Pic Of The Moment: Meet The New Senate Chairman Overseeing NASA And U.S. Science

[RationalMan]

6. This is a serious problem for the future of the country.......

We have majorities in both Houses that at least tacitly reject science. That Mitch McConnell would put a science denier in charge of the science committee speaks volumes for him.

Whether conservatives want to admit it or not, God is not going to invent that next new thing or drive technology and science forward. Scientists are going to do that.

Since manufacturing is increasingly a thing of the past - relegated to developing countries around the world and even service is being outsourced from call centers to legal services, etc., the one thing that should remain a stronghold for the U.S. is science and innovation.

If we see Congress turn their backs on science and investment in innovation, etc. we will have gone back 3 centuries to the days before the Enlightenment. It was the Enlightenment that gave us the ideas that manifested themselves in U.S. independence from Great Britain and the establishment of our representative democracy.

Benjamin Franklin and many of the founding fathers tinkered in science. They were curious about things but they accepted the idea of the scientific method.

I fear for our country when Congress is led by people that deny science or facts for that matter. They are ideologues and will contort and twist everything that does not support their regressive policies.