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Politicians throw science under the bus
USA TODAY | January 2, 2014 | Alex Berezow

Posted on 01/03/2014 1:28:24 PM PST by neverdem

Here's the essay.


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; Editorial; Germany; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: merkel; science
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1 posted on 01/03/2014 1:28:25 PM PST by neverdem
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To: neverdem
Remove blacks from the pool and the US is right near the top.

Can't address the real problem though. We have to pretend that Whitey is the problem.

2 posted on 01/03/2014 1:33:38 PM PST by E. Pluribus Unum (Who knew that one day professional wrestling would be less fake than professional journalism?)
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To: E. Pluribus Unum
Not just blacks or Hispanics but especially “Liberal” blacks and Hispanics.
3 posted on 01/03/2014 1:36:51 PM PST by Flavious_Maximus
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To: neverdem
All you have to recall is the Ruling Church and Galileo and the earth revolving around the sun.

The church was the government.

Now, our government rules. But this time, the church is right. You don't kill babies. You don't promote perversion. You don't tell God he's doing a rotten job in the climate category...

Man is sooooo arrogant. It is and always will be his downfall.

4 posted on 01/03/2014 1:36:53 PM PST by Sacajaweau
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To: neverdem

This essay is part ofthe problem. It’s just more politicization of science.

I don’t buy his premise that politicians have authority on science matters or that their opinions on scientific issues (usually sensationalist, borderline science issues) are of any interest or importance.

Just more whining is how I see this essay.

I like the realclearscience site.


5 posted on 01/03/2014 1:38:42 PM PST by ifinnegan
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To: neverdem
The unfortunate reality is that when faced with a choice, politicians will almost always decide in favor of their electoral interests rather than in favor of data-driven policy.

Some of what they said is actually true, but then they get to the bottom line, standard leftist "If only we were dictators and didn't have to listen to all you unwashed bitter clingers, we'd REALLY get something done!" The "politicians are so much smarter than we are, they have not only the responsibility, but the ability and intelligence to solve any problem" meme. I'm surprised half of those guys, and ESPECIALLY the ones craving more power to dictate unpopular policy, are even able to find their way to the office in the morning.

The electorate, while admittedly sometimes moronic, is still substantially smarter than the average politician. Freeing scum-sucking politicians from the minor strings of accountability that still [slightly] restrain them is extremely unlikely to produce better results than we have now.

6 posted on 01/03/2014 1:42:14 PM PST by Still Thinking (Freedom is NOT a loophole!)
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To: neverdem
The author wants the government involved in science, but decries that science becomes politicized. That's not how things go. If you want pure science do it privately.
7 posted on 01/03/2014 1:55:26 PM PST by Vince Ferrer
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To: neverdem
Merkel's decision was puzzling because Germany is not known for earthquakes or tsunamis.

The Fukushima reactors withstood the earthquake and tsunamis. The meltdowns were caused by electrical failures. That can happen anywhere. Now that the cost of nuclear failure is clear and has been repeated several times, nuclear power is over.

8 posted on 01/03/2014 2:32:14 PM PST by Reeses
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To: Reeses
Now that the cost of nuclear failure is clear and has been repeated several times, nuclear power is over.

Did these reactors have containment vessels, like here in the US? I thought that they didn't.

9 posted on 01/03/2014 2:34:11 PM PST by St_Thomas_Aquinas ( Isaiah 22:22, Matthew 16:19, Revelation 3:7)
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

It’s more than that.

Kids of Japanese and Chinese ancestry in USA outperform kids in Japan and China. Kids of Swedish or Finnish ancestry outperform kids from Sweden or Finland. AFAIK, this continues through pretty much all countries.

Our low performance is due entirely to our high admixture of poor-performing groups. But it is almost unthinkable to say so.

Krugman a few years back made fun of TX for their poor school performance. Iowahawk cut him/her a new one.

http://iowahawk.typepad.com/iowahawk/2011/03/longhorns-17-badgers-1.html

Blacks in TX outperform blacks in WI, latinos in TX outperform latinos in WI, and whites in TX outperform white in WI. The average difference between the states is due entirely to the differences in percentages of these groups.

A truly classic example of how entirely accurate statistics can be utterly misleading.


10 posted on 01/03/2014 2:34:35 PM PST by Sherman Logan
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To: neverdem

Politicians are to science what a 5th grade girl is to math.


11 posted on 01/03/2014 2:36:48 PM PST by DungeonMaster
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To: St_Thomas_Aquinas
Did these reactors have containment vessels, like here in the US?

Yes, all the reactors are US designs by General Electric.

12 posted on 01/03/2014 2:44:29 PM PST by Reeses
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To: Sacajaweau
All you have to recall is the Ruling Church and Galileo and the earth revolving around the sun.

Did you know that Copernicus, a contemporary of Galileo, whose work on heliocentrism was financed by a cardinal, dedicated his book, "On the Heavens," to the pope?

Did you know that Galileo's "proof" of heliocentrism was scientifically wrong? That he came to the right conclusion without valid scientific evidence?

No, the Church was not opposed to the theory in principle, nor was the Church opposed to research into the theory. What angered the pope was his being openly ridiculed by Galileo, that Galileo demanded that the Church promote heliocentrism despite Galileo's flawed scientific evidence (as noted by Cardinal Belarmine), and Galileo's demand that the Church declare that biblical passages which seemed to contradict heliocentrism were wrong.

The Galileo Controversy

13 posted on 01/03/2014 2:45:21 PM PST by St_Thomas_Aquinas ( Isaiah 22:22, Matthew 16:19, Revelation 3:7)
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

Whitey’s been keeping the poor black man down. That’s why we need to look the other way when a black man decks little old white ladies walking down the street minding their own business. (do I HAVE to /s?)


14 posted on 01/03/2014 2:47:06 PM PST by Cyber Liberty (H.L. Mencken: "The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule.")
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To: Sherman Logan

http://townhall.com/columnists/patbuchanan/2010/12/28/who_owns_the_future/page/full

Found article.


15 posted on 01/03/2014 2:55:08 PM PST by Sherman Logan
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To: neverdem
Surveys suggest that 28% of American adults qualify as scientifically literate.

I've been to DU, and on my braver days over to DailyKos and MoveOn.org. I believe this number may be too high.

16 posted on 01/03/2014 2:57:32 PM PST by Hardastarboard (The question of our age is whether a majority of Americans can and will vote us all into slavery.)
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To: Cyber Liberty

It used to be poor blacks were too busy being poor to Hawaiian punch little old white ladies. Now they have everything handed to them except something to do.


17 posted on 01/03/2014 3:04:19 PM PST by Reeses
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To: neverdem
What nonsense.

Why should more than 28% of Americans be scientifically literate? Most people aren't capable of scientific understanding and most people probably shouldn't even consider college [if colleges were what they used to be].

And there's nothing wrong with that. It's just that our benighted public education system has, from the beginning, been given the impossible task of educating everyone -- even those who don't want an education and those who aren't educable.

All we've accomplished by insisting on educating everyone is to dumb the whole system down to the point where we barely educate anyone. And provide a lot of well-paying jobs for teachers, too, of course.

18 posted on 01/03/2014 3:33:05 PM PST by BfloGuy ( Even the opponents of Socialism are dominated by socialist ideas.)
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To: BfloGuy
And there's nothing wrong with that. It's just that our benighted public education system has, from the beginning, been given the impossible task of educating everyone -- even those who don't want an education and those who aren't educable.

Nothing at all and that's exactly what they've done. College degrees mean nothing to me unless you're talking about the hard sciences. The false impression of college as a must have was simply one of the bricks in the wall of liberal indoctrination.
19 posted on 01/03/2014 5:52:41 PM PST by 98ZJ USMC
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To: ifinnegan; Still Thinking; AdmSmith; AnonymousConservative; Berosus; bigheadfred; Bockscar; ...

/bingo


20 posted on 01/04/2014 5:44:10 AM PST by SunkenCiv (http://www.freerepublic.com/~mestamachine/)
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