America's Disdain for Science

from AlterNet's PEEK:



America's Disdain for Science

Posted by Jill Hussein C., Brilliant at Breakfast at 4:06 AM on May 29, 2008.

America faces a loss of prestige as the sciences lose funding and respect.



I'm not a science person. Mr. Brilliant loves watching the Science Channel, but my interest in black holes is limited to that episode of The Simpsons in which Homer falls into one. Perhaps it stems from my utter inability to learn to use a slide rule (yes, I went to high school in the pre-calculator age), or the time I seriously cut my finger trying to put a glass tube into a rubber stopper in high school chemistry class. But while I have little aptitude or even interest in the nuts-and-bolts of science, I realize how important it is to not just life in today's world, but how vital it is to solving the many problems that face us today.

Because I work in the area of clinical trials and studies, government commitment to scientific and medical research is not just an abstract concept, it's my bread and butter. But when you have a government run by people who are flat-earthers, or who embrace flat earthers like John Hagee, you have a government that lacks that commitment:



The fish rots from the head. The anti-science posture of the Bush Administration, Congressional Republicans, and the wingnut echo chamber are a significant part of the problem, but also at fault are schools that can't can't attract teachers with scientific knowledge and parents who place sports at a higher level of importance than knowledge.

We didn't get to where we were when I grew up by being incurious religious nuts who think a Great White Alpha Male in the Sky made the earth in six days and sculpted us out of clay. But we're sure as hell going to go back to the Middle Ages if we don't stop letting these people dictate policy.


http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/86724/

that has continued to decline with the idiots and non-curious from Bush on down. I think he personally has a disdain for anyone who has an intellectual mind. It has been hard to watch these guys in action for the past almost 8 years and the destruction they have caused in so many areas and how they have set us back years.

I do hope the democratic candidates will try to turn this around and I feel sure of that with Obama. Maybe it has not been at the center of his campaign but I do not think he will throw up any barriers for scientific work and will in his own time try to get it jump started again.

Recommend your post.

The Bush Administration opposes science; but I disagree with the motivation, largely. The Bush administration opposes science because science cuts into the profits of large companies. Without science, for example, where would the EPA be? How could we measure the effect of air pollution on the climate? Or water pollution on our streams and lakes?

Without medical science, we wouldn't have malcontents complaining about repetitive stress disorders, and asking for all sorts of special breaks.

I'll admit there is some religious influence in this policy as well, but I think the driving force is the profit motive. Science is bad for business.

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

Most of the US economic drivers nowadays are based on having a workforce literate in science (Tech, biotech, Aerospace). The only folks who do not profit from science (and even then, only the environmental sciences) are those who want to make a short term buck by polluting our country and world. Unfortunately, they are the ones in power.

The bushies are fine with expensive medical treatments for Them. Just not the rest of us. It is a matter of access, not the actual creation of treatments. Although I am sure many of them would be more than happy if AIDS were never cured.

That workforce literate in science is available in China and India for much less than it is here. So to profit from science, they do not have to pay American workers who were educated in American schools, they just offshore the work.

China in particular is building an enormous number of engineering universities. THEY know the value of education. WE seem to have forgotten it in favor of the "faith based" lifestyle, otherwise known as serfdom and poverty.

.... in Indian schools, starting in grade school.

NSF funding of Biological Oceanography and Polar Programs is teh suckest ever...

:mad:

And ditto for NIH, EPA, DOE, NOAA.....

Unless one is in one of the few "hot" fields (like biofuel production) life sucks right now as a research scientist.

I know people who received all "excellent" review rankings on their proposals - and were asked to "revise and resubmit" - WTF

I know one guy (household name in marine micro) who submitted 12 proposals last year - and *none* got funded.

I thought Polar Programs would shake loose after IPY, but only 5 of 55 proposals got funded this year...

Not a good time for soft money folks...never mind postdocs and grad students...

and spend enough time at DU, and you quickly realize that the incurious, anti-science personna is not limited to Republicans and wingnuts.

Good article.

Sid

...their ideology. Squashing environmental data, closing the research libraries, intimidating scientists in the environmental and health sciences - in order to maintain control of women (reproductive choice) and increase profits (environmental).

And one thing this admin was NOT keen on was computer science or internet. In fact, they'd like to control the net like China does.

The SOONER they're gone the better. We need leaders who RESPECT, and SUPPORT science in the US - damn we NEED this now more than ever to deal with the environmental crisis - which I contend wouldn't be QUITE as bad if the US hadn't WASTED EIGHT YEARS sitting here in bu$hit's straightjacket on the issue.

Slimy, dumbass bastard.