Why is Our Government Attacking Science?

[n2doc]

By Phil Plait

I’m used to attacks on science; they’ve been endemic for years now. Antivaxxers, global warming deniers, creationists, what have you. And I’ve even gotten used to, at some level, egregiously antiscience rhetoric and machinations from government officials.

But over the past few days and weeks things seem to have gone to 11. I’m reeling from the absolute unfettered nonsense and sheer manipulation going on by our elected officials, and I’ll be honest: It’s scary.

To start, Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas), who is a global warming denier, by the way, is the head of the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology. He has recently decided that the National Science Foundation—a globally respected agency of scientific research and investigation—should no longer use peer review to fund grants. Instead it should essentially get political permission for which research to fund.

This is not a joke. Smith wants politics to trump science at the National Science Foundation.

This prompted a brilliantly indignant letter from Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-Texas), who calls this idea “destructive” to science. She’s right. What Smith is doing strongly reminds me of Lysenkoism, when the Soviet government suppressed science on genetics and evolution that didn’t toe the party line.

more

http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2013/05/01/attacks_on_science_government_antiscience_on_the_rise.html

[jeff47]

1. Because science keeps showing Republicans are wrong. (nt)

[n2doc]

2. Its not just republicans n/t

[haikugal]

3. No it isn't...

I think we can look to our owners and their agenda for the answer. I'm totally disgusted by what's going on in our government...but then I think I'm supposed to be...so disgusted I quit but that won't happen. Our country is being dismantled by the corporate coupe...as fast as possible. I call it treason.

[G_j]

4. +1

[n2doc]

5. The thing that amazes me, the CEO's , of all people, should understand the value of basic research

They can't (or won't) fund basic research anymore, yet this is where the new tech and ideas all come from. If it doesn't get done here, it will elsewhere, and they will face competitors who will kick their butts with it.

All I can think is that the 1%'ers have been so deluded by their own propaganda that they have ceased to be rational, and just want to live in a feudal kingdom.

[haikugal]

6. Feudalism is the goal...

and the continued raping of the public and commons. Period.

[Demeter]

8. That is EXACTLY what is going on

Eating the seed corn for quarterly results. It's stupid, it's unmitigated greed, and it's not only reducing profits for themselves right now, it's ensuring that there are no profits in the future, for anyone.

These "Masters of the Universe" actually think they cause things to happen. All they are doing is sucking blood from the 99%, and calling it profit. Profiteering is more like it, or piracy. Suck the blood out of the 99%, leave the parents and their children starved, sick and uneducated, and there will be no future.

If you are into an Apocalypse, it might make sense. Otherwise, it's rank stupidity.

[Warren DeMontague]

12. There is an incredible short-sightedness in Corporate America.

It's not everywhere, but it's endemic.

I don't think it's some well thought out plot, I just think that people have been programmed for the past couple decades not to look any further than the quarterly numbers.

[Ohio Joe]

7. Zakharov got it right...

Man's unfailing capacity to believe what he prefers to be true
rather than what the evidence shows to be likely and possible has
always astounded me. We long for a caring Universe which will save
us from our childish mistakes, and in the face of mountains of
evidence to the contrary we will pin all our hopes on the slimmest
of doubts. God has not been proven not to exist, therefore
he must exist.

-- Academician Prokhor Zakharov,
"For I Have Tasted The Fruit"

Sid Meier's Alpha Centuari

[Myrina]

9. Because science is for 'smart people' and Dems believe that 'pointy heads' don't win elections.

The general populace would rather vote for the doofus they can have a beer with than the class valedictorian. Which is why we're steady on the road to the 17th Century here in the US.

[Warren DeMontague]

10. Because one of our major political parties is controlled by flat-Earthers?

[datasuspect]

11. we're being groomed to become chattel slaves

they can't just yank universal education away like some feudal lord or a southern slaveowner.

in the absence of having illiterate slaves/serfs/peasants, they realized they'll just have to settle for EXTRAORDINARILY stupid ones who are smart enough to obey, login, and carry out simple tasks like pattern recognition and fry machine operation.