My husband went to a scientific meeting last week.

[redstatebluegirl]

He came home and looked so sad, he said it was like going to a funeral. Everyone was sad, feeling hopeless. He said it would take 40 years to fix what this administration has done to scientific education and discovery in one year.

Makes me so angry.

[Bluestocking]

1. To scientific education in the US

Canada, China, Japan, South Korea, and the EU countries will continue to move forward and the US will be just like Russia who used to be at the top of the scientific community.

If I were starting out, I would be moving to a different country.

[slightlv]

8. I tried so hard once trump was installed the first time

to get my daughter to think about moving to another country. Everything I told her I saw coming has so far come true here in the U.S., but here she is. Caught in government shutdown after shutdown, and no further to advancing her in a career than she was when she first left college. Sometimes mothers DO know what's best! (LOL)

[NNadir]

38. I am trying so hard to convince my son to go to France when...

...he finishes his Ph.D next January if all goes to plan.

The problem is that his girlfriend, who may end up as his wife, also a Ph.D student, doesn't speak French.

Canada? Why not Canada?

Sigh. She still wants to stay in the US. I really, really, approve of their relationship, her fine mind, her wit, and her personality, but it will be a hard sell, getting her to learn French and get the hell out of here.

[Norrrm]

55. It's her excuse, not a valid reason. Smart and dedicated enough for a PHD? Smart enough to learn French.

[NNadir]

58. I'm quite sure it's not her only reason.

There are people who despise what their country is doing but who love their country so much they they stay in it to try to save it.

It's why the world remembers Sophie Scholl.

I don't know that this is her reason, but it is not about what I think at all. It's between my son and his lover.

I'm sure she could learn French, although it is very unlikely that she could work in France before learning it, so there's career timeliness to consider.

[NNadir]

2. Most scientists, myself included, feel the same way. AAAS sends all these thinly veiled emails of "concern."

They try not be political but the "concern" is actually closer to terror.

A scientific powerhouse has committed suicide.

[markodochartaigh]

6. "...has committed suicide."

It seems like instead of blowing our nation's brain out quickly so that the world can quickly move on from our needless suicide, we have chosen to hijack the plane and fly it into a mountain taking as many people as possible with us.

[hatrack]

17. In the same way that civilians on Okinawa "committed suicide" in 1945 . . .

With some assistance, of course, from those patriotic Imperial Japanese marines and soldiers.

[cab67]

3. That was the general tone at my meeting this past November.

[BeneteauBum]

4. As a retired estuarine biologist

I’ve seen what can be done to reverse harmful ecological impacts. With a consensual goal, we can make our planet a better place. However, these actions are extremely difficult without government support….which this administration does not offer. The science is being ignored in order to enrich the already morbidly rich. Sucks.

Peace ☮️

[wolfie001]

5. Joe Fucking Rogaine

Don't forget that 5'6" pig.

[mr715]

7. I'm a scientist and a science educator.

Times are very rough. We have to dance certain words, such as climate change, diversity, and inclusivity.

Last semester, a student came up to me after the Charlie Kirk assassination and asked me about my religious beliefs (I'm a biologist). We had a very lovely conversation but we both spent the entire time looking over our shoulders to make sure no one was listening.

This student was a Bible literalist, born again, but still extraordinarily respectful of my somewhat more humanist stance. She also confided how difficult it is to have real conversations in universities now -- this coming from a student that I can only assume is at least somewhat conservative leaning.

There are anti-abortion activists on campus all the time, and people blaring how they should drop their books and repent. Forget Plato and Kant when you have Jesus.

I take solace in the fact that 98% of scientists are truly good people, devoted to truth more than anything, and will outlast this administration.

I wonder to what extent covid made us crazy as a nation.

[RockCreek]

19. I often wonder about the many aspects of your COVID question.

[mr715]

21. I can tell you from my experience

that covid did massive damage to elementary/middle school education. The entire paradigm shift in response to the pandemic, and our subsequence reliance on tech is producing students with major deficits.

I taught 8th graders that couldn't hold a pencil. That couldn't maintain the stamina to write full sentences. That couldn't use formatting rules, or a heading.

Somewhat fascinating, though perhaps unexpected, these deficits also applied to tech itself. They couldn't use MS Word, couldn't validate sources, didn't even use wikipedia to get started on research.

2 years of lockdown for students left them with deep problems.

Also, Trump as President in 2016 made an impression that meanness is okay.

[RockCreek]

25. I have seen what you describe

it is horrible. And the many people with long COVID and other deficits from the virus. And the many losses, durect and indirect, in people's lives from the disease and the shutdown. And the many, many divisions it left between people as lives went in different directions, or new and strongly held ideologies and needs about vaccines etc collided. And it goes on.

[mr715]

27. I still worry that, like HPV, the real cost of covid will appear in years

And we'll have sudden plumes of lung and kidney cancers.

[RockCreek]

31. I agree.

So many viruses are turning out to have longer term and serious effects. And research on this won't be done in the US (or isn't being done) if funding and the politicization of research continue the way they are going.

[mr715]

32. When I found out covid travelled through olfactory nerves to the brain

I was like, this is not going to be good.

Coronaviruses are usually not too bad. They are nasty summer colds, usually. But covid really smacks of nascent biological weapon and based on the number of people who went absolutely batshit after infection (perhaps asymptomatic) I strongly believe it is lurking in our neurons and playing around with our monoamine systems.

[RockCreek]

36. Someone I know was recently diagnosed with a neural degenerative disease

It was caught with only months to live.
He had been told and told that it was "just" Long COVID.
It occurred abnormally young.
The disease he has is Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease.
I looked it up and there is at least one case report of it occurring in an unusually young person who had COVID.
A study to see if the incidence increased post-COVID was done in Britain (because of mad cow their incidence is already a bit elevated). But the study was published in 2021. I wonder what a study done more recently would show.

[mr715]

37. When I was in HS working on a Westinghouse project

The director of our lab developed CJD and died from it. Horrible way to go, especially for a man of science. Terrifying to lose your memory and mind circuit by circuit until nothing is left.

[Sequoia]

59. I remember the outbreak of Mad Cow

Newsreels from BBC and all those cows. "How the Cows Turned Mad", by Maxime Schwartz

[popsdenver]

47. Is that the

brain disease?????????

[mr715]

52. Yeah

It is a prion disease, so extremely hard to stop. Impossible to cure. It survives high temperatures.

Related to mad cow disease. The human equivalent.

[popsdenver]

62. Do you recall

when Kaiser Permanente, here in Denver operated on the brain of someone that had that disease? The disease, like you said, survives high temps, so normal sterilization of instruments needed to be exposed to a separate process, by exposing the those instruments used on brain surgery to be exposed to a separate process. As I remember the process, it was done in a container that utilized high pressure of a particular gas for some period of time......?????? Well, Kaiser decided that that last procedure was not necessary and they quit doing it. They operated on the brain of someone that had that disease, failed to sterilize the instruments used according to protocol, and ended up infecting six? other brain surgery patients having used those same instruments that weren't completely sterilized, having only run them through the normal autoclave dis-infecting.....

The Feds actually SHUT DOWN ALL SURGERY at Porter's Hospital here in Denver for two months last year....Their surgeries were suddenly having a rather significant spike in Post Op Infections??????????? Seems the Corporation that owns them had decided one step in the normal sterilization of surgical instruments was un-neccessary.......................The surgeons knew something was wrong when they were reporting flys in the OR rooms, indicating that there was decaying biological "something" in the OR's that they flys were being attracted to.......

The field of medicine is not what it used to be folks............it's now a mass of humongous Corporations that own large segments of it, especially all the hospitals..........and all worshipping the "Almighty Corporate Profits" first and foremost......

[Iris]

50. There are some studies out there about people having less empathy

after Covid infection

[mr715]

54. That is terrifying.

Just what we need. A highly contagious psychopathy inducing virus.

Shit, we already have Twitter.

[Iris]

57. Isn't it though? I heard a brief report on the news and am too

horrified to dig into it any further

[Cosmocat]

33. It amplified it

I mean, the Tea Party was a like a gay pride parade for stupid people.

I am going to be 60 and have spent over 4 decades seeing this was where were headed.

Not DT specifically, but even as a very young person I knew that all the religious right, NRA, Rush Limbaughs ... all of it was bullshit with the flag waving and we are good christians, family values, etc. Then, 9-11 and how the right took advantage of that to further accrue power.

At the core of it was the evil liberal boogyman - the jews to the American Taliban.

It was slowish in the 90s / early 2000s, but once BHO got elected it really got rolling.

Covid made it a lot worse, but it was still headed this way.

[mr715]

34. Oh I agree

But covid seems to have affected even former liberals into conspiratorial thinking and anti-science stances.

It isn't as big a step to go from covid denier to flat earther, because the permission structure already exists to deny science.

[modrepub]

9. Portrayal of Scientist in Entertainment

Has usually been negative. The “mad” scientist villain is routinely used in superhero lore. How many shows portray scientists as geeky loners out for revenge? There are exceptions of course but they are rare.

[progressoid]

11. Let's not forget a lackadaisical and compliant "news" media.

[mr715]

12. I think scientists are more diverse in media

The 1950s-1960s were just full of scientist action heros in all those B movies.

Iron Man is a scientist. So is the Hulk.

Though I hate it, the Big Bang theory made nerdiness popular and mainstream.

Science is cool though. The most powerful tool humans have ever developed for the pursuit of truth. The flame Promethean.

[modrepub]

15. Supervillains

Doc Ock, Riddler, Joker, Harley Quinn, Frankenstein, Megamind, Dr No, Doctor Evil, Doctor Strangelove, Dr Wu to name a few. All scientists.

And almost all zombie or plague books/movies originate in a science lab. Nearly all plagues and nasty viruses, however, are naturally produced. The Covid crowd blaming Chinese scientists goes right along with this prejudice.

[mr715]

16. Yeah, it all starts in a lab

because thats where cool stuff happens. Not all the time, but sometimes.

Were Riddler and the Joker scientists? I know Harley Quinn is a psychologist, which is atypical for a supervillain type.

There used to be a great animated series called the Venture Bros that is a deconstruction of what "super scientists" would live like in the real world. Very funny.

Good guy scientists -- basically everyone on Star Trek, the lady from Avatar...etc. There are lots.

[NNadir]

18. The 1950s Japanese monster movies generally portrayed scientists favorably.

They showed government officials facing disasters induced by Godzilla and crew calling on scientists to direct responses and deferring to scientists' wisdom.

(Sometimes, regrettably the responses was, "We must get the atomic bombs from the Americans.)

This is how I remember these movies anyway.

I often reflect bitterly on how that cartoon does not apply to the real world. Congress invited testimony from James Hansen but basically ignored what he said in subsequent decades. I wish like he'd been treated as a scientist in a Japanese 1950s Godzilla movie.

[mr715]

24. I am a big fan of MST3K

Every other episode is a hero scientist fighting a giant gila monster.

And yeah, the Japanese flicks were always the somewhat problematic "Hey, uh, lets nuke Godzilla. What do you say, Dr. Smith?"

Also -- scientists in the 1950s-1960s were jacked. Muscles on muscles.

Tragically, mine have atrophied so no superhero scientist I.

[ChazInAz]

20. Love that series!

The good guys (Ventures) are as squirrely as the villains (everybody else).

[mr715]

22. So happy to know others have seen it.

I love the idea of a labor union for villains. One of favorite lines, "Help, I'm caught in a cliche"

Episodes devoted to villain-good guy collective bargaining. Chef's kiss.

It was a fantastic series that, despite being cancelled, ended in a pitch perfect manner.

My buddy got me a cameo for Xmas from James Urbaniak who seemed like such a nice guy.

When I taught kids, I would often use the borrowed phrase "We're getting waylaid by jackassery"

[mr715]

28. Also,

Doc Venture was at best a conflicted good guy. As the series closed, he was much more positive.

But I think the first season involved him harvesting kidneys from his two sons so he could have a full set.

Plus, he developed a tech ("joy can&quot that was powered by an orphan's heart.


So effin' funny.

[Beartracks]

43. But don't forget all the disaster movies where the authorities always ignore the scientist hero.

Unfortunately, the scientist hero, specifically because he or she is ignored, can't PREVENT the disaster, but is always instrumental in stopping it or fixing things afterward and saving countless lives.

===================

[Sequoia]

60. Professor Periwinkle

Featured in old TV Superman was a good guy.

[dedl67]

10. The essential role of science in our wellbeing is not widely recognized.

Science is in a constant race to protect our food supply from rapidly evolving pests and to protect our health from bacteria's rapidly evolving resistance to antibiotics, among many other threats. Staying ahead in this race requires the highest quality of science. This is being destroyed and the consequences will be severe. Not to the uber-wealthy of course. They can buy their way out of anything. But for the rest of us, things will be grim.

[Initech]

13. This administration sucks so fucking bad.

And it sucks that the people who wanted us "owned" on social media are the ones who voted for the fucking asshole. Well, guess what, guys? When you vote to "own" the other side, it is ultimately *YOU* who will get owned.

[a kennedy]

14. I JUST WANT TO KNOW WHO IS GONNA STOP HIM???? WHO???

and I know it’s gonna take forever to fix all he’s destroyed. 🤬 🤬

[SharonAnn]

49. "Will no one rid me of this meddlesome __________?"

[Just_Vote_Dem]

23. This is horrible

I have a science degree-just an Associates, but I have always loved the field.

[redstatebluegirl]

29. Don't apologize for your Associates degree!

You studied, that knowledge can never be taken from you! It makes you an educated voter who understands the importance of science and discovery to our country. Your education is important to us!

[Just_Vote_Dem]

30. Thank you so much!

You made my day

[redstatebluegirl]

35. You should be proud!

[mr715]

39. Be proud.

General science or anything specialized?

Doesn't science make the world much more beautiful?

[Just_Vote_Dem]

44. Yes it does!

Associate in Science, Medical Laboratory Technology. Only worked in a hospital for a few years, but it was a wonderful time. To my regret, I never took an Earth Science or Physics class, maybe will check out an online course one of these days.

[mr715]

45. I never took Earth Science or (college) Physics

More accurately, I took a few classes of college physics, but the Prof spent the whole time using calculus to derive equations and I couldn't handle it.

Earth science always seemed the odd one of out to me. Like, planets are cool. Minerals are cool. Weather is cool. But I learned most of that from just reading.

Lemme tell you though -- we are living in the era of biology. We can do sorcery with genetic modification now.

[markodochartaigh]

53. I have three

associate degrees. AA, AAS, and AAS in nursing. The community college where I lived was top tier, but the four year college was poorly ranked. In nursing the community college had a 100% pass rate on boards but the four year college was on probation with a 80% pass rate.
I also had to pay my own way and help my parents out a bit since my dad had been disabled by an industrial accident while I was in high school. The community college was my only hope.
After I started nursing the differential for a bachelor's degree was ten cents an hour and not having a bachelor's kept me safe from being considered for management. With Asperger's I could never have hacked one day in management.
We should be proud of our degrees! If no one studied for associates degrees the programs would go away and millions of students who need those programs would have no chance.

[ShazzieB]

26. So it's even worse than I realized.

I keep trying not to think too hard about all of the myriad ways he's doing damage to this country, because I'm afraid my brain might implode. Cowardly, perhaps, but I won't be of much use in this fight if I have a mental breakdown and find myself plunging into a pit of despair.

I think I am angrier at the Repubs in Congress (both houses) and the way they've rolled over snd let him do whatever he wants than I even am at Schlump. I expected the worst from him, but it's Congress' job to reel him in. So much for checks and balances.

[BigmanPigman]

40. So many people know we may be able to recover from tRump

over a period of time but they also know that a lot will not ever recover. Every aspect in our personal lives has changed already (for the negative) and know more is still coming before we can even think of recovering from the damage imposed by team tRump.

[FakeNoose]

41. It means that our brilliant young people will leave the country

We baby boomers grew up with the notion that all the intelligent, educated foreigners would rather come HERE than stay in their own countries. Now it's the opposite case, and it's bad for all of us. So stupid and short-sighted.

[redstatebluegirl]

42. Plus we grew up with parents who wanted their kids to go to college even if they didn't.

Mine valued education, so did my husband's. My Dad had a degree but my Mom did not. Neither of my in-laws were educated past high school but all five of their kids graduated from college, two with advanced degrees. Today, we have a large portion of the country who hate education and all of us who educate their kids.

We are both glad that we are at retirement age.

[FakeNoose]

46. So true ... my parents made sure all 9 of us went to college

It's unthinkable these days, when even having one child in school costs more than the average worker makes in a year.

[BlueWaveNeverEnd]

48. i can imagine

[Blues Heron]

51. Trump is a vandal

[Norrrm]

56. Our current administration seems to be anti-legitimate science (see RFK Jr.) but is great guns on going AI.

Our political Christians seem to be ok with it.

Where does Artificial Intelligence fit into religion?

[gulliver]

61. "Science" got dragged into politics

It looks to me like most people misunderstand science as an intellectual tool and branch of knowledge. They think you can just ask science whether your particular political idea is right or wrong. Then, though science usually gives them no answer, they misstate, ignore, and misrepresent what it does say. It gets bruised and sullied in the resulting intermob fracases. It loses credibility.

The right thinks that science upends religion by saying we're all monkeys. The left thinks that science upends equality by saying, for example, men were the primary hunters among primitive humans.

SMH. Science is such a great thing. It's being pawed to death by mass mediocrity.