PZ Myers reviews the "president's" war on science. Go ahead and read it. Here's my personal stake:
The lunatics who have taken over the country seem to want to undo the
Enlightenment. That isn’t actually possible but they can cause horrible
carnage. I’m an NIH-funded researcher and our entire school of public
health largely depends on federal funding — and a lot of it is stuff
that Republicans don’t like. They don’t want to know about social
determinants of health, inequities, health of people they don’t like
such as gay men and drug addicts, marketing of drugs for useless or
unsafe purposes, hospitals raking in money for useless procedures, and a
whole lot else. So yeah, I’m worried.
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3 comments:
An interesting article and , again, from the viewpoint of academia.
Later on in the article he kinda goes off the rails with his rants about government agencies that were directed to clam up. I have no doubt that he understands science, but he sure doesn't understand the politics of why that happened. His take is "They hate science". It's a lazy(and stupid)answer.
Many of these agencies are headed by progressives who use their position politically. As you already know, Obama scrambled to pack these positions as a last-ditch effort to thwart the incoming administration.
Much of this action to control the narrative can be laid at the feet of the previous administration for their scorched-earth policies near the end if Obama's term.
President Trump's reaction is not that surprising.
WTF are you talking about? Obama was president for 8 years, during which he appointed agency heads. He didn't "scramble to pack positions," that's completely delusional.
The people we're talking about here are civil servants, scientific experts. Science isn't political, it's about truth and falsehood. Anthropogenic climate change is a fact, not a political opinion.
I stand corrected, Sir.
The last minute appointments were only to reward his friends and were not to the agencies described.
Christy Goldfuss, DJ Patil, Amy Pope, Dan Utech and Cristin Dorgelo, all White House officials were given positions at the National Infrastructure Advisory Council. Just to name a few...all in the last few days before transition.
That being said, don't believe that scientists are above politics and even self interest...especially those in positions of power. They are people, not saints. That's why God invented peer review.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2010/feb/09/peer-review-block-scientific-papers
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