Posted by Andrea Gawrylewski

[Entry posted at 28th August 2008 07:21 PM GMT]

Restore NIH extramural research!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I doubt the situation of scientific funding will improve in the next few years, no matter who gets selected as president. What we will need (speaking of biomedical research here) is the tripleing of the NIH payline from a de facto 8% or so to 25%.

"Does McCain believe in evolution or is he trying to get intelligent design into the science curriculum?"

Like many other politicians, and politically elected and appointed education officials, McCain is more than willing to sacrifice good science education on the altar of expediency. McCain, and more politicians and education officials than most scientists realize, supports "teach the controversy", which is actually just the old "equal time for creationism" strategy from the 80's that was shot down by the Supreme Court. A great deal of effort has gone into packaging the teaching of "scientific evidence against evolution" as an acceptable political compromise as politicians and education officials are faced with the backlash to the notion that evolution is a danger to children's religious belief. It doesn't help, of course, when many atheist scientist, who are either ignorant of theology, or prostelyticizing atheism, are loudly agreeing with the evangelical fundamentalists.
The reason its not an acceptable compromise, of course, is that its a lie. There is no controversy (of the type propagandized by religious groups at any rate) to teach in a science class. This kind of lesson plan teaches that objective experimentation, observation, and hypothesizing are meaningless, that peer review is simply the exercize of political power and bias, and that the scientific community can not be trusted - at all. It also introduces into the classroom fabricated pseudoscience presented as acceptable scientific fact. Getting the public to understand that science is a human creative process is impossible when what's being taught is that science is merely a bucket of biased opinions. There are, in fact, other ways of dealing with legitimate social concerns about teaching evolution that don't involve being dishonest, and dishonorable.
The reason McCain, and many others, can get away with it is the wide spread and cynical belief that it doesn't really matter if we have an electorate educated in biology. That is just dangerously stupid.

The earth is only 6,000 years old, CO2 emmisions have no effect on our climate, embryonic stem cell research is murder, they want to teach creationism in our schools under the guise of intelligent design, and believe that abstinence only sex-ed classes are the most effective way to prevent unwanted pregnancies and the spread of STD's.

They are a party at war with science.

We all know the history of the GOP on science in the last few decades. First of all, just because McCain says he will help some parts of science does not necessarily mean he is telling the truth. Second, even if he is truthful on these things, based on what we have heard from Obama on these issues and on the Democrats history with science, I still think Obama would be the best choice.

This announcement his also pretty close to the situation of Hillary supporters defecting to McCain. Could this be an attempt to lure more of them over?

As a scientist I am O.K. with some things on the platform and concerned with others. Funding for research is a big factor. I don't think the embryonic stem cell thing is that big of a deal.
How about a new candidate such as Craig Ventor or Tom Cech? It would be really interesting.

Does McCain believe in evolution or is he trying to get intelligent design into the science curriculum?

Science and science education has significantly taken a turn for the worse over the last 8 years in America, and John McCain has towed the party line since he started campaigning to be the Republican candidate. Anyone who watched his interview with the evangelical preacher, Rick Warren, would have little doubt that science would continue to suffer, and scientific reports would continue to get edited by the White House should the current administration get another four years to ensure America's fall from grace.