Most politicians are shockingly ignorant

[adaher]

The point is that most poilticians are ignorant and most people don’t really understand this. And we tend to reward politicians who can recite the talking points rather than politicians who actually give thought to weighty issues. Perhaps one out of 100 can form an original thought.

It’s important for voters to know this even if we don’t know how to make it better. And no, funding a Congressional research thingie to issue papers they won’t read doesn’t make it better. It’s not as if Congress was a font of intelligent discussion and scientific knowledge before it was defunded.

[GIGObuster]

@adaher

The point is that most poilticians are ignorant and most people don’t really understand this. And we tend to reward politicians who can recite the talking points rather than politicians who actually give thought to weighty issues. Perhaps one out of 100 can form an original thought.

It’s important for voters to know this even if we don’t know how to make it better. And no, funding a Congressional research thingie to issue papers they won’t read doesn’t make it better. It’s not as if Congress was a font of intelligent discussion and scientific knowledge before it was defunded.

This is just piling ignorance upon ignorance. The reality was that more responsible legislation came of it. And it helped even Reagan and Bush father to get congress to approve international treaties. It also helped in the approval of nationwide bills about acid rain, ozone layer gases control and other issues.

Of Course Congress Is Clueless About Tech—It Killed Its Tutor

Of Course Congress Is Clueless About Tech—It Killed Its Tutor

When the draft version of a federal encryption bill got leaked this month, the verdict in the tech community was unanimous. Critics called it ludicrous and technically illiterate—and these were the kinder assessments of the “Compliance with Court Orders Act of 2016,” proposed legislation authored by the offices of Senators Diane Feinstein and Richard Burr.

The encryption issue is complex and the stakes are high, as evidenced by the recent battle between Apple and the FBI. Many other technology issues that the country is grappling with these days are just as complex, controversial, and critical—witness the debates over law enforcement’s use of stingrays to track mobile phones or the growing concerns around drones, self-driving cars, and 3-D printing. Yet decisions about these technical issues are being handled by luddite lawmakers who sometimes boast about not owning a cell phone or never having sent an email.

Politicians on Capitol Hill have plenty of staff to advise them on the legal aspects of policy issues, but, oddly, they have a dearth of advisers who can serve up unbiased analysis about the critical science and technology issues they legislate.

This wasn’t always the case. US lawmakers once had a body of independent technical and scientific experts at their disposal who were the envy of other nations: the Office of Technology Assessment. That is, until the OTA got axed unceremoniously two decades ago in a round of budget cuts.

These were precisely the kinds of concerns raised in the 1960s when interest in a special tech advisory body first emerged on Capitol Hill. The Office of Technology Assessment was created in 1972 by an act of Congress during the Nixon administration, when lawmakers expressed alarm that they couldn’t understand and properly legislate complicated science and technology issues.

Former Senator Edward L. Bartlett bemoaned that policymakers were often easily swayed by special interests as a result. “Far too often congressional committees for expert advice rely upon the testimony of the very scientists who have conceived the program, the very scientists who will spend the money if the program is authorized and appropriated for.” The OTA was designed not only to educate lawmakers but also to serve as a counterweight to the biased experts the White House trotted out in support of bills it wanted lawmakers to approve.

At its peak, the OTA had an annual budget of about $20 million and around 140 permanent staffers who were supplemented when needed by subject-matter experts from outside. All of them together provided detailed research on everything from acid rain and sustainable agriculture to electronic surveillance and anti-ballistic missile programs.

The reports the OTA produced over the years were known for their rigor. “There was a lot of effort to make sure that the reports were really solid and had been vetted,” says Andrew Wyckoff, who managed the OTA’s Information, Telecommunications and Commerce program before the OTA’s demise. The OTA was so revered that the Washington Times once called it “the voice of authority in a city inundated with statistics and technical gobbledygook.” Other countries, such as the Netherlands, even sent representatives to DC to learn how it worked so they could replicate it back home.

Although the OTA never made policy recommendations, its reports played an important role in influencing policy, from limiting employer rights to give workers polygraph tests, to encouraging lawmakers to extend Medicare coverage to older women for mammograms and pap smears.

[ISiddiqui]

@adaher

Another aspect of REAL knowledge is knowing who to ask and what questions to ask. An ignorant person might say, “Okay, I want to fix climate change, I’ll consult climate experts.” A person who actually knows what they are doing will say, “I need to consult climate change experts, then I need to consult economic experts since we’re trying to change economic incentives here and we don’t want to hurt the economy, then I need to consult government experts to see what challenges will be faced in implementation.” And that’s just what I know and I’m a dumbass who just reads and thinks a lot. I’m sure there are a lot more people who need to be consulted that I’m not thinking of. Oh yeah, such as “how did climate change plans in other nations work?”

Where exactly do you think these experts work? By and large, they work at lobbying firms. They may have used to work for government agencies which did technical research, but those agencies got slashed in budget cuts. So you are saying Congresspeople should ask the lobbyists?

[mascaroni]

ISiddiqui I think you’re rather ignorant to not recognise the difference between the words “most” and “all”.

[BobLibDem]

This is why term limits is a bad idea. Yes we have lawmakers that aren’t well versed in a lot of subjects. With time in office, they learn what they need to learn. Forcing the seat to turn over after two terms just means that all the time, at least half the chamber is clueless.

[Exapno_Mapcase]

@adaher

The point is that most poilticians are ignorant and most people don’t really understand this. And we tend to reward politicians who can recite the talking points rather than politicians who actually give thought to weighty issues. Perhaps one out of 100 can form an original thought.

It’s important for voters to know this even if we don’t know how to make it better. And no, funding a Congressional research thingie to issue papers they won’t read doesn’t make it better. It’s not as if Congress was a font of intelligent discussion and scientific knowledge before it was defunded.

[QUOTE=The New York Times]
After a characteristically brilliant speech by Adlai Stevenson, the Democratic nominee for president in 1952 and 1956, a supporter is said to have bellowed, “Every thinking American will vote for you!”

Legend has it that Stevenson shouted back: “That’s not enough. I need a majority!”
[/QUOTE]

Voters understand very well that most politicians aren’t intellectuals and they prefer that. They famously want a president they can have a beer with, like your sainted dolts and dullards Reagan and Bush. This is equally the case at every lower level.

This has been true and obvious since before you were born. You haven’t answered my question: Why are you suddenly bringing this up now? It couldn’t possibly have anything to do with your Republicans nominating a world-class idiot like Trump, could it? You’ve been defending the party in the Stupid Republican Idea of the Day thread for years, so you didn’t care that your party is full of dangerous idiots until this moment. You and your party got exactly what you’ve been screaming for over the past couple of decades. But now the puketastically anti-science Congress is to blame? What’s really going on?

[Johnny_Ace]

@Exapno_Mapcase

Voters understand very well that most politicians aren’t intellectuals and they prefer that. They famously want a president they can have a beer with, like your sainted dolts and dullards Reagan and Bush. This is equally the case at every lower level.

Ambassador to the UN
Chairman of the RNC
Envoy to China
DCI

You can accuse 41 of a lot of things, but a dullard he was not.

[Exapno_Mapcase]

@Johnny_Ace

Ambassador to the UN
Chairman of the RNC
Envoy to China
DCI

You can accuse 41 of a lot of things, but a dullard he was not.

He was father to 43, though. Dance, dubya, dance.

[Johnny_Ace]

Yeah well there’s a throwback every once in a while.

[snoe]

According to people who know/have worked with her, Hilary Clinton is shockingly well-informed about the details of policy:

People in Washington do not expect those in power to be particularly attentive to their work or curious about their past, and Clinton uses this to her advantage.

Why the Clinton America sees isn’t the Clinton colleagues know

[adaher]

@BobLibDem

This is why term limits is a bad idea. Yes we have lawmakers that aren’t well versed in a lot of subjects. With time in office, they learn what they need to learn. Forcing the seat to turn over after two terms just means that all the time, at least half the chamber is clueless.

Yes, one of the drawbacks is that it makes the permanent shadow government even more powerful: the lobbyists, the bureaucrats, the staffers, etc.

But the reason there’s always a lot of support for term limits is that a lot of people stay there a very long time and only really get good at the political side of things.

[adaher]

@Exapno_Mapcase

Voters understand very well that most politicians aren’t intellectuals and they prefer that. They famously want a president they can have a beer with, like your sainted dolts and dullards Reagan and Bush. This is equally the case at every lower level.

This has been true and obvious since before you were born. You haven’t answered my question: Why are you suddenly bringing this up now? It couldn’t possibly have anything to do with your Republicans nominating a world-class idiot like Trump, could it? You’ve been defending the party in the Stupid Republican Idea of the Day thread for years, so you didn’t care that your party is full of dangerous idiots until this moment. You and your party got exactly what you’ve been screaming for over the past couple of decades. But now the puketastically anti-science Congress is to blame? What’s really going on?

I’ve brought up many times that most politicians aren’t too bright, even the ones that sound intelligent. You can only really judge the knowledge level of a politician through wide-ranging, unscripted interviews. And even then you have to sift through the stuff that sounds smart but is actually just well rehearsed talking points.

I just posted this thread because now a Vox writer has said it too.

[Quartz]

Why do you expect politicians to be experts in all fields?

[adaher]

I don’t. I just expect voters to know that they aren’t experts in any fields.

[wolfpup]

@adaher

But that’s why the pick and choose “experts”. If your knowledge of basic scientific principles wouldn’t win you $1000 on an episode of “Are you Smarter than a 5th grader”, then you have no way of analyzing the information you get.

No. You’re making it sound like it’s impossible for Congress to ever have sound scientific advice. That isn’t true. All that is required for a legislator to have sound scientific guidance on policy is the minimal intelligence to be able to distinguish good scientific sources from bad ones. Most countries have trusted national science bodies established specifically to be policy advisory bodies – the US has the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine, and the first of those, the National Academy of Sciences, is a world-class advisory body on numerous scientific topics like climate change. Internationally, the IPCC is a trusted and reliable source of information on climate change.

It’s not hard to know what the reliable sources are for sound guidance. It seems to be a lot harder for politicians to separate reality from politics, and it seems to me that the Democratic side has historically been far more likely to embrace science and reality and to provide scientific funding, and the Republican side far more likely to have contempt for science and attribute events to God, conspiracies, and the devil.

[adaher]

It’s not impossible for Congressmen to get sound scientific guidance. All that is necessary is that they have a college level understanding of the sciences, which nearly all of them would have if they paid attention in class. That level of knowledge is sufficient to be able to analyze advice from scientific experts.

However, if you’re science literacy is elementary school level, you’re going to be lost no matter how good your advisors.

Then there’s that same attitude that may students have: “What does this stuff do for my career?” which politicians carry into Congress. THe science says A, but your campaign contributors and base say B. Which one is better for your career?

[GIGObuster]

@adaher

It’s not impossible for Congressmen to get sound scientific guidance. All that is necessary is that they have a college level understanding of the sciences, which nearly all of them would have if they paid attention in class. That level of knowledge is sufficient to be able to analyze advice from scientific experts.

However, if you’re science literacy is elementary school level, you’re going to be lost no matter how good your advisors.

Then there’s that same attitude that may students have: “What does this stuff do for my career?” which politicians carry into Congress. THe science says A, but your campaign contributors and base say B. Which one is better for your career?

You are just restating the problem and think that that is a refutation of the solutions.

As for a career for the politicians, you should realize that you stumbled on one of the main reasons why places like the Straightdope came to be. You are also not noticing properly what just following what is politically convenient does not lead to things that will benefit the whole nation or the world too. IMHO what most Republicans are doing nowadays is that they are not just ignoring science but they are also ignoring what is the point of a Republic. It is supposed to not just rely on the [del]tyranny[/del] ignorance of the majority from their neck of the woods.

Neil deGrasse Tyson on Science Literacy (Part Two) | Moyers & Company |...

BILL MOYERS: The proverbial alien from outer space must be scratching his bug-eyed head over that one. In 21st century America why should our most noted astrophysicist have to defend the science classroom against the intrusion of religion?

Two reasons: Over the past few years, the number of Americans who question the science of evolution has gone up. Look at this Gallup Poll. Forty six percent of the country embraces the notion that “God created human beings pretty much in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years…”

Perhaps less surprising, a Pew Research survey found that almost two thirds of white evangelical Protestants, the bedrock of the Republican Party, reject altogether the idea that humans have evolved. So while acceptance of evolution has increased among Democrats to 67 percent, among Republicans it’s fallen to 43 percent. That’s a huge partisan divide.

Something else is happening, too, and no one is certain exactly why. Our Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, calls it “educational stagnation.” Consider this, PISA tests, tests that measure critical thinking in science, math, and reading among high school students in different countries, show that our students aren’t doing so well.

In math, students in 33 other countries, including Ireland, Poland, Latvia, the United Kingdom and the Czech Republic, did better than American students. In science, students in 24 countries including Poland, Ireland, and the Czech Republic were ahead of ours. And in reading, our best subject, kids in 21 countries outdid the Americans.

The hard truth, says Secretary Duncan, is that the United States is not among the top performing comparable countries in any subject tested by PISA. That’s bad news for our students and the country.

All fodder for my last round with Neil deGrasse Tyson. He’s the director of the Hayden Planetarium at New York’s American Museum of Natural History, he’s also the narrator of a mesmerizing new show at the planetarium called Dark Universe, and this spring he’ll appear as the host of a remake of the classic PBS series “Cosmos.” You can see it on the National Geographic Channel and Fox TV. Welcome.

NEIL DEGRASSE TYSON: Thank you.

BILL MOYERS: Let’s talk politics for a moment.

NEIL DEGRASSE TYSON: Go for it.

BILL MOYERS: All right. According to the Pew Research Center, back in 2009, a comfortable majority of Republicans accepted human evolution as a fact. But now, a plurality rejects it. So I ask you, politics can trump science, can’t it?

NEIL DEGRASSE TYSON: Well, in a free, elected democracy, of course. You vote who you want on your school board. There is no provision in the constitution for the government to establish what’s taught in schools. That’s all relegated to the states. Hence, we speak state to state about what’s in their science textbook versus another.

And so that’s the country we’ve all sort of bought into, if you will, or born into. I think it’s a self-correcting phenomenon. Nobody wants to die, okay? So we all care about health. But above all else, among the Republicans I know, especially Republicans, nobody wants to die poor, okay?

So educated Republicans know the value of innovations in science and technology for the thriving of an economy and business and industry. They know this. If you put something that is not science in a science classroom, pass it off as science, then you are undermining an entire enterprise that was responsible for creating the wealth that we have come to take for granted in this country. So we’re already fading economically. If this, if that trend continues, some Republican is going to wake up and say, “Look guys, we got to split these two. We have to. Otherwise, we will doom ourselves to poverty.” And so I see it as a self-correcting, I don’t know when it’ll happen, but they know.

I’m not as optimistic as Degrasse Tysen here, of course part of the self correction is all of us Americans. If the Republicans are choosing to go into the night we have to tell them “no thanks” at the ballot box.

[tim314]

adaher, I agree with most of what you’ve said in this thread, including that when it comes to addressing global warming it’s important to understand the economic impacts as well as the climate science, and this means consulting experts in a variety of fields. And it would be great if our leaders were having policy debates based on the best information available to us.

Unfortunately, it seems to me that the Republicans in Congress have pretty much made this impossible, because instead they choose to demonize the scientists and accuse them of lying if they don’t like what the scientists are telling them. True, the Congressional Democrats are often not as informed as they ought to be either, and are also too willing to overlook research that doesn’t align with their views, but I haven’t seen remotely the same level of outright hostility towards science, nor the same sort of attempts to persuade the general public that scientists can’t be trusted even to speak honestly about their area of expertise.

I’m not likely to vote Republican anyway so long as the party is so in bed with the religious right, but even if that weren’t the case, this sort of thing would be a deal breaker for me. Aren’t you a Republican, though? Why is this not a deal breaker for you?

[adaher]

Democrats aren’t a whole lot better though. They are happy to use the science of climate change as a cudgel against Republicans, but they don’t actually want to follow scientific recommendations anymore than Republican do, because that would mean defeat in the next election. Politics always trumps science. Always. Because a) it’s what politicians understand, and b) it’s what wins votes.

[GIGObuster]

@adaher

Democrats aren’t a whole lot better though. They are happy to use the science of climate change as a cudgel against Republicans, but they don’t actually want to follow scientific recommendations anymore than Republican do, because that would mean defeat in the next election. Politics always trumps science. Always. Because a) it’s what politicians understand, and b) it’s what wins votes.

As usual you seem to rely on the echo chamber from the conservative Republicans. The reality is that there is a disconnect on what even the majority of Republicans are thinking about the issue.

Politics and Global Warming, Spring 2016 - Yale Program on Climate Change...

An increasing number of registered voters think global warming is happening. Three in four (73%, up 7 points since Spring 2014) now think it is happening. Large majorities of Democrats liberal (95%) and moderate/conservative (80%) think it is happening, as do three in four Independents (74%, up 15 points since Spring 2014) and the majority of liberal/moderate Republicans (71%, up 10 points).

By contrast, only 47% of conservative Republicans think global warming is happening. Importantly, however, there has been a large increase in the number of conservative Republicans who think global warming is happening. In fact, conservative Republicans have experienced the largest shift of any group an increase of 19 percentage points over the past two years.

…

Across party lines, over half of registered voters say corporations and industry should do much or
somewhat more to address global warming (74% of registered voters; 88% of Democrats, 74% of
Independents, and 56% of Republicans).

Years of looking at the issue show me that the media (that is not really liberal because if it was this issue would constantly be in the news and as a more important election subject) and the Republicans in power are the weakest link here.

Politics and Global Warming, Spring 2016 - Yale Program on Climate Change...

And if politics had always trumped science then there would not be an explanation on why there were laws and regulations made to deal with pollution, acid rain, lead in gasoline and paints, phosphorus in detergents, DDT, etc. Because politicians also learn (sometimes after bad things have happened, but eventually do) that people also vote for clean air, water and other things.