Politics
pharyngula | February 7, 2006This political hack who was dictating the interpretation of science to scientists was a college dropout.
His sole qualification for his job was his enthusiasm for George W. Bush—where have we heard that before?
The story has been confirmed in the most emphatic way: Deutsch has resigned. It's not quite over, though, and it's clear that James Hansen is going to keep pushing.
Yesterday, Dr. Hansen said that the questions about Mr. Deutsch's credentials were important, but were a distraction from the broader issue of political control of scientific information.
"He's only a bit player," Dr.…
pharyngula | February 7, 2006Argento tackles the growing man-squirrel problem…and incidentally mentions me, the apologist for man-squirrel research.
pharyngula | February 7, 2006I couldn't believe it myself when Gonzales said Washington and Lincoln had authorized electronic surveillance, but now we have a corroborative account that shows that Washington did authorize grand electrical schemes. Remember, he had the assistance of Franklin, so it isn't that implausible, is it?
Washington got his warrantless electic surveilance. And though the resulting confligration left 233 people dead, and the Barbary pirates avoided detection, a vital precedent was set. Nobody could tell the President to do diddly squat. He was the President, after all. This would come in handly four…
drorzel | February 7, 2006There was an article about physics blogs a little while back in Physics World, that didn't mention me by name, but did link to the Steelypips site. It mostly talks up the informal information exchange side of things.
In that spirit, here are some things I found via physics blog (mostly through Mixed States (after the cut):
If you were wondering when to expect your pony, Steinn Sigurdsson at Dynamics of Cats has an exhaustive analysis of the budget requests of various science agencies (start with that link, and work your way up through the more recent posts). Verdict: no pony for you!
Former…
pharyngula | February 7, 2006He's a miracle worker and a creative genius. How else can you explain his proposal to add or train 70,000 new math and science teachers while cutting the proposed education budget by 20%?
I'd like to be able to explain to my wife how we can buy a brand new MacBook Pro while saving money, but either I'm not as smart as George W. Bush or she is much, much cleverer and less credulous than Republicans.
Also note that our pro-science president wants to freeze the NIH budget. Isn't it amazing how he does that?
pharyngula | February 6, 2006The people dumber than Jonah Goldberg have to be the ones who thought he'd be worth inviting to speak.
(via Brad DeLong)
pharyngula | February 6, 2006Bush/Gore, Bore/Gush, they were both the same, remember? It didn't matter whether you voted Democrat or Republican, you were just getting the same ol' thing.
Look how true that is: Bush sounds just like Al Gore. Of course, there were a few minor differences, like that Gore was 14 years ahead of Bush, really meant it (rather than having his lackeys issue retractions the day after), and I suspect, had the competence to actually follow through.
stcynic | February 6, 2006This morning, Attorney General Gonzales testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee about the NSA wiretap program. The Republicans on the committee refused to swear him in under oath, which was requested by the Democrats. This is the second time that I'm aware of that this has happened recently. A few months ago, when a group of oil company executives testified, the same thing happened - the Democrats said that witnesses should be sworn in like always and pledge to tell the truth and the Republicans refused to do so.
What I'd like to know is how unusual this is. What are the Senate…
pharyngula | February 6, 2006
Last week, the opening convocation for Black History Month was given by Tyrone Hayes of UC Berkeley. I was impressed: he's exceptionally personable, and despite the poor organization of his visit (UMM's fault, entirely) and having to drive for hours through a small blizzard to get here from the airport, he was gracious and fun to talk with. He gave a phenomenally well-organized, lucid talk which managed to describe all the basics of his research in terms a lay audience, most of whom were not science majors of any kind, could comprehend. And as I learned, most of his work is done by…
stcynic | February 6, 2006In addition to my disagreement with PZ on some things, I absolutely agree with his post about the administration's many attempts to subordinate good science for political considerations. Many other people have written about this around the blogosphere, based on this article in the New York Times that contains a rather stunning segment about a NASA memo:
In October 2005, Mr. Deutsch sent an e-mail message to Flint Wild, a NASA contractor working on a set of Web presentations about Einstein for middle-school students. The message said the word "theory" needed to be added after every mention of…
pharyngula | February 6, 2006There are more stories out there about the corruption of science by Republicans. The National Park Service and Department of the Interior are messed up, with the Park Service rewriting documents to be "anti-environmental, pro-privatization and corporate use of the parks," and the Interior simply making up nonsense about sage grouse.
Then we've got NCI fudging evidence to falsely support the claims of the anti-abortion lobby.
Bush has a lot of nerve claiming to be pro-science. He's pro-Big Bidness, but he can't even get that right—he's willing to promote fake science to get a short-term…
tsmith | February 5, 2006This is obviously more Chris's area more than it is mine, but Time's cover story this week is on, essentially, the Republican war on science (the actual "war," not Chris's book of the same title).
Boehlert [Republican chairman of the House Science Committee] does not see a larger problem of Administration meddling ... And he noted that politics and science have never had an easy, hands-off relationship in Washington. "This is a town where people like to say they're for science-based decision making, until the scientific consensus leads to a politically inconvenient conclusion. Then they…
razib | February 5, 2006Update: Trivial prediction: more Muslims will die because of "protests" and riots because of the Danish cartoons than non-Muslims.
Matt McIntosh has posted a piece titled We Have Met the Enemy, and He Is Us at my other blog. It has spawned a lot of comments. Many people were offended by the way Matt couched his thought experiment and the character of his exposition. I jumped in to defend him, and below is a somewhat florid summation at the end of the thread (excuse the lack of capitalization, it is not an affectation, just a way to save keystrokes when I'm entering comments):
ok, here is…
jlynch | February 5, 2006George Deutsch wrote for the Texas A&M Batallion while in college. Over at World O'Crap we see the sorts for defenses of the administration that no doubt got George his position at NASA. For example:
The ties between al-Qaida and Iraq are clear. So clear, in fact, that there is so much circumstantial evidence linking Iraq and al-Qaida that it would be hard for an informed person not to at least suspect Saddam's regime of having a hand in the attacks
Apparently, Deutsch sees the concept of "informed" somewhat differently to most people.
As Chris points out, Deutsch may want to clean up…
pharyngula | February 5, 2006As long as I'm making addenda to posts, let's hit up this one, too.
Some people have mentioned that they knew the creationists would come gunning for other domains of science sooner or later, and see George Deutsch's remarks as confirmation. There is absolutely no surprise to the criticism of physics, and it's been going on for a long while. Ultimately, the gripe the religious have isn't with the simple facts, it's with the process. Science is a tool that has been incredibly successful at digging into the nature of the universe, and religion is a proven flop next to it. That rankles, I'm sure…
pharyngula | February 5, 2006Wow, but this post has inspired so many misconceptions.
I do not think Muslims should be insulated from satire. I do not think there is parity between a cartoonist drawing a picture someone doesn't like and a Muslim calling for the execution of the cartoonist. I am not on the Muslim's side here, and I am uncompromising in condemning rioting and destruction as criminal.
I do think religion needs to be thoroughly criticized—you haven't been reading Pharyngula for long if you think otherwise, and I thought I'd been quite careful to spell out that religion was a hate-amplifier in this situation—…
pharyngula | February 4, 2006&t
So, the Bush administration is going to try and be pro-science. Here we go.
In October 2005, Mr. Deutsch sent an e-mail message to Flint Wild, a NASA contractor working on a set of Web presentations about Einstein for middle-school students. The message said the word "theory" needed to be added after every mention of the Big Bang.
The Big Bang is "not proven fact; it is opinion," Mr. Deutsch wrote, adding, "It is not NASA's place, nor should it be to make a declaration such as this about the existence of the universe that discounts intelligent design by a creator."
It continued: "This…
jlynch | February 4, 2006Feb 5: Welcome Farkers! Feel free to look around.
My co-scienceblogger, Chris Mooney, has extensively documented Republican interference in science in his excellent The Republican War on Science [amaz]. George Deutsch, a presidential appointee as public affairs officer at NASA, seems to think that such political involvement in scientific matters is desirable. For example:
[Deutsch] rejected a request from a producer at National Public Radio to interview Dr. [James E.] Hansen, said Leslie McCarthy, a public affairs officer responsible for the Goddard Institute. Citing handwritten notes taken…
tsmith | February 4, 2006In my piece with DarkSyde yesterday, I mentioned a bioterrorist attack with Salmonella that took place in Oregon in the 1980s. This is an organism that you've all certainly encountered (though hopefully didn't get sickened by), and it's certainly not one that's commonly thought of as a potential agent of bioterrorism. Well, the National Academy of Science says our current list of potential agents is seriously flawed.
US 'unaware' of emerging bioterror threats
The life sciences are developing so quickly that a watch list of dangerous pathogens and toxins is useless in fighting the threat of…
pharyngula | February 4, 2006I haven't commented on those Muslim cartoons so far. I'm conflicted.
Why, you might ask? It's a clear-cut case of religious insanity, exactly the sort of thing I ought to relish wagging an arrogantly atheistical finger at. And of course I will, in just a moment…but the difficult part is that there are actually at least two issues here, and religion is only one of them.
There are some things a cartoonist would be rightly excoriated for publishing: imagine that one had drawn an African-American figure as thick-lipped, low-browed, smirking clown with a watermelon in one hand and a fried chicken…