Meet Jeff Flake from Arizona. His number one goal is the destruction of the federal government, one piece at a time. His first target: the National Science Foundation. The NSF funds a big chunk of the country’s basic research to the tune of about $7 billion/year, and Flake proposed cutting it by a billion dollars.
He didn’t get what he wanted, fortunately.
But now he’s fallen back on the tricks of anti-science demagogues everywhere, falling back on using his ignorance to justify gutting programs, one by one. He’s managed to block funding of all political science research through NSF, because, he says, they’re “meritless” and “These studies might satisfy the curiosities of a few academics, but I seriously doubt society will benefit from them”.
What did he single out as worthy of cutting?
A project to “develop a new model for international climate change analysis” — apparently, if you close your eyes to a problem, it goes away.
“Understanding the origins of the gender gap in political ambition,” a project to identify why young people aren’t running for office. Oh, that one we can cut, because the reason is obvious: because the offices are full of assholes like Flake.
Strangely, Flake has an MA in political science. I guess he thinks his degree is worthless, not realizing that it’s not the diploma, it’s the brain behind it.
(Also on Sb)
Creak, creak, creak goes the drawbridge
Slam, slam, slam goes the door…
Don’t ask me what they’ve done to chemistry in the UK. I still flinch when I see the letters EPSRC.
Louis
To continue the onomatopoeia theme:
Zitch, zitch, zitch, zitch…
Funny how the sound of funding cuts to research sounds exactly like the sound of someone in a tree sawing off the branch they’re sitting on.
Sound’s like the sound of my bed resounding in my head is calling me to a sound sleep. Night.
The 20th century was an era of unusual growth for the USA. We went from horses to autos, lifespans increased 30 years, and so on.
It’s calculated that science advances are responsible for half of that economic growth.
This is from a report commissioned and put out by the Republican Bush administration.
For any Tea Baggers and creationists reading this, in simple terms:
science = prosperity
science = national strength and world leadership.
The US largely owes its leading position in the world to its lead in science. The US military knows this and spends roughly 80 billion USD on R&D.
The GOP motto is, We want the worst for you. They really do want the USA to end up as a third world banana republic.
It is because of Islam in its early days that Westerners had access to Ancient philosophy, then the mad men took over and Islam went to shit.
As a European with an immense respect for America’s contribution to the world of science I find this very troubling.
I wish you all very well in the fight against these morons.
First they came for the political scientists…
Then the climatologists…
Then the evolutionary biologists…
During the Bush Catastrophe it was considered a good idea to submit grant proposals without the word evolution in them.
So instead of a study on coat color evolution in mice it was changes in allele frequency over time and space in mice and so on.
It was said that the only war that Bush did well on was the GOP War on Science.
“I guess he thinks his degree is worthless, not realizing that it’s not the diploma, it’s the brain behind it.”
Or, possibly, because political science is best placed to expose his idiocy, and is thus the greatest threat to his professional existence.
Who says there’s nothing in a name?
When I left Arizona years ago it had a decent public education system and only about half the people were half crazy. I’ve now developed a hypothesis that says every time there’s an earthquake, the nuts tend to settle a little further toward the bottom of the country: Texas. Arizona. If the border were only a little more porous, some of them might sift through and give us some relief.
“Mission Accomplished!”
So, considering Bristol Palin’s recent remarks on the sanctity of families that look nothing like the one she’s started, I’m again struck by the consistency of Republican values: “If I’m doing it, it’s a sin for you to do it.”
Are conservatives completely unaware of this hypocrisy in their leaders? Or do they just not care?
We about a trillion dollars on defense, so why isn’t Flake going after that budget? Oh, yeah. Arizona gets a good chunk of that money.
There’s only one kind of Political Science Mr. Flake would be in favor of.
Off topic, but I was hoping I might be able to get some traffic to vote on an online poll about a petition delivered to Winnipeg city hall on Wednesday that calls on councillors to eliminate religious exercises at meetings.
Here are the details (via the Friendly Atheist):
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2012/05/11/winnipeg-secularists-petition-to-remove-city-council-prayers/
And here’s where you can vote:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/story/2012/05/09/mb-winnipeg-council-prayer-petition.html
Cheers.
Well, that’s just silly, stephenwerny. Without prayers to appease the naiads, what’s to stop the Red River from inundating Portage and Main (50 below)?
Typical anti-intellectual garbage. Raven is correct, the GOP seems determined to turn America into a third world shithole. Basic research is the foundation of much of the technological advances in our society. Slashing funding for it is horrendously short sighted and will hurt the US economically. I wonder, do libertarians see basic research as an example of EEEEVVVIL BIG GOVERNMENT? How would basic research be funded in a solely profit motivated libertarian utopia?
what do you want to bet that this has something to do with PoliSci being more “conservative” back then (or him being less so without him noticing, thus remembering it as more conservative than it actually was)?
strictly speaking, it wasn’t Islam but the Arabic world, with Islam simply being in a tame phase (so, basically the reverse of today).
Other than that, I agree with your analogy: even the most scientifically curious and advanced societies can fall pray to the kind of fear and anxiety that produces regressive, oppressive ideological regimes; and the US is on its way there.
Unfortunately, I’m a devout atheist and liberal living in this assholes district. He’s a Mormon idiot who promised to leave congress after two terms, but since this district is very heavily RED, his re-election(s) were rubber stamped time after time. I think last time the Dems didn’t even put up a challenger. Now the dickhead is finally leaving, but only to run for Kyles open senate seat. Joy to everyone!! This clown spent his entire congessional career trying to increase sanctions on Cuba. CUBA!! Like anyone cares………
What a douchnozzle. Doesn’t surprise me one bit that he now sees his destiny as attacking science. He wasted his time in politics to this point, why stop now?
and vaguely on topic…
there’s a rumor on campus that the university will cancel access to EBSCO journals/archives because they “can no longer afford” them; because they’re “saving” for a swimming pool.
*sigh*
I hope it’s not true.
Just add “and its implication for US militry objectives” and Flake would accept the study. Simples really…
oops sorry about 19, fat finger syndrome
@Brownian – “Are conservatives completely unaware of this hypocrisy in their leaders? Or do they just not care?”
To be fair, it isn’t just their leaders that consistently exhibit this hypocrisy, many of the followers have the same issues too.
From my discussions with them, they don’t see it as hypocrisy. They see it that they have a legitimate exception. They just don’t believe that the godless-commie-liberals have legitimate exceptions since they actually talk against the ideal religious solution. This is why no one bats an eye at Santorum’s abortion (there was a legitimate reason), but freaks out when you talk abortion in general (must mean you want everyone to have abortions all the time!!!).
In their simplistic black and white world, if you are one with the faith and talk the talk, whatever happens is deemed as acceptable and can be forgiven. If you are not of the faith and speak truth to the reality of things, whatever happens is deemed as punishment or a sign of being the devil that they already believe you are.
“Apart from the acqueduct, sanitation, roads, medecine, education, wine and baths” what has
the romansscience ever done for us?Arizona: The new Mississippi and Alabama!
@unbound: They simply don’t realise they’re being total hypocrites, because they’re addicted to self-righteous indignation. What matters is not walking the walk, what matters is that they feel superior to the out-group.
The USA with 4.8% of the world’s population, produces about 1/3 of the world’s science papers, a good proxy for science activity.
This is the basis of our modern Hi Tech civilization and explains our leadership position in the world.
This is what the Tea Party and the Arizona Flake is attacking. It’s a good proxy for an attack on…the USA.
People who question the point and merit of scientific discovery are nothing new, and have been answered admirably before. http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/986790?uid=3738032&uid=2129&uid=2&uid=70&uid=4&sid=21100793433561
But to be fair, with specific reference to
“develop a new model for international climate change analysis” If the current models are so good that “the science is settled” why develop a new one?
@ Raven
So, if I understand correctly, it’s time to start learning mandarin or hindi, so as to be able to talk with the world’s new economic and scientific leadership.
Should that say “age gap” instead???
So, Flake is an awful person, doing awful things that will damage the United States and decrease the chance of humanity actually making it through the 21st century.
That said, could we not compare it to the holocaust? I don’t mean to concern troll, but conservatives have been misusing “first they came” for so long that I now get pissed when it’s used to discuss anything short of genocide.
But to be fair, with specific reference to
“develop a new model for international climate change analysis” If the current models are so good that “the science is settled” why develop a new one?pay attention. this is a PoliSci paper, not a climatology paper. the climatology is obviously settled, the politics are obviously not.
Who said the current models are the best? No one but you with your very poorly made strawperson.
The overall trend of the world’s climate change is clear but the details are not. We are on terra incognita here (for you that means “unknown territory”). No one has ever seen what happens when you double CO2 levels in a short time frame and the Greenland and Antarctic ice caps start to melt.
To take just one example, estimates of sea level rise by 2100 range from 2 feet to 6 feet with some outliers. These are big differences and will make a big difference to a lot of people living right at sea level right now.
oops, blockquote fail.
pay attention. this is a PoliSci paper, not a climatology paper. the climatology is obviously settled, the politics are obviously not.
Sure.
A better comparison would be Jefferson Davis, the head of the Confederacy who sought to destroy the USA. I’m sure he is one of Flake’s heroes. Or Osama bin Laden, the terrorist leader who sought the same thing.
Benedict Arnold, the traitor. Or even George Bush, the latest to strike a blow against the USA.
Benco,
Concern trolling or not, I’m right there with you. This shit drives me up the freaking wall. Every bad action is not the Holocaust, every political opponent is not a fascist, and every dictator is not Hitler.
true enough. but in regards to the post title, don’t you think it works on a more literal level, still, since the nibbling away at the edges of science-funding is a way at nibbling away at all of it?
or is the literal parallel too overshadowed by the figurative one to use it like that?
Raven, it would be much more accurate to state that the Confederate leaders thought of themselves as the true Followers of the American Revolution. It is not that they were out to destroy the US, they were out to save their favorite part of the US; being able to own slaves.
Most of the Confederate leaders were very prominent members of the US government.
We could disband the military, close all our worldwide bases, and rely for defense on our insanely great nuclear deterrent and national guard, and there still wouldn’t be a country in the world that’d mess with us. Think how much shutting down the DoD would shrink the government!!
If we had any brains at all, we’d do exactly that, and spend some of the surplus on a manhattan-project-style effort to crack the problem of sustainable fusion. Put the world on notice: “if we can figure this out, we’re gonna just buy y’all.” That’d scare ’em! And it’d be true…
“Who said the current models are the best? No one but you with your very poorly made strawperson” raven
I said no such thing. The point I am trying to make, and which you and Jadehawk have obviously missed is this.
I fully agree that there is great need for improved accurate models. But if you accept this then it is implicit that the existing models are flawed and imperfect, and any conclusions derived from them have to be viewed also as imperfect, and can not be considered definitive and final.
In fact no scientific question, in any area, can ever be considered as finally answered. The phrase “settled science” is an oxymoron.
And a strawman concept has to include a person somewhere. I have only questioned concepts and ideas. I haven’t a spurious link to anything else. I suggest you look up the definition of strawman as you obviously don’t understand what it means.
I didn’t miss your adorable attempt at squeezing some AGW denialism in there; I however pointed out to you that you did so by completely ignoring that this paper had fuck all to do with climate models, and everything to do with politics. or do you think they do climatological research in Political Science?
hahahahahahahaha. way to take the word too literally (not that raven’s use is accurate, but neither is your criticism)
Not just one country. Any conceivable coalition of countries, up to and including a unified alliance of every other nation in the world, would have at best an even chance and no better.
As in single player turn-based strategy games, where you build up a huge tech lead and/or an enormous economic reserve, but have no standing army, and the computer opponents with the enormous army declares war, and the next turn you either build 5 super-units each capable of wiping out its entire army, or instantly buy an army six times its size.
That’s basically what America has to a somewhat lesser degree. Immediately upon being attacked America (even now with the weakened economy) is fully capable of very rapidly flipping over to full war production and recruiting a multi-million strong force, as Japan and Germany discovered to their sorrow in 1941.
*rolleyes*
once upon a time, evolution was contrroversial, now it can be directly observed; once upon a time, plate tectonics were controversial, now they’re directly observable; same with global warming.
which isn’t the same as saying there is no need for further research about details and specifics, or that the current theories about these now-observable phenomena are 100% and thus cannot be improved.
but claiming that anyone says that is, in fact, a strawman.
Pointinline
The fact of climate change is accepted, but we do not have complete knowledge of this highly chaotic and changing science. We always try to refine our models. Evolution is a fact, “settled science”, if you will, but there is an enormous amount of work yet to do, refining our understanding often by modeling.
Science is an iterative process that is best done when it is recognized that we can always improve on our understanding.
Jadehawk,
Here’s my issue: comparisons to WW2/Nazis/the Holocaust are wrongly used to describe a much milder injustice all the freaking time. We’re numbing ourselves to history.
I mean, look, Flake is an asshole with dangerous ideas. I get it. But he is not actively advocating the purging of groups he disagrees with, he’s talking about cutting funding and dismantling goverment agencies. It’s bad yes, but not Nazi bad.
Besides the fact what we’ve got an example of academics speaking out against him right here.
So, to answer your question, yes. This one.
We got your point the first time. You are a global warming denialist trying to discredit science.
Poorly made strawperson again. Just because we don’t know everything, that doesn’t mean we don’t know anything.
The scientific consensus is that we need and could develop better models, not that they are “flawed and imperfect, and any conclusions derived from them have to be viewed also as imperfect, and can not be considered definitive and final.”
You are just making a global warming denialist statement. In a rather oblique and roundabout way. Don’t bother, we are all far too smart for that. It’s dishonest and boring. Dumb is boring.
Just babble on and say it. We’ve only heard it all a million times already.
Jadehawk
“squeezing some AGW denialism” Now that is a strawman as in fact I have not done any such thing. I invite you to quote anything I have said which constitutes any stance at all on climate change. The only point I am trying to make is that all of science is something that should continually be questioned, without any exceptions, and not just the bits that suit you.
Quoth Pointinline; “The only point I am trying to make is that all of science is something that should continually be questioned, without any exceptions, and not just the bits that suit you.”
You have to understand, this is a line we have heard millions of times. From Creationists, AGW deniers, Antivaxxers, Flat Earthers and other idiots. It is, technically true. But it is a meme, a rhetorical device used by anti-science hacks to suggest that there is serious doubt about certain things.
Choose your words better and you won’t be accused of something you aren’t.
Gee, got a model with 98% accuracy, and it is worthless and all conclusions should be thrown out just because you are working on a new model trying for 99% accuracy? I don’t think so Tim. But that sounds like what you said.
No it doesn’t. You have no idea what you are talking about.
So what? This is true but irrelevant. They asymptopically come close to be completely settled. Which is good enough to be highly useful and how we run our modern civilization.
The Germ Theory of Disease might not be “settled science” but no reputable MD denies it and practices on the basis that it might be wrong. After they kill a few patients, they would lose their license.
PS This is thread about Jeff Flake and the GOP War on Science. Why don’t you take your AGW denialism somewhere else rather than hijacking a thread on someone else’s blog. This is trolling. And you are boring.
This is really not relevant.
The relevant question is how imperfect, and at what point are the results “close enough” to warrant action based on them?
NOTHING in life is definitive and final, and NO DECISIONS are ever made on definitive and final knowledge. Nor does any reasonable person EVER wait for definitive and final certitude before deciding to act. You do not wait until it is definite and finally certain that you are starving before going to the supermarket to buy some food.
What.
Predictable. The troll is now lying. Never takes them too long.
1. You are an obvious AGW crackpot.
2. You are an obvious liar.
3. You aren’t questioning science, you are attacking climate change science while pretending to question it.
I’m done here, got things to do and wasting time on a lying troll isn’t one of them.
Reminds me a bit of that one poster on one of Phil Plait’s AGW threads who kept going “six sigmas or it isn’t real. Six sigmas dammit!”
Ah, name calling & abuse. That really strengthens your corner. Lie?, Where? How? AGW denier? substantiate.
Your minds are closed as traps, just like the fundamentalist religious. Screaming abuse and “burn the witch” when someone simply questions, rather than calmly argue your point.
But I will take your advice and leave.
pointinline
If your car has a flat tyre, do you argue about whether it is, in fact flat because it’s still at a pressure of 16 psi, or do you decide that it’s okay to define ‘flat’ as ‘not at the correct pressure’?
Sure, we can argue later about whether ‘flat’ means completely deflated, but for now, let’s just try to pump the thing up to a pressure that’s safe enough to drive with, eh?
Simple, stop sounding like one by not denying or belittling the science. Which is what you are doing.
All deniers and trolls hide behind the “ask questions” bullshit. Further proof you are a denialist. We’ve been exposing them for years. And some of those responding to you are professional scientists. We know how it is done.
Tone troll on top of it all, conclusive evidence it is a denialist. Leaving before my BINGO card is full.
I’ll have to disown Az – it’s hard to imagine that in my time there we’d happily poke fun at those crazies to the north and now the roles seem to be reversed. Compared to (most of) the current lot of politicians and high profile public servants (like sheriff of Maricopa county), the days of lame-duck democrat governors and Barry Goldwater in the federal senate seem like the Halcyon days.
The Flake has two degrees from BYU in political science– worthless unless you live where a bunch of Mormons will vote for you. He knows zero, zilch about real science and so doesn’t wish to buy any. Arizona is beginning to make Mississippi look better all the time.
not at all.
In fact, he learned much from his graduate studies.
which is exactly WHY he doesn’t want others to compete with him for his place in government, and is actively trying to eliminate anything that even might contribute to people wanting to run for office.
makes perfect sense, if the idea is to be a fucking selfish bastard that doesn’t give a flying fuck about the country he’s supposed to be working for, and really only wants his position so he can sit on his thumbs indefinitely to a comfortable retirement.
… I mean, seriously, the 80s was basically the time where the fulfillment of the American dream became reality:
“I’ve got mine, fuck the rest of you!”
…and it’s just become more rationalized and common from there. Entire generations of Americans now think this REALLY IS the American Dream.
Your minds are closed as traps
YOU really need to watch this
you don’t understand what you are saying.
I’m not kidding.
Sorry for continuing the derail but a little Asimov seems appropriate here: The Relativity of Wrong
Paraphrasing the first 30 seconds:
“People who believe in non-scientific concepts often tell others who do not to be “more open minded”. This advice is typically based on highly flawed thinking, including an inaccurate understanding of what “open mindedness” even is.”
see it all the fucking time with people pretending to be against AGW for “scientific” reasons.
see it all the time with creationists too.
…and just about any other case of erroneous denial behavior one can think of.
For those of you who consider using the phrase “you need to be more open minded” or “you are close minded”
WATCH THE FUCKING VIDEO. See how wrong you are to even approach it from this direction.
Stop being fapwits, m’kay?
Thanks for the video Ichthyic, I saved it with my stash of handy links.
which addresses nothing anyone said, which means you either have a really fucking stupid habit of fighting strawmen of discussions no one is even having at that given time, or you were trying to squeeze in a attack on those who accept AGW as the reality it is, by accusing them of being dogmatists.
I certainly hope he isn’t cutting foreign language programs, as at this rate you will all need to be able to speak Mandarin and Hindi if you want to keep abreast of any new technology.
Also you will need these languages so you can all get employed in call centres of Chinese and Indian companies.
If you abandon AZ, could someone come save me?
I honestly have nothing to say on the bullshit that happens here. My vote means nothing. I’m going down with the ship =(
Bah. I fucking hate this state.
I fucking hate this state.
but Arizona has wild mustangs, and the grand canyon, and several other things worth keeping.
can’t we just export the problems, and leave the rest?
In the introductory political science course I took, pretty much everything was neoliberal by virtue of being predicated on neoliberal assumptions. In the first week — hell, the first day — it was already shitloads about how our generation isn’t going to be better off, “where are we going to get the money” for programs like Old Age Security, etc.
Since then I have continued to wonder what use political “scientists” are, considering that the field is — if anything — a jack-of-all-trades amalgamation of economics, sociology, psychology, ethics, history, and a host of other things, dressed up with the procedural specifics of government itself.
I used to make fun of the softer sciences. Then I realized that the reason they look so silly to me is because they have to deal with systems that are ridiculously more complex than say, atomic nuclei. They can’t control variables to the same degree as the hard sciences, they can’t get statistics as robust as the hard sciences, they have a hard job to do.
Now, the difficulties the softer sciences have to deal with make them much more susceptible to things like confirmation bias, and it’s easier for a bullshitter to get away with shit longer, because reproducibility is so much more difficult.
That said, I still think that fields like political science are important, and cutting funding from them is a scary step down the path of anti-intellectualism.
ROTFLMAO!!!
Day saved.
(1) Yes. (2) By corporations. Already happens in those rare cases that corporations believe that research can lead to something profitable.
Isn’t that just the rise of China that’s being documented here? China is finally getting a share of the world’s scientists that is comparable to its share of the world’s total population.
@raven
Weren’t most of those yank rebels traitors to the Crown? However, Arnold saw the error of his ways. Perhaps you meant to say “George Washington, traitor.”
@benco
Of the two meanings of this, I think that I read it the wrong way the first time. You did mean “do not compare it” and not “do you think it is comparable”, correct?
As a foreigner here, I’m surprised that your National Science Foundation funds what I would consider to be humanities. It is good that they do, just surprising.
the social sciences are not humanities; it’s unfortunate that back home, they are still split that way
@Jadehawk
Ah! I can never figure the dividing line. Thanks for the clarification.
Apparently, you are unfamiliar with Stephen Jay Gould’s “Evolution as Fact and Theory”, on line at http://www.stephenjaygould.org/library/gould_fact-and-theory.html which I suggest you would benefit from reading.
Just one quote from it: