Science A Voice from the Scientific Community on the Election
posted by on February 13 at 15:46 PM
So, I’ve taken some (mild) heat for my posts on the 2008 election. Nothing like Erica or Annie routinely receive—but I have been called “a closet republican” and in a particularly cruel moment, “Michelle Malkin.”
(While we’re here, I want to say right now: fuck John McCain. Fuck him for his cowardice at a key moment.)
Think I’m worked up and a bit crazy in the aftermath of the telecom immunity, domestic wiretapping and torture votes plus the dismal cuts in scientific funding, and utter hatred spewed towards scientists and undesired scientific findings?
After the jump is an e-mail I’ve just received from a fellow scientist on the 2008 election.
(Updated with more rhetoric. Rhetoric I agree with!)
Whatever. Fuck this all anyway. Hillary is bullshit. Obama is bullshit. McCain and Huckabee are 2-kiloton tankers of bullshit. None of them could give a flying fuck about you, me, or anyone but the assholes that give them money.Our political process has become a complete and utter failure. With just a few notable exceptions, half of the folks in our government are warmongering fundamentalist fascists, and the other half are maniacal despot repiglicans. Democratic voters, suckered by skewed media attention, seem to think that this thing is american idol, and voted everyone except for the two most vacuous corporate media whores off of the island. Let’s all hold hands, sniff each others’ butts with pride about how progressive we are, and take a collective step back into the gilded age.
I’m voting Paul Wellstone by write-in. But don’t worry, it won’t even matter if I vote for a dead guy, because the electoral college system already took my vote away. And if, by outside chance, the republicans win washington, I’ll laugh all the way to jail along with the rest of the intellectuals.
Along with the most of the rest of the my generation of the scientific community, I’m having to start looking real hard at Europe, Canada, Japan, and Australia. The federal government has hacked research, year after year, and we’re having to move unless we want to become corporate whores ourselves. Not that its that bad of a thing, because most of my scientific peers from america have had a big fat shit taken on them by american society, from nerd taunting in the playground at 10 years old to a middle age of borderline poverty because society rewards opportunistic assholes who make money on the demise of others more than it does those who do their part to make the world a better place. Unfortunately teachers, who are probably more important to society than scientists, have it even worse. So I guess I’ll just stop whining and go buy a high school teacher a beer that we don’t pay them enough to buy themselves.
In a subsequent e-mail, after being challenged over his dislike for Obama:
At this stage, I’m not trying to change your mind about anything, because just about anything is better than another republican. It’s a moot point….There is an outside chance that Barack could be Machiavellian, and become a fighter for democracy and the common man. He could also be a “reach across the aisle” type and spend four years protecting re-election, spouting rhetoric, and doing nothing, which I find a much more likely situation.
In either case, I would say save your money until the general election. Hillary and Obama will probably support your interests about the same (which is to say, marginally). Let your money go defeating a republican warmonger rather than supporting democratic infighting.
I agree.
Well, if you were even thinking about Sen McCain, you're going to be really unhappy if you move to Canada or the EU, unless you're thinking of Alberta ...
But, yeah, the research cuts are just plain nutso.
Come to Australia. We have a really good new government that is showing huge promise, and it's goddamn beautiful here. We love skilled immigrants (I'm one, I moved here with my engineering degree from California two years ago) and did I mention that it is gorgeous?
yes look hard at Australia cos you'll have to look _very_ hard to find any research money there at all. 11 years of conservative govt has gutted research funding...Aussies currently spraying all over the planet looking for research homes
Well, I decided several weeks ago that I'm voting for Mickey Mouse (seriously!) for pretty much thd same reasons he's pissing his vote away. American Idol indeed! Well said.
This is why there are so few scientists in politics - they just don't understand that the Spectacle is really the only thing that motivates most people to participate. At all.
That said, he's right on about research cuts. That's just plain fucked up, I'm sure we can all agree.
Ah, scientists! They're all like Einstein: "Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow." Or Carl Sagan, gazing at the stars, dreaming of frontiers yet undiscovered, ever full of optimism at humanity's future. How it must feel to live always on the outer borders of human knowledge, ever peering forward in childlike wonder!
But seriously, do you know any scientists willing to give us a hardheaded assessment of how things stand without all that poetic love-of-knowledge stuff?
Oh, come on Jonathan. We all know you're ECB's evil right wing alter ego.
Research funding is abysmal right now, but the US is still the best place to do science (except maybe Germany). For the record, Obama supports doubling funding for basic science over an unspecified period of time, and Hillary proposes increasing science funding at NIH, NSF, and DOE by 50% over 5 years. As far as I can tell, McCain has said nothing about science.
Don't get sucked into the "There's no difference" crowd again. 2000 sucked enough, thank you very much. As a great man once said, "fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can't get fooled again."
It ain't science without data.
Sure research funds are tight, as they've always been, in PARTICULAR fields. Do sexier research and the money is there.
I've always found it hilarious when people get all angry about the Electoral College "stealing their votes", as if it just started existing in 2000. Then again, I generally find any lay opinions of politics pretty funny, because they're all so misinformed.
If you're wondering why we have superdelegates in the Democratic Party, it's because of people like this.
your pal should wait a couple years. obama may yet impress.
@9
You mean research that shows there is no global warming?
I've thought about moving to foreign lands for research opportunities as well, but there's the language barrier to think about for some countries. Plus, whenever I go abroad, I actually start missing America, as fucked up as it is. An extended stay overseas might make me a raving Republican.
Actually, F @8, some friends of mine are moving back to Germany to do research there, due to the scientific funding and visa situations here.
This bodes not well for our future ...
Yeah, Germany is pouring tons of money into science and trying to repatriate their scientists. And it's working because funding here sucks right now. Hopefully temporary, but I fear.
Jon's buddy here - I thought I'd reply to your comments.
Re: #1 and #3
In my field (neural engineering), the job market for young scientists is more attractive in Europe right now. Australia has a new funding initiative directly aimed at recruiting neuroscientists.
Re: #5
The reason that there are so few scientists in politics is because intellectuals are despised in this country. Scientists, at least in my field, know the exact value of spectacle. "Flashy" spin-off projects are, by necessity, done deliberately alongside fundamental work. The people who just did good research and no flashy bullshit stopped getting funding in 2003 or so. I would guess that many scientists understand spectacle in a way that many others do not, because most scientists can actually identify the difference between substance and spectacle. Stock market investors, if history tells us anything, do not.
Re: #6
I'm not sure if you're being sarcastic or not. If you aren't, go f**k yourself. Leave your house, your car, your computer, your domesticated food grown in tilled fields, and go back to being a hunter-gatherer. You, like me, have scientists to thank for your long life expectancy and comfortable life.
Re: #7
Seriously. Jon is a closet New World Order guy. Get him drunk sometime and ask him what he'll do if his funding is cut.
Re: #8
First of all: Fuck McCain. Fuck that guy. Second of all: He has a more concrete commitment to the environment than either of the high school prom popularity winners. Fuck him anyway, though.
Unless Huckabee is elected, things are getting better for scientists than they are now (that is, if there's any money left to invest in science).
Re: #9
Go here: http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/203984_brain16.html. And then read my response to #5. Just because I'm not having a problem in this department, doesn't mean that I don't think that it should be that way.
Re: #10
No, the electoral college was bullshit from the start. 2000 was just a particularly fucked time for it because the winner lost the popular vote (If I remember properly, this has only happened one time before). We can sit down and talk about my "lay knowledge" of politics over a beer if you'd like. I'll bet you're less clever than your posing. Also, if you're not "lay" i.e. part of the democratic party machine, then thanks for nothing for the past 7 years. Partisan hackery is more damaging to the democratic process than the electoral process. The democrats can take their primaries, and their superdelegates and shove them where the sun don't shine. I don't have anything to do with superdelegates either way.
Re: #12
The Netherlands. They speak better English than the English.
Dude. I grew up thinking Carl Sagan was the kindest, gentlest human being I'd ever seen. No matter what horrors he saw, he always had hope for humanity. I actually believed that you had to have this totally pure, good heart before they would even think about letting you be a scientist.
And now, man, you're like, scientists are just these angry guys who like, pitch their empty beer bottle against the mirror behind the bar and demand another round or somebody is going to get cut. Scientists are all about a high divorce rate and early liver disease.
I used to believe in you guys. You were my heroes, man.
elenchos--
I went into science because of people like Sagan or Feynman. And I think that most scientists today still share that hope for humanity--or at least a broad sense than human endeavor is the best hope.
I actually disagree with my friend on many of these points and only rarely hit this level of cynicism about the present political reality. Posting his comments, I hoped to show how even the most optimistic and forward-thinking groups are starting to fray a bit after 14 years (since 1994, effectively) of Republican rule.
Alas.
I was just giving you guys a hard time because I figured you were all out getting hammered and ranting tonight. And I was wishing I had had a few more myself. I don't blame anyone who doesn't realize how sarcastic I'm being.
Sagan's book: "The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark" is awesome, and offers, what I believe to be, a lot of insight into both human nature and scientific thought. Not exactly flowery, kind and gentle stuff.
As an aside, Sagan was arrested on several occasions, first for protesting Vietnam, and later for protesting Reagan.
In the words of some douchebag band from my hometown:
"Whatever, I never volunteered to be a role model" (I say this in jest). The vast majority of scientists, as a group, are noble individuals at the root of it. I feel privileged to be spending my life interacting with them. But then, I guess there are also a few assholes like me.
@13 and @14
http://youtube.com/watch?v=wB7PRY1Aqds
or
http://youtube.com/watch?v=QEJ9HrZq7Ro
Am I the only one having flashes of V: The Miniseries, and the Visitors insane, phony conspiracy of scientists?
I'm expecting to see you all using your left hands to sign your full terrahist confessions tomorrow on Faux Nooze.
As a country we need to get start funding science. I think part of this is priming the pump by funding public schools and making it easier to go to college.
After that we need to increase budgets for basic research in all of the sciences and get rid of the barriers the right has put up to prevent scientific investigation. Blocking stem cell research, not launching DSCOVR (wouldn't want evidence of global warming), almost not fixing Hubble (want to place bets on *if* it will get fixed). Physics only survives because the right thinks (correctly) it will get them bigger bombs, they don't get that it provided the nails and hammer to put GOD in a coffin once and for all.
This election is important because it means allowing government funds to go to important research and not blocking those funds based on superstition.
It's not just hard science and it's certainly not just since the repub revolution in 1994.
To give one example: the year Reagan was elected there were 180 Graduate Research Fellowships in Anthropology available from the National Science Foundation. In the 1983 budget there were 17.
Similar, if less draconian, cuts were made across the board. (The anthros were particularly targeted for two reasons: their strange insistence on evolution research and they were regarded as a hotbed of academic marxism.)
Academic Marxism?
You mean what they teach at the Red Bushie Law colleges they staff the Injustice Department from?
Look, anything created by people has flaws. That goes for politics as well. I know it's frustrating to hear and see the way things are run, but isn't that because we as a people have been so short sighted in the past. I know it's a bit cliche, but you don't throw the baby out with the bath water. Take a deep breath and and do that which you see as best for the country and not just yourself. The only power left to the people is our vote. If we could come together long enough to look beyond selfishness and think about the future of our children and world, we can do what's GRADUALLY in the interest of everyone. That means a move beyond our collective short sightedness a little at a time
instead of the selfish right wing politics of the past. Don't be so impatient, and work for positive change.
Moonbat lovefest!
That's what this magically delicious thread is. Three words, people:
GET. A. ROOM.
Hear hear @25!
The scientist is ranting about how misunderstood and underappreciated scientific fields are-ha! Try getting a degree in history! Outside of the academia there's practically nothing! Even a degree in political science is worthless, unless you go straight on into law school. And last time I checked, nearly all my friends who went into scientific fields (chem, biology, computers) gets an RIDICULOUSLY lucrative future. And I graduated this past December. History majors are getting turned away from grad school for a 3.4 GPA, whereas my friend got accepted into chem grad school in Minneapolis with a 2.7! And you're bitching about this country throwing out science?!! How about moving to Japan-where there is virtually NO scientific research funded by the government outside of technology. Wanna do something that doesn't DIRECTLY BENEFIT the Japanese government? Fat chance!
I will never understand people. I'm not saying America is all unicorns and rainbows, but Goddamn, every country has its problems!! EVERY... SINGLE.. FUCKING... ONE!! How about Japan's teenage suicide rate, which is triple the US's? Or that they can detain you for a crime for WEEKS without ever arresting you or even telling you what you're in for? Get a grip and look around! Stop reversing the "us-them" dictomy so you can have a pity party! If things are so goddamn insufferable, TRY AND CHANGE IT!!!!!! Or go on bitching. One path requires conviction and sacrifice. The other one is easy. That might answer why our country has some serious problems-because we always opt for the EASY!
Ha ha, I work in stem cell research. Can't wait till next year!
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