America's Science Problem

There is a good article in the November 2012 Scientific American (pp 62-71) about the rise of anti-science in the U.S. and especially in our politics. It includes answers to 14 questions about science from ScienceDebate.org by Obama and Romney.On line version. You can register or log in. The article is scary and sad. When I was young I never would have predicted that America would be like this.Edited by Tanypteryx, : added link

When you were young America was like this.

No it wasn't.We were excited about science and technology. We did not have members of congress who were proud to be anti-science. As a nation we were not rushing away from scientific enlightenment and embracing ignorance.I believed there was no higher calling than becoming a scientist.

I think not. Back in the 50's and 60's, as I remember them, the anti-science crowd certainly existed, but they were mostly made fun of instead of having those views praised. Yeah, some were elected to high office, but even the Faubuses and such at least gave lip service to Progress, the space program, immunizations, and spending some government money on science.Now the science-deniers are applauded by about half the voting population.

Scopes monkey trial? Tennessee wasn't the only state with laws like that.

I'd argue that anti-evolution is different from the more general anti-science we see today. Instead of having local governments push a religious agenda, we are seeing politicians push anti-science as a pure political/economic agenda. Things like cutting funding for NOAA and the EPA might be something that politicians debate about for political/economic reasons, but now we add anti-science about climate change, water toxicity to the mix.In short, the polarization of science vs. anti-science in America seems to exactly match polarization on every other issue here. I'm not sure that the per centage of anti-science folks is any higher than the old anti-evolution folks back at the time of the Scopes Monkey Trial, but I see a couple of reasons why anti-science now is a more difficult problem.Anti-science eduation is not a first amendment issue when it touches on things other than evolution and the big bang. Expect no help from the constitution.Modern anti-science pervades through everything, and is going to impact important decisions beyond the question what do we teach our children about science.

Good grief! I'm older than you, but not that old. I was 12 when Sputnik was launched. I'm a boomer.It's too bad the muslim terrorists don't scare the crap out of the right-wing anti-science crowd like the Russians did.A bunch of them think terror attacks on the U.S. are god's punishment and warning for allowing all the things they disapprove of. Evolution and science education are high on their list.When I look at the wing-nuts that were trying to be the republican nominee this time, I think their motivation, apart from personal greed, is jealousy. Bachmann, Perry, Santorum, Romney and the rest are too stupid to ever understand science. They are not just ignorant, which can be fixed with education, they don't have capacity to learn science, especially when scientific discoveries whittle away at their sacred text. They are jealous of anyone who understands science, because they cannot.

I think that what we are currently seeing with the inefficiency of our government is summed up well with the quote in the article, "When facts become opinions, the collective policymaking process of democracy begins to break down." I am also quite upset that the country is following suit with these politicians and our country is almost 50% science denying now. While I have an issue with what the Dems are saying as far as the need for more research into vaccines, I am slightly appeased (very slightly, in fact) by the fact that they are simply calling for more research. However, they have set off a vocal movement that is based on people who are unwilling to actually research the facts themselves. I do not think that I can cut the GOP any slack whatsoever. The viewpoint that they are pushing is one that attempts to undermine every scientific principle without a single shred of evidence for why we should do so. Choosing to deny evidenced theory in your own life is one thing, but these individuals then take the ideas they spout and use them to attempt to enact public policy. It is like Paul Broun's comments about utilizing the Bible to make his decisions about voting on laws. Well, sir, take your bible out of my laws as it has no place there. And if the decision were based on religious aspects, you are simply asking for someone to use a religious defense against the law in court at some point.I continue to hold out hope that with the ease of access to knowledge our country will slowly wake up out of this fog that we are allowing ourselves to slip back into.BTW, I have been a lurker here for the past year and a half-ish and I am quite glad to finally be a member at a site that I have found great information at, found links to more complete information, and fair moderation for all participants. I hope to stick around for a while.

Tempe 12ft Chicken welcome to EvC! I have never seen a 12ft chicken, but I have seen the world's largest lave lamp. Do they want more vaccines or are you talking about the stupid vaccine safety, autism issue? There are a lot of stupid politicians out there, Democrats and Republicans. What is it about politics that attracts stupid people? They can't get a real job or they just love to sit in meetings all day?

Welcome aboard.

Thanks for joining up. What took you so long?

Hi, Tanypteryx. I'm no psychologist, but, to me, there seem to be certain "personality types" that tend to thrive in certain fields. Here's one way to look at it for politicians:Politics is a field that emphasizes presentation over substance at every turn. Because our government uses a representative system, the entire focus on government for us lay people is on whom we should elect, and not on what policies we should adopt.So, the election process is highly influenced by self-promotion ability. A large percentage of people who are good at self-promotion are good at it because of a diminished capacity to recognize their own flaws.And, people who don't recognize their own flaws also don't recognize when they need to be educated, and thus, fail to be educated.Of course, that's not the whole answer, but I tend to think it's at least part of it. Maybe Larni would know better.

Hey Blue Jay. Great answer!

I think they are concerned about the safety issue, and the area where I have an issue with this mindset is when without the required evidence they lessened the amount of an active ingredient that was shown not to cause autism. However, what I intended with my comment of: was only in response to them wanting to test for this connection to autism. This has been tested for and disproven, we should begin research on newer vaccines and testing ones that have not been quite as throughly tested yet. Well, there were two main reasons I took a little while. A. I felt slightly out of my element as I read many of the messages here. In order to educate myself, I have spent time reading papers, books and anything else that I can get my grubby little hands on in order to expand my knowledge so that I do not make a fool of myself. Lol. B. I had recently been going through what others might describe as a crisis of faith (I would call it finding reasoning and logic again) and have been slowly moving from Catholicism to Atheism. I did not want to begin to post until I was sure of where my thoughts would end up. Also, a fun C. I wanted to think of a good name, preferably that had to do with the debate (which obviously did not happen). Instead, I went with this name (which I use on another forum as well) which is based on a cryptozoological creature I jokingly found on Google one day, although the mention of it seems to have disappeared. Thought the idea of a 12 foot chicken was hilarious.

Right on, Matt. Thanks for sharing, see you around.