http://www.wired.com/news/medtech/0,1286,62119,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_1
Yes...unbiased. I'm sure that's the word for it.
Bush attacks science...again.
- Thread starter Andonyx
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http://www.wired.com/news/medtech/0,1286,62119,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_1
Yes...unbiased. I'm sure that's the word for it.
Well, sorry to have to contradict you there, but I really have to be skeptical of how unbiased people are when they make the absurd claim, "There's nothing wrong with the system." Bush's plan may be bad science, but so is what he's attacking. The system is broken, and at least seems to be beyond repair. The only solution I can see is to get politics out of science completely; it shouldn't even be there in the first place.
shanek said:
Fair enough.
But that's exactly the opposite of what he's doing.
I remember in the first three months of office, when he got back the report on industrial impact on global warming issues that HE COMISSIONED because he didn't like the initial report he got from the EPA.
He didn't like the new report either and said, "Sounds like European science to me."
What the hell does that mean?
I didn't realize science was different depending on what political borders you crossed.
The man has been about as anti-science as it can get, not just politicizing science, but demonizing science.
You don't "Hand-pick" your science reviewers because you're looking for objectivity, you do it because you have an agenda you want to promote that may run contradictory to actual science.
Yes a lot of people push their agendas with science, that's one of the problems of having tax funded science initiatives. But at least in a lot of cases the non-objective skewing from various sides has chance to cancel each other out.
This policy is a freaking joke.
Here's the good part:
If a report calls for regulatory action, it is subject to this new "peer review" process (I know the reports I have been involved with have always received peer review before publication). If the report says no action is needed, it does not receive the same peer review. And there's a question of bias?
If a report calls for regulatory action, it is subject to this new "peer review" process (I know the reports I have been involved with have always received peer review before publication). If the report says no action is needed, it does not receive the same peer review. And there's a question of bias?
https://registration.realcities.com...w.charlotte.com/mld/observer/news/2575082.htm
http://www.cnn.com/2002/ALLPOLITICS/06/04/bush.climate.change.ap/index.html
http://www.house.gov/reform/min/politicsandscience/example_epa.htm
http://www.house.gov/reform/min/politicsandscience/example_nih.htm
I agree that there are huge issues with political maneuvering, grant extortion, and agenda driven decisions in the scientific community, but when it stems directly from the presidential administration, this is a much more disturbing occurence...
To my mind at least.
Andonyx said:
Why would that be such a surprise? If scientists give government the power to act based on their findings, then they're giving it the power to act based on whatever findings they choose. It has always been this way with government. Why would you give someone a gun if they have a history of pointing it in absurd and dangerous directions?
Zero said:
Whereas what we've had before is people making up fake science to justify those restrictions in the first place. Interesting thing, most of those restrictions were cooked up by many of those same industries as a way of keeping competition at bay.
It changes, but oh how it stays the same...
Nyarlathotep
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I will agree with Shanek 100% that politics has no place in science. What I can't fathom is how to KEEP it out. Even if you remove government from the equation I am absolutely certain that any group with an agenda that they feel that they can use science to advance will trot out scientists that they feel back their cause and people who oppose them will counter with their own pet scientists. OF course, eventually the first group will seek to fund those scientists working to advance their agenda and the second group will do likewise. let this happen long enough and politics has effedctively entered science through a back door without the government doing it. It's not right but I don't see how to prevent it from happening.
DavidJames
Penultimate Amazing
I agree completely. Science has to be funded, however, and since there are issues with Govt. funding and issues with business funding the obvious question is how? I'm open to ideas...
Nyarlathotep said:
Sure, what you're suggesting is hardly an ideal, but it's at least better than what we have for one reason: what we have now is a single entity (government) FORCING this on us. Whereas with your situation, at least there's a choice, and over time I have confidence that the self-correcting nature of science will iron out these problems.
As for what to do in the short term, I must admit I don't really have any ideas for how to fix it.
Zero said:
This is just a bogus flame. RMI was, at least initially, discovered and researched by private organizations. Condoms are a free market achievement resulting from years of private R&D. And mercury was long known to be toxic before the government started regulating anything. In fact, a COMPLETELY PRIVATE body has announced that they have engineered a bacteria capable of binding its proteins with the mercury thereby negating its harmful effects on the body.
What has the government done? They've made companies put bogus warning labels on keyboards. They've handed out condoms and pretended that's a solution to teenage sex. And mercury has been used as a scare tactic, like it was in my home county last year; they were going on and on and on about how the abnormal amount of rain meant that mercury contamination from the nuke plant would be at an all-time high and so we'd need this program and that program and some other thing...Anyway, they sent around all of these bottles we were supposed to fill and send back so that they could test for levels of mercury, and all the while they kept up the scare tactics. Guess what they DIDN'T find in the local water supplies?
See, the above quoted post is EXACTLY the kind of thing the bigots resort to when they can't properly defend their arguments.
Dancing David
Penultimate Amazing
shanek said:
Well, there is the fact that salmon don't spawn on the eastern seaboard any more, in science a determination is made based upon observable statistics, it will always be a political decision what level of risk is tolerable. Such as if the slamon fishery is important enough to clean up the rivers on the east Coast.
Take arsenic in the drinking water as a prime example, there is a risk for low levels of arsenic in drinking water, we are currently in a political process that is determining if the risk is balanced by the cost.
Ah rememeber the good old days when scienece was just the handmaiden of industry and we were told that somking tobacco was good for us? Like the guy who invented the liquid lead in gasoline saying that it wasn't toxic.
Right now there is the issue of mercury trading for emissions standards, I feel that it is a poor idea, given the fact that they are now revising the rules on refitting old power plants. I don't really like the idea that there will a be a trade off where the health of certain children will be damaged by mercury, just so someone else can not emit mercury. Mercury is a risk, but if (and that is a big if) it gets the coal burning plants to actualy reduce emissions of mercury then it is a good thing.
Our system is based upon compromise.
It is very good science that green house gases are slowly raising the earth's temperature, but there is still some debate amongst politicains if that is so. it is not much of a controversy amongst the scientists. So again we have a political process that determines acceptable risk, I don't like it, but it is about the best we could ever get for a system.
Fortunately GWB is not as wrong as the germans were prior to WWII, we don't have loyalty police on theorhetical science yet.
Andonyx said:
As a scientist, I think in principle peer review of complex issues is a good idea. However, if the PR panel will not represent the best in the field, it is not the way to go about it.
And BTW, the title of this thread "Bush attacks science.. again" is absurd. I suppose proposing $1 trillion for manned missions to the moon and mars are also "attacks on science".
Dancing David said:
That doesn't mean that there aren't better and worse ways of deciding that.
You're only presenting half the story here. The politicians are divided between the "GW is happening, is caused by humans, and will cause great amounts of destruction if nothing is done, and Kyoto is the best way of dealing with it" and "GW isn't happening at all." The real science supports neither contention. Yes, greenhouse gases are slowly causing the temperatures to rise, but: Is it part of a natural cycle? How much do humans have to do with it? What will be the detrimental effects, if any? Will there be any beneficial effects? What will the effect of balancing factors be? How warm will it get? When will it stop and start cooling down again? Question after question after question that science doesn't have a full answer for, and yet the answers to these are being assumed by those with a political agenda.
DavidJames
Penultimate Amazing
No, that would be an election year stunt
Means Bush has supported faulty science in the past and he has "again". Not that complicated, really.
Re: Re: Bush attacks science...again.
Hey, look, just because he spent money on space exploration does not mean that he has not proposed measures that would harm scientific research and informative exchange multiple times.
Almost immediately after the establishment of the patriot act many universities and science conferences were discouraged from publishing papers related to nuclear research.
In addition to the many examples I've mentioned above. Bush has on multiple ocassions either ignored, derided, or sought to undermine the sientific process and the free exchange of information between scientists because of political motivations.
The title of this thread is right-on.
BTox said:
As a scientist, I think in principle peer review of complex issues is a good idea. However, if the PR panel will not represent the best in the field, it is not the way to go about it.
And BTW, the title of this thread "Bush attacks science.. again" is absurd. I suppose proposing $1 trillion for manned missions to the moon and mars are also "attacks on science".
Hey, look, just because he spent money on space exploration does not mean that he has not proposed measures that would harm scientific research and informative exchange multiple times.
Almost immediately after the establishment of the patriot act many universities and science conferences were discouraged from publishing papers related to nuclear research.
In addition to the many examples I've mentioned above. Bush has on multiple ocassions either ignored, derided, or sought to undermine the sientific process and the free exchange of information between scientists because of political motivations.
The title of this thread is right-on.
