This is so brilliant, I wish I could use it as a sig.
Indeed, as stated in the report:
Be my guest. I only wish the pun had been deliberate. 
GWB isn’t smart enough to be pro-science. The talk of going to Mars was just a political ploy and only showed how dumb he is.
How could we pay for it in this economy?
Dal Timgar
What a coincidence! Just this morning I stopped by a Barnes & Noble and came across “The Real George Bush”. I spent more time with it than everything else, including a book of ALL Mad Magazine (and Mad Comics). While I have already come across all of the other criticisms, valid or not as they may be – re environment, Iraq, terrorism, economics, and so on – this was the first time I came across the charge that his administration showed a contempt for science. At least, beyond a quick, forgotten sound-bite. Now your OP! Maybe somebody is trying to tell me something.
True Blue Jack
Indeed. One of the reasons for this may be that this administration is so ideological compared to past ones over the last few decades…with perhaps only the Reagan Administration coming close…and even that administration is beginning to pale by comparison. Just think about since 1970…Nixon’s administration was not very ideological and in fact it is responsible for such landmark environmental legislation as the Clean Air Act. Ford’s Administration also wasn’t. And, the Carter Admin was also pretty dominated by centrists. Bush #1 was fairly moderate…He raised taxes somewhat to reduce the deficit and he signed a strengthening of the Clean Air Act. And, of course, Clinton came from the Democratic Leadership Council, which is toward the right end of the Democratic Party. It is telling that the most memorable “kiss-and-tell” book that we got out of that Administration was Robert Reich’s “Locked in the Cabinet,” expressing the frustrations of one of the few truly liberal members of the cabinet as he butted heads with everyone else. It looks like, by contrast, the one that will come out of this Administration will be Christine Todd Whitman’s on what it is like being a moderate Republican in an extremely ideological administration.
This is an administration that puts ideology ahead of the facts again and again.
Well here’s why I think Bush is pretty Pro-Science.
First as with any administration Bush is manipulating the science to support his position.
But!!!
Bush also has a steady increase over the next 5 years to give NASA another 1 billion dollars per year after that.
Also, because of Bush’s request (obviously more in paper than on the media), NASA now has plans to retire the Space Shuttles by 2010 and begin testing their new “Space Plane” idea. And by 2014 hope to begin moon landings once more.
How much more pro-Science can you get?
All thanks to Bush.
First, Broken Column, the claim that all administrations politicize science to anything near the degree that this administration has is a claim that is not, to my knowledge, supported by the facts. In fact, people such as the editor-in-chief of Science magazine and appointees that served in other administrations including Republican ones have argued that what the Bush Administration is doing is unprecedented.
Second, it may be true that this Administration hasn’t been too bad about funding science, which is why the complaints don’t involve them shortchanging science funding but rather trying to influence, politicize, and distort it.
On the other hand, I am not sure NASA’s budget is any prime example of being “pro-science.” My impression (although I haven’t looked into the details) is that some cuts are likely being made in some scientific programs to make way for the moon/mars thing. And, many scientists do not feel manned space flight is a very good use of resources…and feel that the amount of science that comes out of it is very small especially considering the high cost of manned missions. The best science has come out of the unmanned missions at a fraction of the cost. (We discussed this in some previous threads on Bush’s moon/mars proposal.)
It would seem that even in terms of funding, the Bush Admisnistration is lacking. An article in the 12 February 2004 issue of Nature laments this fact:
Thanks, D.F…I stand corrected!
At any rate, what I think may still be true is that Bush’s lack of support for science funding, compared to what scientists would ideally like, ia not unprecedented compared to what has occurred under past administrations.
Rather, it is the politicization of the science during this administration that really stand out.
Broken Column:
Let’s not forget that within 2 weeks (1 week?) of Bush’s Mars speech, the Hubble Space Telescope program was canceled. (The announcement was made late one Friday, so that it wouldn’t be noticed by many.) That is, the proposed space shuttle mission to refurbish it will not occur, despite the $200 million of equipment that was constructed for it to date. ::sob, snif, snif::
From Yahoo News:
http://news.yahoo.com/fc?tmpl=fc&cid=34&in=world&cat=climate_change
Knight Ridder’s site puts it into perspective a little:
http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/8023054.htm
But when I clicked on their link to read the report, the page was unavailable:
For the study “An Abrupt Climate Change Scenario and Its Implications for United States National Security,” go to the following Web site: http://www.ems.org/climate/pentagon-climate-change.pdf
Just to add some more fodder to the debate:
This is a little project put together by some associates of mine. The policy page has a couple of the more popular environmental issues floating around these day and an analysis of the current administration’s action or inaction in regard to each issue.
Here I thought you were a scientist and you are taking the word of a Magazine editor? First off, I’m the political scientist here, and it is definately not uncommon for Science to be battered around by interest groups, bureaucrats, legislatures and yes, presidents. Bush has done nothing of precedence. He has simply done what all those who have gone before him, excluding George Washington, have done.
I’ll forgive you as this isn’t your field of expertise, but it is mine.
First off, there are many different levels of science involved in Space, it is not just “Space Science”.
There is Planetary Geology, Astrophysics, so forth and so on.
Planetary Geology, is a science very necessary in learning how solar systems come into being, and while a lot of information has come from little probes sticking things into dirt here and there or atmospheric probes into Jupiter and such, the best tool for exploring other worlds is a trained pair of human eyes.
Yes, Astronauts propped up plenty of experiments on the lunar surface. Most were Geophysical experiments or were not even geologically oriented such as radiation experiments.
But the most information we got while going to the Moon, undoubtedly came from Apollos 15, 16, and 17. The most important being Apollo 17, where the first scientist astronaut made a voyage into space. He was the only scientist to go to the Moon, Harrison “Jack” Schmitt.
Him and his hammer needless to say did more for the extension of geologic study into space than any probe ever did. To put it simply, why if we don’t use robots to do prospecting and field geology on Earth, would we want to use robots to do them on other worlds?
Simple answer…cheap. VERY VERY CHEAP.
But the simple cost in return for cheap, science. Science suffers. Little probes like the Mars rovers can be packed with all sorts of gizmos and experiments, but nothing will beat a Geologist running around with a hammer.
Harrison Schmitt proved that.
Of course Congress didn’t care, it was far cheaper to just send probes. But if we are to make any real progress into research of our neighboring planets, we need to send people there. Not to mention the spiritual benifit that human kind will gain from such an adventure.
Oh but, to finish this argument up, of course there are scientists who say that probes can do what men can. But I guarantee you, those scientists are the ones working at JPL or using the probes, and have no chance in hell of going there themselves.
If NASA came to them and told them, “Ok, we’re sending you to Mars.” They’d change their opinions in a heart beat, indeed if not the time it takes for a nuron to fire.
Oh yes…this is just such a tragedy. :rolleyes: Honestly, the Hubble is horribly outdated to the extent that in 2005 a European agency will be opperating a Telescope aray in Chile that is more than 100 times as powerful as the Hubble can EVER be if it acheived even its theoretical limits.
It’s about time they retired that Telescope.
I would like a citation for another instance of 20 or more Nobel laureate scientists berating a president in print, please.
Which must peer through the fog of the atmosphere. So we can see noise in much greater detail. Woohoo.
I would suggest that 400-700nm is a limited frequency spectrum. Give me additional enhanced UV and IR any day, like the Mars landers.
Like in other hostile terrain such as the ocean floor or Antarctic ice caverns, you mean?
Are you contending that a manned Mars mission is as cheap as an unmanned Mars mission?
Supercillious windbaggery is not expertise to be proud of. You will learn much from jshore if you will only listen.
Forgive me, but I was under the impression, given your posts at teenforums.studentcenter.org that you an undergrad. So while political science may be the field you are studying, it would be completely false for you to claim that you were a “political scientist”, or that political science or any other kind of sciece was your “field of expertise”.
Donald Kennedy is not just “a Magazine editor”; he is a distinguished scientist who edits one of the two most distinguished multidisciplinary science journal in the world. And, by the way, the editors of the other one, Nature, also weighed in with an editorial critical of Bush shortly after the Waxman report was released last year. The editorial stopped short of saying that they knew the charges in the Waman report were true; However, they argued that they were credible charges made by a credible person and deserved a serious point-by-point response from the White House which up to that point (and still today as far as I know) had only dismissed them by calling them politically motivated.
And, as I pointed out, other claims that this is unprecedented are coming from people who served in other administrations including Republican ones. So, basically, we have the claims of one person who calls himself a “political scientist” against the claims of many who know way more about science policy.
Well, others have very different opinions. In fact, Congress tends to love big boondoggles like the space station that have the added benefit of giving out lots of money to aerospace contractors, sometimes even creating jobs in their own districts. There was never a good case made for the Space Station as science yet it was funded anyway.
Well, if you offered me a free trip to Hawaii to go to a conference that really was not that useful to me scientifically, I would jump at it too…And, I might even look at the conference program and say, “Well, you know, this and that session may really be a good learning experience for me.” That proves very little.
Here and here is testimony by Robert Park, a physicist (and not one personally involved with science of unmanned or manned missions) on the Space Station, which debunks many of the myths regarding manned space flight’s scientific usefulness. He has also argued that, in regard to Mars, by the time the human beings get there, there will be little left to explore…The most important scientific questions will already have been answered by the unmanned probes at a fraction of the price.
[And, by the way, I haven’t seen you present much in the way of evidence that Harrison “Jack” Schmitt’s contributions on moon geology were so important. You also have to remember that in the 1960s the field of robotics wasn’t quite as advanced as it is today…which is why Park notes that the idea of putting men on mars is a curiously old-fashioned one in a day-and-age when the measure of man’s progress is becoming its ability to use robots to do work that is too dangerous or expensive to have men do themselves.]
Anyway, I am willing to admit that there can be difference of opinion in whether we should go to Mars or not…Certainly, there is a big PR thing and the “spiritual benefit” thing. These are fine reasons but have little to do with science. There may even be some things the humans will be able to do scientifically that the robots cannot…although at the cost that this comes, it will likely be the most expensive use of resources for the amount of scientific advancement we get that one could possibly imagine. Still, to say that Bush’s championing of this Mars thing is some great pro-science move and that it erases all the bad things this administration has done regarding the politicization of science is plain silly.
[And, I don’t think your view of the Hubble is shared by most astronomers and astrophysicists but I don’t have the time to investigate that point.]
Actually, while admitting they didn’t know all the facts about the detailed charges in the Waxman report, the Nature editorial, which was titled “No Way to Run A Superpower” [Nature, Vol 424, p. 861 (Aug 21, 2003)] did castigate Bush for clearly letting ideology, rather than science, drive decisions on major policy issues that involved science:
You sure are full of yourself, Nobels are given out a dime a dozen. And it is 20 of the 60, so 40 are not even receipients. Also, why don’t you list out the names of these 20 people so we can judge them based on their partisan bias. That is, where their grant money comes from, what their agenda in research is. We are Humans, we are all biased in all matters of thought.
Well the Astronomers working on this telescope array seem to disagree with you. They don’t feel the atmosphere is going to provide as much problems as they can’t counter. Infact there are ways to reduce atmospheric interference to the extent as if you were in space. The only real advantage of space telescopes are receiving radiation that doesn’t penetrate the atmosphere, and your arrays are not restricted to size. But Hubble is not an array, so it no longer matters.
Wow you are a complete fool. You will attack a fact because you can not with your own eyes see x-rays and UV light? Well sorry to burst your bubble but again, Apollos 15, 16, and 17 yeilded more information about the Moon than all other experiments combined. All thanks to the learned observation of the explorers there.
The ocean floor is not field geology. And field geologists and planetary geologists go to Antarctica all the time. Very frequently in fact. We can go to Mars, we can not walk on the ocean floor.
I’m contending that a manned mission to Mars, like the manned missions to the Moon, will yield better results than landers and probes.
I’m sure I have much to learn from jshore, but I have nothing to learn from you, you have proven yourself to be very ignorant. Go do some research about the Apollo missions. We did a lot more up there than take a hike.
Nice to know we’ve cleared that up then. But he is not unbiased in his views.
So you’re telling me that people don’t have an agenda against Bush? Let’s see, Carter used a lot of his own biased science to create vast natural reserves in Alaska if I remember correctly.
What you fail to recognize is specifically what Bush is doing to be “anti-Science”.
He may be choosing one scientist over another based on his political agendas more than some, but he is not changing science or lying. He is simply choosing the science that supports him. I bet you it happens to be the science that the 60 individuals who are speaking against him, are not following.
For one example, Global Warming. I don’t believe humans are causing it, there is plenty of science to back me up. There is also plenty of science to back the opinion that humans are the cause of global warming. Which one is going to be accepted depends on the agendas of those in office.
This is the only thing going on, and it is not new, and I doubt it is unprecedented, but if you can find me an example of how Bush has gone “Beyond the Pail” then by all means do tell.
That’s not true either.
Skylab was the first real useful extra-atmospheric laboratory from which to monitor the sun (which was its first task). Skylab also conducted research in extended near-weightless environments. Also Skylab was cheaper than the Apollo missions because it only required fuel to bring a section of the Saturn rocket into orbit, it did not need to leave the Earth’s orbit.
ISS was an attempt at bringing other nations into the Space industry which would in theory help bring the costs down. It hasn’t really been the case but that is why most likely you will find the ISS being pushed back in its funding more and more.
Your analogy pales in comparison by the fact that NASA has reputedly received disgust from the Airforce and other military branches and the Science community only because of the competition involved.
The Science community hated NASA until around '65 or such, when NASA then said, “Ok look we really need you guys to help us out.” That perked their ears up and they began to really help them out. Mainly in Geological training.
Then when Apollo 17 actually sent a scientist to the Moon, they were all glad. But when Apollo was cancelled and more and more military men were chosen over scientists the science community AGAIN lost its interest and grew a bit bitter.
It wasn’t until the 80s with the Shuttle that that would be almost non-existant. The only attacks against manned space flight, are those not directly or even semi-directly involved. It is those literally, left behind.
It is a grudge, not comparable to your “hawaii trip.”
Find me a man who worked for NASA’s manned space flight program who says, “eh…after all this time, I must say…it really is a waste”.
You won’t find one, because that is a great goal for anyone’s career.
That’s all there is when it comes down to it. This whole thing, is all opinion. Science is not purely objective. Scientists not getting grants from the current Administration, put it down. Those that do get the money support it.
Scientists not involved with Space Exploration put it down.
Those who are, support it.
The only factual thing I think that can be drawn from this thread, is that Hubble is out-dated.
While that doesn’t mean it is useless, it does mean that we need to start thinking about a better telescope for space, since a better one is already being made on the Earth.
Ugh but that is the WAY IT WORKS. Learn to live with it, or maybe you better move to the Moon yourself, because no where on Earth is policy made by science. It’s the other way around. We are not born scientists, because of this, by the time we become scientists we are already biased in what we want to do and how we see the world.
If you disagree with that, then I have over-estimated who you are.
In the end…I still don’t understand why the one point I was making is the only point you didn’t get.
Science does not make policy, policy makes science. If you criticize Bush for this, you must criticize every single president of the United States. I said excluding George Washington, I can’t think of where science ever was a part of his administration, but even him probably.
Also, if you want information about the usefulness humans played in studying the Moon.
http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/database/MasterCatalog?sc=1972-096C&ex=2
There’s a good point to start.
But if you want to realize what I’m saying, I’m afraid you’re going to have to read and compare everything from here:
http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/lunar/apollo.html
And to compare the Apollo era data received to modern data:
http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/planets/moonpage.html
I hope this is sufficient for you.
While you may think robots can do everything we can do…I fail to see how. They are incapable of sending video or steroscopic views at an instant. Therefore everything received has to be analyzed. That in itself is a limit to the context of what you are observing.
And…also…considering that Geologists today still are arguing what makes up the center of our Earth and what produces the Geomagnetic field, I doubt machines are about to explain everything about Mars before we get there.
That only goes to show that the physicist you cited hardly knows anything about Planetary Geology.