Science politics
purepedantry | October 20, 2006The Scientist has an excellent article attempting to fairly evaluate the Bush record on science:
What may be adding to the perception that the Bush administration is harder on science than ever before is that in recent years, biology has borne the brunt of political interference in science, which is a decidedly unfamiliar experience for many life scientists. "So far, most of [biologists'] experience with Congress has been showing up and asking for money and going home," says Henry Kelly, president of the Federation of American Scientists. Now, politicians spend less time talking about atomic…
purepedantry | October 5, 2006On September 30 the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act -- an act intended to criminalize the intimidation of scientists involved in animal research -- passed the Senate by unanimous consent. I wrote in support of this bill earlier this month.
This is from a press release from the AAAS related to the issue:
In the wee hours of the morning before officially recessing for the fall campaign trail, the Senate passed the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act (S. 3880) under a unanimous consent agreement. The bill, introduced by Senators James Inhofe (R-OK) and Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), addresses the…
purepedantry | October 4, 2006Some scientists have decided to form a 527 -- a political action committee that is not tax deductible under election law -- to combat what they feel is a rising anti-science sentiment:
Several prominent scientists said yesterday that they had formed an organization dedicated to electing politicians "who respect evidence and understand the importance of using scientific and engineering advice in making public policy."
Organizers of the group, Scientists and Engineers for America, said it would be nonpartisan, but in interviews several said Bush administration science policies had led them to…
purepedantry | September 22, 2006The trial for 6 medics in Tripoli who are being tried for infecting children with AIDS (and from what can be gathered were falsely accused) has been postoned til the end of October:
The retrial of six foreign medics facing a possible death penalty on charges they infected hundreds of Libyan children with the AIDS virus was adjourned on Thursday after a defense lawyer failed to show up in court.
"The trial was postponed until October 31," said the court President Mahmoud Haouissa, citing the absence of leading defense lawyer Othmane Bizanti.
The six medics have been detained since 1999.
A…
purepedantry | September 20, 2006This is absolutely unacceptable. 6 medical workers are on trial in Libya under the accusation of infecting children with HIV, and if convicted they could be executed. While expert testimony and scientific evidence was presented at the trial, this evidence was thrown out from a combination of miscommunication and what appears to be political bias.
Declan Butler from Nature reports:
Lawyers defending six medical workers who risk execution by firing squad in Libya have called for the international scientific community to support a bid to prove the medics' innocence. The six are charged with…
purepedantry | August 29, 2006There is an excellent discussion on Prometheus about whether it is OK to distort the means of science to justify certain ends. Money quote:
This is of course an issue much broader than climate change, and at its core is about how science is to operate in a democracy. The practice of science, insofar as it is related to action, is all about questions of means. That is, science can tell us something about the consequences of different possible courses of action. Science however cannot tell us how to value those consequences, which is the territory of ethics, values, religion, ideology, etc..…
purepedantry | July 30, 2006Them's, as they say, fighting words.
The National Journal has a cover story on the Politicization of Science by Paul Starobin, and there is simply no way in the concievable Universe that this is not going to cause a ruckus.
In part, this is because in his desire to equally indite indict the Right and the Left in the politics of science, he utters some things that are outright incorrect. He repeats the "girls bad at math" meme that if I have to spend the rest of my life trying to debunk I will. (There is evidence that men and women have on average different cognitive strategies, not…