quote: WASHINGTON — The Environmental Protection Agency ignored scientific evidence and agency protocols to set limits on mercury pollution that would line up with the Bush administration's free-market approaches to power-plant pollution, according to a report released yesterday by the agency's inspector general.
EPA staff were instructed to set modest limits on mercury pollution, and then had to work backward from the predetermined goal to justify the proposal, according to a report by Inspector General Nikki Tinsley.
posted
I hear that fairly often, Jose, but I'm a bit skeptical it's as prevalent among the Democrats -- scumbags though I'm sure many are -- as it is with the GOP. Can you name some examples of Democratic bad science? I guess you could hop on the greenhouse effect, if you think they're over-or-understating it, but I'm at a bit of a loss for other examples.
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Yes, we hate fuel cells, the internet, lasers, nuclear power, and Mars rovers. Those dang things…. Working for over a year when they were only supposed to work for a few months.
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posted
Lalo, I think a lot of people question some of the sociological studies that Democrats use to back up their policies. No specific examples here, but I remember many times having heard about some amazing statistic that supported a Democratic position, only later to learn that the statistic was bunk.
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I agree that politics is the new Church when it comes to suppressing inconvenient science. I just don't understand why it's an issue so disregarded by people in general. We look back at the treatment of Galileo and berate the blind dogma that shunned the truth, but when it happens in our own back door we just say "politics as usual" and let it go.
I guess that's how we get the government we deserve.
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"Lalo, I think a lot of people question some of the sociological studies that Democrats use to back up their policies."
I would argue that there's an enormous difference between mistakenly calling sociology a science and asking chemists to lie.
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posted
Some of the flippant attitude in the responses are pretty sickening. From "Well the Dems do it to. Can't say exactly how just now, but . . .yeah" to Jay's somewhat inane "rebuttal" (??).
I'm not saying there isn't blinding dogma on both sides, but it's revealing that no one has really addressed this particular instance except to make "politics as usual" excuses.
As for Democratic examples, I'd like to hear a few specifics. And don't confuse "Liberal" examples with Democratic ones. Greenpeace screaming that the sky is falling doesn't equate to Democrats actively suppressing science in the name of corporate back scratching. This is a pretty clear instance of governmental scientific suppression in order to bolster a questionable policy.
Am I surprised? Not really. Am I disgusted? Yeah. Would I be if it were a Democrat doing it. Yeah.
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OK - I'll say it. I don't like it. I think the Bush administration should acknowledge that scientists only provide part of the input necessary to set anti-pollution regulations, and should be up front about the scientific portions of the findings underlying the policy.
posted
Nothing like calling evolution fact and forcing it to be taught that way instead of a theory. Or making environmental problems national disasters. Or PETA’s way of making everything to be cruel. Or the life of a baby into something minuscule like a fetus that isn’t alive until it is separated completely. Nope, nothing like that is done, ever.
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I could make a fairly big list of Clinton distortions and political manipulation of science if I wanted to. But Karl's right - it's not relevant here.
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This goes beyond the pale of what anyone else has done before.
It's one thing to use a study that backs your position as proof. It's quite another to tell a government agency to create the proof that you want.
This subverts the very authority of science. But I suppose that is one of the things Bush and Co. would like, too. It makes it easier to ignore findings that disagree with your political agenda.
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"This goes beyond the pale of what anyone else has done before."
Well, no. There IS precedent. The benefits of fluoridated water, for example, are known primarily because researchers were ordered to come up with some.
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You’re right. I don’t have a complaint with science since I don’t think evolution is a factual science or environmental disasterism or when life begins.
I don’t have a problem with backwards engineering. It’s just a different way of looking at things. Almost the whole glass half full and half empty thing. The thing is you had to do it this way in order to get some sort of reasonable response since the faulty environmental studies aren’t very dependable. Sort of like the whole story behind State Of Fear by Michael Crichton. They have their own agenda.
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"I don’t have a problem with backwards engineering. It’s just a different way of looking at things."
Jay, I would argue that this statement betrays your lack of understanding on this issue. Your confusion of science with politics is exactly why I complained about the promotion of State of Fear; the wrong people are learning the wrong lessons from the popularity of that book among certain pundits.
The problem here is that the government has demanded that scientists lie on its behalf. Tell me again why you have no problem with that.
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quote:The benefits of fluoridated water, for example, are known primarily because researchers were ordered to come up with some.
Were they "ordered" to come up with some, or were they requested to find some? There is a subtle difference there.
If they were "ordered to come up with," then they might have to change the standards to justify the conclusion--just like many creationists require science to change its standards to justify their conclusions.
But if they were requested to find some, and the results were still within the protocols and standards of the science, then there is no problem. It was just some information that had yet to be discovered.
In this case, it sounds like Bush and Co. have ordered that the standards and protocols be changed to suit their conclusions. After all, there is no new information that is being generated, is there?
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posted
Well, I guess the premise that the government demanded the lie would be one I’d disagree with. They simply asked them to work the other way to search for a certain belief. Sort of like when I look at creation I look for things that support and back up the biblical record. I take that as my foundation and build up from there. Since I don’t believe that the Earth has been around for millions of years I don’t believe that these huge environmental problems exist. I would have done the same thing and asked for data supporting my premise on the basis on the Earth only being around for around 6,000 years. Sort of like what the fossil record shows: Billions of dead things, buried in rock layers, laid down by water, all over the earth. Looks like a flood happened. Might explain the quick laying down of plants and other things to form oil. So yes. There is bias on both sides. It just depends on what your bias is and how you want to interpret facts or in some cases theories.
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What environmental problems to you believe don't exist, Jay? I'm just not following you there - you're being too vague, so I'm not understanding. Can you clarify for me?
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Happens all the time in (anti-)drug research, although there the general procedure is to state what new harmful effect the experiment hopes to discover or support, then apply for permission and NIDA grant money. Some of the MDMA "research" comes pretty close to the practices in the article. And this is a much more bipartisan effort. The environment has more public support but probably more corporate supporters to keep happy. I suppose I would be more outraged if I had not been aware of similar efforts.
posted
I wasn't being flippant, and I certainly wasn't excusing the administration's actions. That's a pretty severe misreading of my post. Did you start this thread to have a conversation, or to pick a fight? 'cause I'm not especially interested in playing whatever little game you want to play here. It's funny how you choose to view me as a Bush apologist when I don't respond with the proper amount of outrage for you. I voted against the man both times, and I am not a republican. Next time, tell me what kind of responses you want, and which kind you will call "sickening," and I can then decide if you are worth having a conversation with.
Almost every scientist, science teacher, and science professor I have ever known, across five universities (seven campuses), one national laboratory, and three high schools, has been republican--prior to the 2000 elections. Almost to a person, they asserted to me that our knowledge about climate change caused by humanity was presented with more certainty than the evidence merited. They made similar statements about democrat/liberal fears about nuclear power (democrats != liberals? So what. Splitting these hairs is just your way of throwing out evidence you don't care to accept. For the purposes of this level of conversation, they are interchangeable.) and about democrat-enacted legislation based on research about second-hand smoke.
And yeah, selectively choosing which science you listen to is not the same as directing an agency to make their numbers justify a policy. If you had brought that up within the parameters of normal discussion, I would have reconsidered the point and considered it. It's much harder to do when you're being an ass, though.
(This is why a lot of people don't like the political threads, by the way. It's not a discussion; in a discussion you listen politely and ask for clarification or bring up counterpoints.)
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quote: Almost every scientist, science teacher, and science professor I have ever known, across five universities (seven campuses), one national laboratory, and three high schools, has been republican--prior to the 2000 elections.
To follow up on this thought, which I forgot to amplify. Since Bush's election, most of these people have been pretty sickened by the way Bush and other prominent republicans have turned away from science in order to court the fundamentalist right. (And, in this case, to promote their other agendas.)
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quote: The problem here is that the government has demanded that scientists lie on its behalf
of course i know diddly-squat about this subject, but weren't they asked to find reasons, not creat them?
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posted
"weren't they asked to find reasons, not creat them?"
It is good to set fire to your hands, because then they will be toasty warm.
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"Sort of like when I look at creation I look for things that support and back up the biblical record. I take that as my foundation and build up from there."
Yes, but, see, that's not actually the scientific method. It's fine if you use that principle in your personal life, but you would be wrong to call it science.
posted
What environmental problems don’t exist? I think all are greatly exaggerated. Like oil running out. Since it doesn’t take millions of years to make it’s not that big of a deal. Besides, we’ll have fuel cells long before oil runs out. The o-zone hole is another questionable one.
About the scientific theory idea: How is that any different then assuming that God doesn’t exist and everything happened by chance? Different starting point is all. Different foundational facts. For some evolution is a fact. For others creation is a fact. Creation Science has plenty of facts and figures and evidence to support its claim but is downplayed by the incorrect notion of separation of church and state. How lack of a God isn’t as much of a belief as having faith in a God is a mystery to me.
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Will you at least accept that the extinction of species is a real issue? And the destruction of ecosystems? Or are those "greatly exaggerated" too?
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posted
"How is that any different then assuming that God doesn’t exist and everything happened by chance? Different starting point is all."
Except that you've misidentified the starting point. The starting point to evolutionary science is, when all's said and done, "that which exists can under the proper conditions be observed." (Now, really, the philosophical postulates in question are even simpler, but they lead directly to this claim -- so I'll start here.)
Your starting point -- "The Bible is true." -- is several orders of magnitude less "simple" than the above postulate.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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posted
Icarus, I apologize to you. I was very surprised by the anger in your last post. [edit: not "last" at this point, but you know which one I mean] It made me re-read what I had written and I can see now why you took it the way you did. I did not mean it to be as confrontational as it came across and it certainly wasn't directed at you personally. It was actually the posts from Jay and Adam that prompted my reply. Far from starting this to pick a fight, I wanted the discussion and all I seemed to be getting was "yeah? well the other side does it to!"
Your reply hurt. Not that it was completely unwarranted, I guess, but mainly because you are someone who's opinions I respect and often agree with. I would like to have thought that you might have given me the benefit of the doubt before taking my comment personally. Was it just this one post? or do I make a habit of being an ass and someone not worth having a conversation with? I'm not being facetious here. Your opinions are usually considered and therefore have some weight with me.
I'm sorry to have offended you and regret not having considered fully how my post might be perceived.
quote: What environmental problems don’t exist? I think all are greatly exaggerated. Like oil running out. Since it doesn’t take millions of years to make it’s not that big of a deal. Besides, we’ll have fuel cells long before oil runs out. The o-zone hole is another questionable one.
It doesn't take millions of years to make oil? And perhaps oil in the world isn't running out, I acutally think we have quite a bit left between Alaska, Russia, and the Middle East, but AMERICAN oil is either gone or a long way off. And the O-Zone is proven to exist, and we know the ice caps are melting, and we know that the ultraviolet radiation the hole lets in causes skin cancer, what's to dispute there?
quote: About the scientific theory idea: How is that any different then assuming that God doesn’t exist and everything happened by chance? Different starting point is all. Different foundational facts. For some evolution is a fact. For others creation is a fact. Creation Science has plenty of facts and figures and evidence to support its claim but is downplayed by the incorrect notion of separation of church and state. How lack of a God isn’t as much of a belief as having faith in a God is a mystery to me.
I believe in Evolution but I don't think it is a fact, it's a theory, just like gravity is only a theory, and tons of other scientific theories that most people DO accept as fact. You're trying to parse words. And I don't think I've ever heard any scientific proof of the existance of God.
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See, the way I thought it was supposed to work was that people studied observable evidence. They noted it, charted it, and began to come up with explanations -- hypotheses - for what they saw. Various explanations would drop away as new evidence came to light which disproved them, and finally only a few explanations would cover all of the observed evidence without contradiction. These explanations, called theories, would remain in place but would be constantly tested whenever new evidence came around. There would also be the possibility that new, previously unconsidered hypotheses would be suggested, which would then go through the same testing process.
No theory is sacred. No theory should be assumed a "fact." Some theories, such as gravity, are dependable enough that other theories can be based on them. But they still remain open to change as we learn more.
Nowhere in that process should there be someone with a preconceived notion of what the end result should be. Obviously, human nature being what it is, assumptions and preconceptions and pet theories will get in, and peer review probably can't account for all of it. But tweaking the data to produce desired results is against everything the scientific method strives towards. It's no longer science. It's PR with pretty graphs.
[ February 09, 2005, 03:02 PM: Message edited by: Chris Bridges ]
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posted
Jay, I think you are only half right (or half correct and all Right! ). Scientists make a prediction. A hypothesis if you will. Evolution started out as a hypothesis. The thought is that over time, species evolve and change to adapt to new environments or new challenges. Take that hypothesis and attack it with experiments and if those experiments come back and support that hypothesis enough that hypothesis becomes theory . I am probably oversimplifying the scientific method of studying the world but there it is. A theory in science is something that when scrutinized with data that comes from a variety of experimentation, it still stands up at the end of the day. You can build a house on it, it is that sound. And it is still called a theory.
I guess if one doesn't understand the scientific method, even in my oversimplified way, they really needed to pay attention to this in school. My concern with the Right's desire to get Intelligent Design taught in school rests not on the fact that ID has no way to be supported scientifically but also that it doesn't in fact teach the basics of scientific inquiry. It in effect shuts the very basis of it out. And not to make an example of Jay, but he seems to represent the lack of quality science education in this country where people still think about "theory" as meaning "a hunch without any evidence." Or worse, "faith."
I think if you want to believe that the world is only 6000 years old or flat or that god blew us out of his nose it doesn't matter as long as you can at least understand the basics of science and inquiry. Study it, learn it and, like much of what we learn in school, forget the details later. But to actually try to change what scientific inquiry is to better support a particular religious agenda is scary. Jay, no offense, but your misunderstanding...so similar to the most powerful man in the country's understanding...is quite haunting.
The Bush plan has put all scientific inquiry into turmoil. With the EPA snafu mentioned at the top of this thread we also have the stem-cell debacle and cut funding in most science programs (my pal at NASA confirms this as his and many other programs go bye bye) that don't have some degree of military application.
posted
BTW, Jay, where is the new oil coming from? Even if we accept your premise that it does not take millions of years to make oil from organic matter (a highly questionable proposition, as any good geologist can tell you, especially those who search for oil), there is still the quesiton of the necessary conditions.
Didn't those vast layers of plants come from the Flood by your theory? If so, won't it take another Flood, and a few years, to produce new oil?
Also remember that the Bible says that Man was supposed to tend and keep the Garden, and by extension the rest of the Earth. Therefore, we do have the power to wreak the Earth if we do desire. And wouldn't that be a sin?
quote:Was it just this one post? or do I make a habit of being an ass and someone not worth having a conversation with?
No. I have never considered you to be an ass. I always find your posts thoughtful and your contributions valuable. In fact, I think my reaction was strong in part for this reason. I value your input, but I felt like mine was dismissed, and it hurt more coming from someone I respect than it would from somebody else.
That being said, my reaction was way too intense, and I apologize for that. Not that it should excuse it, but I will fall back on saying that I'm not getting enough sleep, between Harvey rehearsals at night and trying to keep up with my work while I'm at it, and I guess I was cranky.
I'm sorry for overreacting, and I really appreciate your clarifying that it was not your intention to dismiss what I had to say.
posted
Jay, quite apart from your total misunderstanding of the scientific method, your ability to ignore evidence astounds me. What is your explanation of radioactive dating, a Universe where we can see objects more than 10000 light-years distant, and the fact that fossils are layered, just to name three?
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posted
If you're willing to forgive my thoughtlessness, I'll forgive the overreaction. Glad to know I don't always come off as a jerk.
Get some sleep. I know how exhausting rehearsals can be. My ex and I did a lot of theater. I don't think most people realize how much WORK goes into putting together a performance long before opening night.
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posted
Jay, I'd like to recommend this book to you. Mind you, I read this for a biology class at a religious school.
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Hope I don't miss my cue because I'm hatracking. And then I have to go to Wal-Mart or something. Though for the life of me I can't remember why--just that we needed something. And I've been trying to quit caffeine because I have a singing audition coming up in a little over a week, and tonight I'm getting the first of the caffeine-withdrawal headaches. >_<
And I have a ton of school work I want to get done tonight, but I probably won't.
And so I am working to singlehandedly derail your thread. Sorry. Posts: 13680 | Registered: Mar 2002
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posted
Hey Karl, in case I sickened you too, just know that I was only picking this up because Lalo issued a challenge and I wanted to think up an answer I wasn't trying to be flippant. I actually get really pissed off when anyone does this, regardless of party. And it surprises me that anyone can actually order this kind of thing without getting laughed at ... I mean, we ARE indoctrinated about Galileo at a very young age ...
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posted
Off the subject--Scientists aren't the devil. They are not Satan. They don't sit around in their little scientist meetings along with other non-believers and make secret devilish plans on how to bring down Christianity.
No scientist starts with the premise--"Since God doesn't exist..." I know it would be easier for you to think so, that way you are defending your religion from this other "religion" called science.
But it doesn't work that way. Scientists look at the world, and at the research others have done, and use their God given logic and rational to try and decipher it.
If you want to see science as the enemy of Religion, or the enemy of God, then I pity you. Your view of God and of the Universe God created is very small and self-centered.
I view science as trying to understand the wisdom of God, and an attempt to understand how best to protect and enrich the parts of that universe God put under our control.
On subject--there is a lot of difference between telling someone--"Find Me Science that Supports My Politics", and "Make the facts fit my politics, or else." If you can't see the difference, I am worried that you can't see the danger.
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posted
I have no doubt that Christians spend far more time trying to prove Scientists wrong than the other way around.
Sad thing is it's a one sided battle, as I don't think most scientists are interested in disproving God, and most Christians are soley interested in disproving scientists.
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posted
I disagree that it is only one-sided. The fight for getting science removed from the classroom has been a huge one dating back to the Scopes trial. I had hoped that when I saw the play "Inherit the Wind" I was watching something out of history but apparently we are still living that chapter in our lives. I do agree that scientists are not out there trying to prove the non-existence of God but they are working hard to keep science and the method and inquiry in the classrooms. It is just in this oddly politcally correct religious environment people are now afraid of offending christians and school boards are giving too much lattitude with inclusion of things like Intelligent Design. At least Georgia text books don't have to include the sticker that says "Evolution: It's Just a Theory!" any more.
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quote:most Christians are soley interested in disproving scientists.
That's a load of crap.
A few very vocal Christians are interested in disproving certain aspects of science. Most Christians either consider science and religion completely seperate relams of knowledge or look at science as a way of observing and describing God's creation complementary to religious knowledge.
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posted
I was gonna jump on that too, but you got to it first, Dana. I think it could appear that way if you don't belong to a Christian church, or if your only experience of Christians is the rabidly anti-science kind. But it certainly is not my experience. Growing up, I didn't feel that there was any opposition between science and Christianity at all. And in my Christian high school, we certainly covered real science, in science class, along with theology, in theology class.
But maybe some would say we weren't really Christians. Maybe the same would go for you, Dana.
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posted
What I meant was, I'm surprised anyone could propose this sort of strategy ANYWHERE and have it sound like anything but a public-relations disaster.
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). Scientists make a prediction. A hypothesis if you will. Evolution started out as a hypothesis. The thought is that over time, species evolve and change to adapt to new environments or new challenges. Take that hypothesis and attack it with experiments and if those experiments come back and support that hypothesis enough that hypothesis becomes theory . I am probably oversimplifying the scientific method of studying the world but there it is. A theory in science is something that when scrutinized with data that comes from a variety of experimentation, it still stands up at the end of the day. You can build a house on it, it is that sound. And it is still called a theory.![[Sleep]](graemlins/sleep.gif)
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