[btomba_77]

I actually agree with a lot of that.   The notion of many on the left that find anything “unnatural” as bad leads to many irrational public policy decisions, just as it does on the right.
 
 
It sounds like this author just parphrased the left half  Michael Specter’s [i]Denialism[/i] for his own piece.
 
For science I give the wings of both parties a grade of “a pox on both their houses”
 
 
 
 
 

[jquinones8812_854]

There is plenty of rejection of science all around, when people refuse to reject their own biases. 

[Unknown Member]

Quote from MISTRAD

There is plenty of rejection of science all around, when people refuse to reject their own biases. 

I totally agree with your point. 
 
I’m wondering why anyone would be surprised that there are liberals who “reject science”. I’m quite sure there are evangelist liberals and conservatives alike who prefer special creation over science with respect to evolution, creation, etc. Or do conservatives actually believe they have a monopoly on religious literalism?
 
 

[btomba_77]

On the right you have evolution, global warming…. On the left you have GMOs, vaccine science.  On both sides you have nothing close to a realistic longterm approach to a science-based energy policy. 
 
[link=http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/05/books/excerpt-michael-specter.html?_r=0]http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/05/books/excerpt-michael-specter.html?_r=0[/link]
 
An excerpt from Denialism that sums it all up:
 
“The most blatant forms of denialism are rarely malevolent; they combine decency, a fear of change, and the misguided desire to do good for our health, our families, and the world. That is why so many physicians dismiss the idea that a patient’s race can, and often should, be used as a tool for better diagnoses and treatment. Similar motivations in other words, wishful thinking have helped drive the growing national obsession with organic food. We want our food to taste good, but also to be safe and healthy. That’s natural. Food is more than a meal, it’s about history, culture, and a common set of rituals. We put food in the mouths of our children; it is the glue that unites families and communities. And because we don’t see our food until we eat it, any fear attached to it takes on greater resonance.
 
The corrosive implications of this obsession barely register in America or Europe, where calories are cheap and food is plentiful. But in Africa, where arable land is scarce, science offers the only hope of providing a solution to the growing problem of hunger. To suggest that organic vegetables, which cost far more than conventional produce, can feed billions of people in parts of the world without roads or proper irrigation may be a fantasy based on the finest intentions. But it is a cruel fantasy nonetheless.
 
 
Denialist arguments are often bolstered by accurate information taken wildly out of context, wielded selectively, and supported by fake experts who often don’t seem fake at all. If vast factory farms inject hormones and antibiotics into animals, which is often true and always deplorable, then all industrial farming destroys the earth and all organic food helps sustain it. If a pricey drug like Nexium, the blockbuster “purple pill” sold so successfully to treat acid reflux disease, offers few additional benefits to justify its staggering cost, then all pharmaceutical companies always gouge their customers and “natural” alternatives largely unregulated and rarely tested with rigor offer the only acceptable solution.
 
We no longer trust authorities, in part because we used to trust them too much. Fortunately, they are easily replaced with experts of our own. All it takes is an Internet connection. Anyone can seem impressive with a good Web site and some decent graphics. Type the word “vaccination” into Google and one of the first of the fifteen million or so listings that pops up, after the Centers for Disease Control, is the National Vaccine Information Center, an organization that, based on its name, certainly sounds like a federal agency. Actually, it’s just the opposite: the NVIC is the most powerful anti-vaccine organization in America, and its relationship with the U.S. government consists almost entirely of opposing federal efforts aimed at vaccinating children.
 
….
 
The issues may be complex but the choices are not: we are either going to embrace new technologies, along with their limitations and threats, or slink into an era of magical thinking. Humanity has nearly suffocated the globe with carbon dioxide, yet nuclear power plants that produce no such emissions are so mired in objections and obstruction that, despite renewed interest on every continent, it is unlikely another will be built in the United States.
…..”

[btomba_77]

Well, at the legislative level at least, Republicans are leaping out in front of the anti-science race.
 
[link=http://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/gop-war-on-science-gets-worse]The G.O.P.s War on Science Gets Worse[/link]

Last week, the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee, headed by Texas Republican Lamar Smith, approved a bill that would slash at least three hundred million dollars from NASAs earth-science budget. Earth science, of course, includes climate science, Representative Eddie Bernice Johnson, a Texas Democrat who is also on the committee, noted. (Smith said that the White Houses NASA budget request favored the earth sciences at the expense of the other science divisions and human and robotic space exploration.) Johnson tried to get the cuts eliminated from the bill, but her proposed amendment was rejected. Defunding NASAs earth-science program takes willed ignorance one giant leap further. It means that not only will climate studies be ignored; some potentially useful data wont even be collected.

The vote on the NASA bill came just a week after the same House committee approved major funding cuts to the National Science Foundations geosciences program, as well as cuts to Department of Energy programs that support research into new energy sources. As Michael Hiltzik, a columnist for the Los Angeles Times, noted, the committee is living down to our worst expectations.

Cutting NASA and the N.S.F.s climate-science budgets isnt going to alter the basic realities of climate change. No one needs an advanced degree to understand this. Indeed, the idea that ignoring a problem isnt going to make it go away is one that kids should grasp by the time theyre six or seven. But ignoring a problem does often make it more difficult to solve. And that, you have to assume, in a perverse way, is the goal here. What we dont know, we cant act on.

 
 
……
 
 
 
 
 

And in a follow up to the NASA ax, House Science Committee Chairman Lamar Smith  comes out with anti-science bill #2, the pro-science sounding America Competes Reauthorization Act.
 
[link=http://blog.ucsusa.org/scientific-societies-fight-america-competes-reauthorization-act-711]Scientific Societies Fight Legislation Designed to Advance Scientific Leadership the America COMPETES Reauthorization Act[/link]

Yep, thats right. Several prominent scientific and academic societies have come out swinging against the America COMPETES Reauthorization Act, legislation that supporters say will promote cutting-edge research and advance scientific leadership. Why such strong opposition?

The legislation would show support for science by reducing funding for several scientific disciplines; curtailing the ability of federal agencies to pursue climate science; and adding burdensome new requirements to the way the National Science Foundation operates. Perhaps most worrisome, [b]the legislation would prevent the federal government from using Department of Energy-sponsored research to make policy.[/b]

The groups that oppose the bill include the American Physical Society, the American Geophysical Union, the American Anthropological Association, the Association of American Universities, the Consortium of Social Science Associations, and (in a carefully positive way) the Association of Public and Land Grant Universities (as well as the authors of this piece, the Union of Concerned Scientists}

(bolding mine)

Obama has issued a veto threat.

[kayla.meyer_144]

NASA. Another boondoggle for wasted $$$ & efforts.

[suyanebenevides_151]

dergon vindicating my points of view, once again
 
science is about seeking the reality about way things work
 
liberalism is about name-calling

[btomba_77]

Quote from Cigar

dergon vindicating my points of view, once again

 
No — not when you posted it the first time under your prior screen name.  Not today either

science is about seeking the reality about way things work

yes

liberalism is about name-calling

 huh?

[suyanebenevides_151]

“Deniers”
 
“Climate change”
 
“Marriage”
 
“Gays”
 
It’s all about co-opting terms, re-packaging them, then 30 years later changing again and getting emotional. That’s what unstable people do, it’s easy to predict.

[kayla.meyer_144]

Where or where are all the liberals trying to defund science & R&D?
 
They aren’t & weren’t. That’s always been the conservative position, all that “wasted” $$$ using taxpayer $$$ when it all should be done by private companies. Except private companies don’t as there is little profits in most R&D until the R&D is done. By taxpayers.
 

[kaldridgewv2211]

Just comparing private sector to NASA, Elon Musk is doing some decent work in sending stuff to space.  There’s some cool videos of them trying to land their rockets and a barge.

[kayla.meyer_144]

Quote from DICOM_Dan

Just comparing private sector to NASA, Elon Musk is doing some decent work in sending stuff to space.  There’s some cool videos of them trying to land their rockets and a barge.

Without the 60+ years of NASA’s work, would Elon be sending stuff into space? Or any of the other private companies?
 
Maybe, but how many companies are doing original research on a large scale with no immediate return? How many products do you use that were originally researched & developed in the public sector & then given freely to the private for profit? 
 
[link=http://ineteconomics.org/blog/inet/entrepreneurial-state-debunking-public-vs-private-sector-myths]http://ineteconomics.org/…s-private-sector-myths[/link]

[kaldridgewv2211]

I agree NASA was responsible for many things we use through their R&D.  I’d put Elon Musk’s rocket company into the people doing large scale research with no immediate return.  The dudes trying to land a rocket upright.  My understanding unsuccessfully so far.  So he’s blowing up capital trying to do so. 

[btomba_77]

[b]Bill Would Ban Teaching of Scientific Theories[/b][/h1]  
 
[link=https://www.mtpr.org/montana-news/2023-02-07/bill-would-ban-the-teaching-of-scientific-theories-in-montana-schools]Montana Public Radio[/link]: A bill in the state Legislature seeking to regulate science curriculum in public schools got its first hearing Monday. The legislations sponsor says by banning scientific theories, the policy aims to prevent kids from being taught things that arent true.
 
More than 20 people testified against Senate Bill 235, concerned that it could keep teachers from including gravitational theory, evolution and cell theory in curriculum.

 
____________
 
 
ah, bumping a thread from the good old days when the left were the anti-vaccine folks.

[kaldridgewv2211]

Sounds like training kids on how not to think.

[kayla.meyer_144]

Communist education camps.