A Young Bush Appointee Resigns His Post at NASA

New York Times ^ | February 8, 2006 | Andrew C. Revkin

[MurryMom]

George C. Deutsch, the young presidential appointee at NASA who told public affairs workers to limit reporters' access to a top climate scientist and told a Web designer to add the word "theory" at every mention of the Big Bang, resigned yesterday, agency officials said.

Mr. Deutsch's resignation came on the same day that officials at Texas A&M University confirmed that he did not graduate from there, as his résumé on file at the agency asserted.

[balch3]

This guy doesn't buy the Darwinist party line so he gets smeared. So what if the guy didn't graduate? Was that a requirement for the job?

[WhistlingPastTheGraveyard]

What many of us don't understand is why some people seem to insist on declaring that "theory =/ fact" and then wanting to label everything they don't like a "theory."

Similarly, I'm wondering what the science community finds so threatening about the word "theory".

Perhaps there's something unsettling about the reality that you don't have every answer of all of God's mysteries. Even more settling is the fact that you never will.

[clawrence3]

Well, you are back - so, did you find any evidence he was a PRESIDENTIAL appointee - especially in light of the evidence Jane posted he was not?

[mnehring]

Then again, see post 123.
He resigned immediately the story broke.

Right Wing Professor
I'm really just raising questions as this is NYT after all, but specifically regarding your comment, the article seems to have the exact opposite timeline:

• The resignation came as the National Aeronautics and Space Administration was preparing to review its policies for communicating science to the public. The review was ordered Friday by Michael D. Griffin, the NASA administrator, after a week in which many agency scientists and midlevel public affairs officials described to The New York Times instances in which they said political pressure was applied to limit or flavor discussions of topics uncomfortable to the Bush administration, particularly global warming....
  
  
• The statement said the resignation of Mr. Deutsch was "a separate matter."...
  
  
• Mr. Deutsch's educational record was first challenged on Monday by Nick Anthis,
  
  It looks like he resigned the week before some blogger 'broke' the story and 3 days later the NYSlimes 'broke' the story.. One could assume that he resigned because of the story that had not yet been released, or he resigned and the story was planted once he was out, when he didn't have a press platform to challenge the findings..
  
  All of this is just my opinion.. no proof yet..

[clawrence3]

"Settling" for us, yes.

[Not A Snowbird]

And properly resigned.

Next?

[mnehring]

Ping 160.. Interesting information. George C Deutsch (former Director of Material Science) won many awards from NASA and was a pretty respected authority there..

[Ichneumon]

It's actually just an alternate "Creation" theory. In my view as much faith is needed to believe it as for a literal belief in Genesis.

Nonsense. It doesn't take "faith" at all, it takes knowledge, understanding of the relevant processes, and familiarity with the evidence. When something can and has been confirmed by multiple validation tests by having its detailed consequences compared against the real world and found to match to a great degree of closeness, and survived multiple attempts at falsification, it's nowhere near in the same category as something that "takes faith" to accept, like ancient myths.

Here, read this and learn something: Evidence for the Big Bang.

Excerpts:

COBE was actually several experiments in one. The DMR instrument measured the anisotropies in the CMBR [Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation] temperature across the sky (see more below) while the FIRAS experiment measured the absolute temperature of the CMBR and its spectral energy distribution. As we mentioned above, the prediction from BBT [Big Bang Theory] is that the CMBR should be a perfect blackbody. FIRAS found that that this was true to an extraordinary degree. The plot below (provided by Ned Wright) shows the CMBR spectrum and the best fit blackbody. As one can see, the error bars, which are quite small, are actually 400 standard deviations. In fact, the CMBR is as close to a blackbody as anything we can create here on Earth.

And:

However, if we recall that the largest size for the hot spots corresponds to the size of the visible universe at any given time, that tells us that, if we can find the angular size of these variations on the sky, then that largest angle will correspond to the size of the visible universe at the time of decoupling. To do this, we measure what is known as the angular power spectrum of the CMBR. In short, we find all of the points on the sky that are separated by a given angular scale. For all of those pairs, we find the temperature difference and average over all of the pairs. If our basic picture is correct, then we should see an enhancement of the power spectrum at the angular scale of the largest compression, another one at the size of the largest scale that has gone through compression and is at maximum rarefaction (the power spectrum is only sensitive to the square of the temperature difference so hot spots and cold spots are equivalent), and so on. This leads to a series of what are known as "acoustic peaks", the exact position and shape of which tell us a great deal about not only the size of the universe at decoupling, but also the geometry of the universe (since we are looking at angular distance; see 1b) and other cosmological parameters.

The figure below from the NASA/WMAP Science Team shows the results of the WMAP measurement of the angular power spectrum using the first year of WMAP data. In addition to the angular scale plotted on the upper x-axis, plots of the angular power spectrum are generally shown as a function of "l". This is the multipole number and is roughly translated into an angle by dividing 180 degrees by l. For more detail on this, you can do a Google search on "multipole expansion" or check this page. The WMAP science pages also provide an introduction to this way of looking at the data.

As with the COBE temperature measurement, the agreement between the predicted shape of the CMBR power spectrum and the actual observations is staggering. The balloon-borne experiments (particularly BOOMERang, MAXIMA, and DASI) were able to provide convincing detections of the first and second acoustic peaks before WMAP, but none of those experiments were able to map a large enough area of the sky to match with the COBE DMR data. WMAP bridged that gap and provided much tighter measurement of the positions of the first and second peaks. This was a major confirmation of not only the Lambda CDM version of BBT, but also the basic picture of how the cosmos transitioned from an early radiation-dominated, plasma-filled universe to the matter-dominated universe where most of the large scale structure we see today began to form.

The link examines fourteen independent lines of evidence which confirm the Big Bang Theory. Get back to us when you have as much hard evidence, along multiple independently cross-confirming lines, supporting a literal reading of Genesis -- only *then* would the claim that it takes "as much faith" to accept the Big Bang "as for a literal belief in Genesis" approach something like a sensible statement, instead of the arrant nonsense it actually is.

Also see: Explaining the Scientific Method.

[orionblamblam]

> this new-fangled "science" requirement for non-science NASA jobs

What, exactly, makes you think a NASA PAO is a non-science job? Would you similarly feel that, say, a USAF PAO need not have the slightest clue about how airplanes work?

> As for "never" using the AP Style manual

Who said "never?"

Anyway, let's take a look at what you posted. There were six uses of the phrade "big bang," with only four uses of "theory" appended onto it. Seems "Big Bang THEORY" is not a requirement. Unless, of course, you can show where in the AP Style Manual it says otherwise.

[clawrence3]

All fourteen independent lines of evidence which confirm the Big Bang Theory also confirm that is how God created the Universe. Next question?

[PatrickHenry]

[Thunderous applause!]

[orionblamblam]

> are you certain he's a fraud? You believe every NY Times story?

http://scientificactivist.blogspot.com/2006/02/breaking-news-george-deutsch-did-not.html

"Although Deutsch did attend Texas A&M University, where he majored in journalism and was scheduled to graduate in 2003, he left in 2004 without a degree, a revelation that I was tipped off to by one of his former coworkers at A&M's student newspaper The Battalion. I later confirmed this discovery through the records department of the Texas A&M University Association of Former Students.

"Deutsch’s former coworker informed me that in the summer of 2004, when Deutsch was the Opinion Editor for The Battalion, he was offered a position in George W. Bush’s presidential reelection campaign. The position was apparently too good to turn down, so Deutsch not only left his editorial post, but he also left A&M completely. Deutsch's coworker was not aware of him returning to A&M to complete his education. I investigated this further, and through the Association of Former Students, I learned that George Deutsch never graduated from Texas A&M, and the last record of him was from June 9, 2004, when he withdrew."



If Deutshc didn't resign over this... then why did he resign?

[DJ MacWoW]

God spoke and BANG it happened. ;)

[MurryMom]

Maybe there are some facts missing.

Some of the missing facts are that the college dropout Republican Party activist was a journalism major at A&M and his only qualification for a post in a scientific agency like NASA was that he wrote a few articles about video games.

Deutsch ought to have plenty of time to play with his XBox now.

[DJ MacWoW]

was scheduled to graduate in 2003, he left in 2004

What?

[orionblamblam]

> So what if the guy didn't graduate?

Because he said on his resume that he *did.* He's a liar.

[orionblamblam]

> I'm wondering what the science community finds so threatening about the word "theory".


Because the forces of ignorance have managed to convince the public that "theory" = "guess." Those who would throttle the mind of man use "it's just a theory" as a dishonest, yet successful in the scientifically illiterate public, to smear any facts they don't like.

[MurryMom]

...that is how God created the Universe...

... and as reported verbatim in the first chapter of Genesis.

[/sarcasm]

[clawrence3]

What, exactly, makes you think a NASA PAO is a non-science job?

Well, common sense for one, but then JaneAustin's post #109 listed the "requirements" for PAO.

Would you similarly feel that, say, a USAF PAO need not have the slightest clue about how airplanes work?

I have the "slightest clue" how airplanes work - does not mean I, or the PAO, have to be a mechanical engineer and/or possess advanced avionics degrees to type press releases.

Who said "never?"

You did - in your post #139: "it is almost *never* referred to as the "Big Bang THEORY?"

Anyway, let's take a look at what you posted. There were six uses of the phrade "big bang," with only four uses of "theory" appended onto it.

Exactly - perhaps this is what Mr. Deutsch was attempting to correct.

Seems "Big Bang THEORY" is not a requirement. Unless, of course, you can show where in the AP Style Manual it says otherwise.

I already said I don't have the Manual, but don't you think if it is NOT a requirement, that at least ONE of the many NY Slimes or AP stories on all of this would have pointed that fact out by now?