Is Science Under Attack?
Posted 1st-February-2009 at 05:22 PM by Metyu
There seems to be a view from America - I'm thinking in particular, Chris Mooney's new book, - that the former administration has somehow distorted and manipulated scientific funding. Presumably, this somehow has implications for the global... something.
Isn't what Mooney is describing exactly what a ruling political party is supposed to do: determine what it considers to be effective use of money, and make sure the money gets there? The more efficient the government is at achieving this, the more popular it becomes. In theory.
The second issue I have with this idea is that the war on science is localised in America, and is the fault of a handful of bogeymen led by Bush. Watching the recent inauguration of Obama, with tearful Americans laying every hope for their future in his - I am sure - more than able hands, I am not surprised that Americans find it necessary to similarly focus their angers in one place. I just think it is a little naive.
Science funding has come under attack from more than one place. It would be pointless to rank which is more important, but one figure that springs to mind from Francis Wheen is that science books are outsold three to one by alternative medicine and self-help books. If I want to make money, should I write about fullerenes, or "ways to reduce your climate impact?"
To accuse any one religious group of attacking science would underestimate the combined effect of religion in general on the sciences. On the one hand, religion is used to hold back science such as stem cell research, on the other, it is used to promote creationism. Governments are obviously attacking science, since they have science budgets, but we also have non-governmental organisations receiving funds from private individuals.
Throw a large handful of climatologists who think their computer models can predict the end of the world into the mix, and you end up somewhere on the outskirts of the explosion that got us to where we are today: disenchanted youths, celebrity culture gone crazy, and a general air of despondence from a large part of the population (those whose situation isn't critical and can thus consider it, at least).
Science once meant Newton, Einstein, Darwin... Now it means rows over whether the world is going to end or not, and what politicians could have done if only they'd ACTED. Einstein once said, "The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious - the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science." Climate scientists and their followers tell us that there is no mysterious; there is only death, destruction and, at best, hard times. There are too many of you, so don't have babies. They don't necessarily use these words (although, the Optimum Population Trust comes close) but this is the message being received.
Doom and gloom disillusions people. If science is under attack, should those that promote doom and gloom to achieve political ends accept their role in its downfall?
Isn't what Mooney is describing exactly what a ruling political party is supposed to do: determine what it considers to be effective use of money, and make sure the money gets there? The more efficient the government is at achieving this, the more popular it becomes. In theory.
The second issue I have with this idea is that the war on science is localised in America, and is the fault of a handful of bogeymen led by Bush. Watching the recent inauguration of Obama, with tearful Americans laying every hope for their future in his - I am sure - more than able hands, I am not surprised that Americans find it necessary to similarly focus their angers in one place. I just think it is a little naive.
Science funding has come under attack from more than one place. It would be pointless to rank which is more important, but one figure that springs to mind from Francis Wheen is that science books are outsold three to one by alternative medicine and self-help books. If I want to make money, should I write about fullerenes, or "ways to reduce your climate impact?"
To accuse any one religious group of attacking science would underestimate the combined effect of religion in general on the sciences. On the one hand, religion is used to hold back science such as stem cell research, on the other, it is used to promote creationism. Governments are obviously attacking science, since they have science budgets, but we also have non-governmental organisations receiving funds from private individuals.
Throw a large handful of climatologists who think their computer models can predict the end of the world into the mix, and you end up somewhere on the outskirts of the explosion that got us to where we are today: disenchanted youths, celebrity culture gone crazy, and a general air of despondence from a large part of the population (those whose situation isn't critical and can thus consider it, at least).
Science once meant Newton, Einstein, Darwin... Now it means rows over whether the world is going to end or not, and what politicians could have done if only they'd ACTED. Einstein once said, "The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious - the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science." Climate scientists and their followers tell us that there is no mysterious; there is only death, destruction and, at best, hard times. There are too many of you, so don't have babies. They don't necessarily use these words (although, the Optimum Population Trust comes close) but this is the message being received.
Doom and gloom disillusions people. If science is under attack, should those that promote doom and gloom to achieve political ends accept their role in its downfall?
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