Pandering to the Anti-intellectuals
Sara Palin has become a poster child for the average american, who often finds it hard to acknowledge the benefits of basic scientific research (fruit flies are powerful tools in genetic and molecular biology) and the technology that they produce (therapies for human disease). If anything, science needs more funding in order to help bridge the gap created by the Bush administration, which has allowed much of Asia and Europe to surpass us in many scientific fields. Between this and the “overhead projector” statement (that was repeated in two separate debates! and is given below), this ticket appears to be as anti-science/intellectualism as the current administration…
“Where does a lot of that earmark money end up anyway? […] You’ve heard about some of these pet projects they really don’t make a whole lot of sense and sometimes these dollars go to projects that have little or nothing to do with the public good. Things like fruit fly research in Paris, France. I kid you not.”
The overhead projector quote:
<a href="http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0219-02.htm
“>Bush Administration Accused of Suppressing, Distorting Science
by Seth Borenstein
Published on Thursday, February 19, 2004 by Knight-Ridder
WASHINGTON – A group of more than 60 top U.S. scientists, including 20 Nobel laureates and several science advisers to past Republican presidents, on Wednesday accused the Bush administration of manipulating and censoring science for political purposes.
In a 46-page report and an open letter, the scientists accused the administration of “suppressing, distorting or manipulating the work done by scientists at federal agencies” in several cases. The Union of Concerned Scientists, a liberal advocacy group based in Cambridge, Mass., organized the effort, but many of the critics aren’t associated with it.
White House Science Advisor John Marburger III called the charges “like a conspiracy theory report, and I just don’t buy that.” But he added that “given the prestige of some of the individuals who have signed on to this, I think they deserve additional response and we’re coordinating something.”
The protesting scientists welcomed his response.
“If an administration of whatever political persuasion ignores scientific reality, they do so at great risk to the country,” said Stanford University physicist W.H.K. Panofsky, who served on scientific advisory councils in the Eisenhower, Johnson and Carter administrations. “There is no clear understanding in the (Bush) administration that you cannot bend science and technology to policy.”
Bush science adviser denies policy agenda
By Siobhan McDonough
AP, updated 10:49 a.m. PT, Mon., April. 5, 2004
WASHINGTON – President Bush’s top science adviser rebutted an advocacy group’s accusations that the administration’s policy on global warming, air quality, forest management and other matters of science are driven by a conservative agenda.
John H. Marburger III, saying his own record as a Democrat in a Republican administration prove the critics wrong, declared in a statement Friday: “In this administration, science strongly informs policy.”
Marburger, director of the White House office of science and technology policy, criticized a Feb. 18 document by the Union of Concerned Scientists that claims the administration misrepresented facts to benefit a conservative political agenda.
