Because many of our friends and family are involved in the sciences I thought that this post would be of some interest to people. Nature, one of the primer scientific academic journals in the world, just posted a series of questions posed to the candidates concerning their stance on scientific issues. Obama's replies can be found here and here. McCain declined to answer the questions. However, Nature has complied brief explanations of what McCain has expressed in the past concerns these issues. There are no real bombshells and a lot of it is about funding, but I still thought people would be interested in having a look. The Union of Concerned Scientists released a report in February that outlines some of the future challenges and promises of federal science. This can be kind of a boring issue but Ashley and I both agree that it is really one of the more important ones. In the recent past there have been some real abuses in how the federal government has interfered with scientific findings due to ideological agendas. This is an incredibly sticky issue because of how easy it is to misconstrue scientific findings to support ideological stances. I hope everyone enjoys the links. Love you all,
Jordan
4 comments:
I really liked this post, I thought it was very interesting! In that Union of Concerned Scientists report that you linked there was a quote from a scientist that said "if you rearrange your science to fit your goal, that's not really science." I thought that was good! I also liked reading about the candidates stance on science issues. Thanks for some good posts lately! I still can't believe that when we were dating you told me you "didn't really like politics"!
Thanks for the interesting links, Jordan! I can't believe how the research was taken out of context in the last link, and the people who made the commercial wouldn't even admit their mistake. The professor must have been so angry.
I liked Obama's quote:
"I do not believe it is helpful to our students to cloud discussions of science with non-scientific theories like intelligent design that are not subject to experimental scrutiny."
Intelligent design is not a real scientific theory because it can't be tested. A politician actually understands this. Woo!
I agree! It's not that I don't think it's fine for ID to be taught in a philosophy or theory or religion class...it just doesn't belong in a science class because it's not science.
Hey Guys! I finally sent the box of baby clothes. It should get to you Wednesday or Thursday. :)
Katie
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