if not directly, then indirectly by vetting scientists in key positions and putting in his own guys who have sold out to the establishment or are born again Christians).

Now, I might be wrong on his degree (I think its an MBA), but I can gaurandamntee that it isn't science related.

Scary shit.

[tnf]

By the way, if you don't believe in evolution, please ship yourself back to the 1500s or thereabouts.

[tnf]

Forgive the rants, but I've had a particularly bad day dealing with people in administrative positions today.

[4g3nt_Smith]

Lol, the words Bush and science in the same title make me :icon19: irl

[Maiden]

No offense to business majors here

Hey! don't lump me in with that dickhead!

[Mr Late]

biddness is teh GOOD scholl'ate'in

[werldhed]

By the way, if you don't believe in evolution, please ship yourself back to the 1500s or thereabouts.

It's not worth me starting another thread, but since you brought up evolution and education, I thought I'd let you know that Discover magazine just did a big cover story on Avida. That might have been where you learned about it in the first place, but meh... thought you might like to know...

http://www.discover.com/issues/feb-05/cover/

(it's not the full article, but I know there are some scans floating around somewhere if you want to look. Not sure what the policy is now for posting scans... )

[tnf]

By the way, if you don't believe in evolution, please ship yourself back to the 1500s or thereabouts.

It's not worth me starting another thread, but since you brought up evolution and education, I thought I'd let you know that Discover magazine just did a big cover story on Avida. That might have been where you learned about it in the first place, but meh... thought you might like to know...

http://www.discover.com/issues/feb-05/cover/

(it's not the full article, but I know there are some scans floating around somewhere if you want to look. Not sure what the policy is now for posting scans... )

yea, I have the article....I downloaded Avida and gave it a looksee...interesting. Don't have the time or knowledge of the program to put it to any good use ATM though...but a good article and a cool program idea.

[HM-PuFFNSTuFF]

#3 on the project censored list...

http://www.projectcensored.org/publicat ... index.html

[rep]

By the way, if you don't believe in evolution, please ship yourself back to the 1500s or thereabouts.

While it is the only logical explanation for the condition of a species besides eugenics, there is no scientific evidence supporting that homo habilis is directly connected to homo sapien. There are very similar structures in each body, but there is no empirical evidence supporting that these old species transmutated into what our species is today, especially on their own.

Just because two things look similar does not mean that they are. For example, etymologically speaking; Butterscotch does not originate in Scotland and the word has nothing to do with that sort of, "Scotch."

The common misconception of evolution is that by some divinity the body has transformed on it's own to adapt to the environment, when these changes could just as well have been assimilated or learned through the ages.

In the end, science is only ever real and correct in the present tense, and evolution is but another religion.

[Grudge]

I call bullshit, post your sources.

[4g3nt_Smith]

IT's rep, he has no sources, just bullshit.

[blood.angel]

Im about to revoke my membership to the rep fan club after that last post.

[R00k]

By the way, if you don't believe in evolution, please ship yourself back to the 1500s or thereabouts.

While it is the only logical explanation for the condition of a species besides eugenics, there is no scientific evidence supporting that homo habilis is directly connected to homo sapien. There are very similar structures in each body, but there is no empirical evidence supporting that these old species transmutated into what our species is today, especially on their own.

Wonderful, we had no idea there was a missing link.

Just because two things look similar does not mean that they are. For example, etymologically speaking; Butterscotch does not originate in Scotland and the word has nothing to do with that sort of, "Scotch."

That's a well-constructed argument about evolutionary development.

The common misconception of evolution is that by some divinity the body has transformed on it's own to adapt to the environment, when these changes could just as well have been assimilated or learned through the ages.

That's basically the definition of evolution. :icon27:

In the end, science is only ever real and correct in the present tense, and evolution is but another religion.

No, it's the best theory we have that is actually supported by all the evidence available. We didn't find a book someone wrote 2000 years ago stating "Man came from other animals on the planet and changed to live better," and simply required everyone to believe it without any proof.
:icon27:+

[werldhed]

By the way, if you don't believe in evolution, please ship yourself back to the 1500s or thereabouts.

While it is the only logical explanation for the condition of a species besides eugenics, there is no scientific evidence supporting that homo habilis is directly connected to homo sapien. There are very similar structures in each body, but there is no empirical evidence supporting that these old species transmutated into what our species is today, especially on their own.

Just because two things look similar does not mean that they are. For example, etymologically speaking; Butterscotch does not originate in Scotland and the word has nothing to do with that sort of, "Scotch."

The common misconception of evolution is that by some divinity the body has transformed on it's own to adapt to the environment, when these changes could just as well have been assimilated or learned through the ages.

In the end, science is only ever real and correct in the present tense, and evolution is but another religion.

This argument makes no sense. First of all, how does the absence of evidence between two species say anything about the accuracy of evolution? The amount of undenialble evidence supporting evolution all the way down to the molecular level is not negated just because we only have two habilis skulls or so. Your argument is starting to sound like Ge0ff's -- we don't have evidence that Osama is alive, so he must be dead!

Secondly, evolution does not contend that changes happen by some "divinity" -- we know what the mechanism is that causes change and in most cases, we know why this mechanism occurs. And how does a species "learn" a change? If you mean the way species act, that can be considered evolution, too. Birds (despite having feathers) didn't start flying until they "learned" that taking flight can help them get away from predators. Thus, the species that "learned" to fly survived and passed their genes on. That's evolution.

I just don't understand what your argument is.

[blood.angel]

NEWSFLASH: IRISH COFFEE IS NOT ACTUALLY MADE IN IRELAND!

THEREFORE WE DIDNT COME FROM MONKEYS!!!!!

[tnf]

By the way, if you don't believe in evolution, please ship yourself back to the 1500s or thereabouts.

While it is the only logical explanation for the condition of a species besides eugenics, there is no scientific evidence supporting that homo habilis is directly connected to homo sapien. There are very similar structures in each body, but there is no empirical evidence supporting that these old species transmutated into what our species is today, especially on their own.

Just because two things look similar does not mean that they are. For example, etymologically speaking; Butterscotch does not originate in Scotland and the word has nothing to do with that sort of, "Scotch."

The common misconception of evolution is that by some divinity the body has transformed on it's own to adapt to the environment, when these changes could just as well have been assimilated or learned through the ages.

In the end, science is only ever real and correct in the present tense, and evolution is but another religion.

Flat earth society is that way-->

[Ryoki]

Rep was only recently evolved, give him a break.