Part II --
(This review will appear in theSan Diego Union Book Review. It is posted here entirely for comment as a working draft, for commentary by members of this community. Please do not copy elsewhere. A final version will be posted in September 2005 at http://www.davidbrin.com/gopwaronscience.html)
First a reprise from Part I...
Stepping back, we see a common theme. "My side favors truth while your side is warped by dogma." If I must choose sides, I’ll pick Mooney, because the perfidies that he describes are accelerating. For example, it is unambiguous that the GOP Congress cuts funding for the National Science Foundation and NOAA even while calling for "more research" on global climate change. Nothing could be more bald-faced. In any event, rightwing abuses are inherently more dangerous, because that side currently holds sway in countless boardrooms and every branch of government.
Yet, the very title of this book - The Republican War on Science - ensures that it won’t be helpful. Providing ammo for one side, it will be contemptuously ignored by the other, while just a few -- those still with open minds -- may crack the covers with sincere interest in learning something new. This is ironic, in light of some wise words about the scientific process that Mooney quotes from cognitive psychologist Steven Pinker:
"The success of science depends on an apparatus of democratic adjudication --anonymous peer review, open debate, the fact that a graduate student can criticize a tenured professor. These mechanisms are more or less explicitly designed to counter human self-deception. People always think they're right, and powerful people will tend to use their authority to bolster their prestige and suppress inconvenient opposition. You try to set up the game of science so that the truth will out despite this ugly side of human nature."
==Now on to Part II==
In The Republican War on Science, Mooney claims a desire to be fair, so there are a few pages describing left-wing anti-scientific duplicities. He mentions the blanket and quasi-hysterical opposition by Greenpeace and other groups toward all genetic engineering of food plants, a sweeping paranoia that ignores every subtlety. (Some kinds of genetic engineering are intrinsically no more threatening than old-fashioned agricultural selection.) Going back much farther, he tells how the left was once a chief locus of anti-science political extremism, during the monstrous, Stalin era phenomenon called Lysenkoism.
Alas, as you might expect from Mooney’s chosen title, this page or two of "balance" quickly gives way to the tedious habit of all sides in the Culture War -- squeezing complex issues along a cramped left-right political axis, inherited from the French Revolution -- a dismal and demeaning metaphor that nobody can define. Especially absurd is Mooney’s oversimplification that "big business" has lined up against science. Not all capitalists or conservatives resist the notion of fine-tuning market forces to match our evolving understanding of the world. Moreover, it was Republican President George Herbert Walker Bush who said in 1990: "Science relies on freedom of inquiry, and government relies on the impartial perspective of science for guidance."
The "war on science" is better defined along a completely different axis. Future vs. past. On one side are traits that dominated nearly all other cultures and eras: nostalgia, faith in dogmatic incantations and a reactionary fear of change. On the other side are qualities compatible only with a scientific age: pragmatism, confidence, and eagerness to confront change. Plus -- perhaps - a deeper assumption. That any Creator (if one exists) will approve of children who study and use His tools.
Reactionaries of "right" and "left" differ in some ways. As Mooney points out, conservative antimodernists aim their wrath at can-know scientists. But lefty post-modernists despise can-do engineers. Some difference. *(Sharing a characteristic retro-nostalgia, one group yearns for feudalism while the other romanticizes ancient tribes.) Both despise the plan of Vannevar Bush that has worked for us so well – a commitment to experiment, question, invent, negotiate, revise and devote whatever resources it may take to try new things, solve problems, overcome inevitable errors, improve ourselves and keep making a better world.The evident tragedy is that a modernist majority still believes in all these things. But pragmatic liberals and progressive conservatives face a starkly artificial choice between extreme left and extreme right mirror-dogmas that share the same reactionary agenda. To spread fear of tomorrow.
Will people someday learn to refuse both sets of dyspeptic incantations? That is the common nightmare of all anti-future dogmatists. And it is the hope of modern civilization.
Do pick up The Republican War on Science, if only because these are crimes being committed against us all, right now, by ideologues with real political power and fierce determination to impose their dogmatic will. In contrast, antimodernists of the left are (at present) pallid and impotent, unable even to control the Democratic Party. Mooney’s crisis is more urgent and imminent.
Still, books like this one ultimately play into myopic paranoia, instead of drawing our eyes to the horizon. Who would have imagined that the 21st Century would be a time of pulling inward, focusing on dogmas and petty limitations, when we have already accomplished so much?
And when the future is as filled with possibility as it ever was.
=======
Side extract from the book:
"If a politician presents a fair picture of climate science, but nevertheless opposes the Kyoto Protocol on economic grounds, I leave it to economists to criticize him or her. If a president takes advice from a well-balanced panel of experts and then makes a contrary decision, that too is his or her prerogative, as long as the decision doesn't get bedecked in scientific garb.
Commentators across the political spectrum generally agree that science should inform, but not dictate political choices, in much the same way that input from the intelligence community helps to inform military strategy and foreign policy. "I don't think there are very many scientists who are naive enough to think that science should always determine outcomes, but you shouldn't defend outcomes by distorting the science," says physicist John Holdren, director of the Science, Technology, and Public Policy Program at the Harvard Kennedy School.
=======
See also my article: The Case for a Scientific Nation
22 comments:
(First cab off the rank again? Oh well, here goes...)
So, that pesky title *is* an accurate portrayal of what's inside?
Again, if you think all sides of the divide would benefit by perservering past the cover (and you seem to) it might help the wavering reader by suggesting an alternative title.
...As does explaining the need to think outside L-R axes (as you do... good)
See if you can reduce the 'syllabage' a little. While I feel my vocabulary is pretty good, there are a few dense terms like 'Sharing a characteristic retro-nostalgia' that could do with dilution. And bear in mind that not everyone (eg, me) has a 'classical' education.
Overall a good review. My previous comments about getting to Mooney earlier in the piece still hold. Otherwise it risks looking a bit *too* much like 'Brin holds forth on ...' (not that there's anything wrong with a bit of that, of course. After all, you are a drawcard for SDU.)
Review mode off: one final aside:
...That any Creator (if one exists) will approve of children who study and use His tools.
Which prompts the following thoughts:
...aren't children *meant* to grow up?
...is the parable of the shepherd (and what ultimately happens to the lamb) more appropriate when describing the outlook of a certain mindset?
But - inward turns do happen, alas. Robert Heinlein said (just before the Crazy Years hit) that progress wasn't linear, it was exponential, and that we'd finally reached a forward-looking society. Then came the reaction to it.
However - times of unreason pass, as well. The latest crop of kids look like candidates for a revised forward-looking culture.
Pat, who goes to school with people 45 years younger.
David, here is a GOOD review of the book, so you can see where you go wrong:
http://themorningsun.com/stories/082605/loc_war001.shtml
And you have not read the link I posted in the Part I, so here it is again, because you describe some pre-1960s Liberalism that does not exist any more:
http://sciencepolitics.blogspot.com/2005/08/lefty-and-righty-excesses-of-pseudo.html
Overall I really like it, David. One quibble. The following small point of yours,
Moreover, it was Republican President George Herbert Walker Bush who said in 1990: "Science relies on freedom of inquiry, and government relies on the impartial perspective of science for guidance."
seems very weak to me. The quote sounds like something George W. Bush could easily have said, even while opposing honest science at every turn. It sounds like lip service. So you might want to back the quote up with some evidence that George HW Bush really was a friend to science.
I think HW was a friend to science. I have nothing to back that up tho :-D
One thing that really troubles me about this conversation is the assumption that as the President goes, so goes the nation.
Are we really such pre-programmed fish, all of us out there, that private foundation-based science isn't even under consideration? Does the Federal Government really have to lead the way in all things?
That didn't used to be the case, I think.
I'll note, too, just as an anecdote, that I don't remember Dubya making a scientific case for much of anything. I suppose picking up Mooney's book might refute my impression. (Although, I'm loathe to buy any book at all with such a short half-life as that; I prefer to use the library.)
Rather, it seems that Dubya operates almost entirely within the realm of political consensus. People shouldn't underestimate or mischaracterize the talents of him and his team; whatever his premises are he's almost as talented as Clinton was, perhaps just exactly as talented, at swimming in the stream in D.C.
I draw that impression from the reasoning he gave for denying federal funding for new embryonic stem cell research. As I recall he didn't state scientific reasons at all. He said instead that he thought it was wrong to destroy life, that he defined those cell masses as people, and didn't want them toyed with. He didn't appeal to the science of it, as I recall.
"That any Creator (if one exists) will approve of children who study and use His tools."
That statement resonates very deeply with me. Y'know, churches used to be the willing allies and tools of the Enlightenment. Where did we all go wrong that that seems no longer to be the case?
Coturnix posted a link to an essay with this passage:
"Saying that pseudoscientific excesses of the Loony Left are equivalent to the pseudoscientific excesses of the Righteous Right is just an example of such factual (and moral) relativity. The former is silly, discredited, powerless and innocuous. The latter is serious, more and more mainstream and dangerous to the Enlightment and what it gave to the human civilization. The former is laughable. The latter is the key weapon of the Republican Party (at least the faction in power right now)."
Thank you. Well said. Dead on, right on target.
The power of the flaky anti-modernist left has rarely extended beyond enthusiastic discussions in the rice cake aisle of health food stores. Their idea of effective political action is pie-throwing and rallies no one hears about unless the Young Republicans show up for a counter-march.
Their influence is nothing, nothing like the organized, deliberate, well funded, and thoughtful campaign against modern thought by the religious right.
We're talking about an actual conspiracy here folks. Read it for yourself:
http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Hangar/2437/wedge.html
"The social consequences of materialism have been devastating. As symptoms, those consequences are certainly worth treating. However, we are convinced that in order to defeat materialism, we must cut it off at its source. That source is scientific materialism. This is precisely our strategy. If we view the predominant materialistic science as a giant tree, our strategy is intended to function as a "wedge" that, while relatively small, can split the trunk when applied at its weakest points. The very beginning of this strategy, the "thin edge of the wedge," was Phillip ]ohnson's critique of Darwinism begun in 1991 in Darwinism on Trial, and continued in Reason in the Balance and Defeatng Darwinism by Opening Minds. Michael Behe's highly successful Darwin's Black Box followed Johnson's work. We are building on this momentum, broadening the wedge with a positive scientific alternative to materialistic scientific theories, which has come to be called the theory of intelligent design (ID). Design theory promises to reverse the stifling dominance of the materialist worldview, and to replace it with a science consonant with Christian and theistic convictions."
Is that unambigous enough?
We are not in a position where we'd jump from one radical extreme to another. Assuming the neocons don't engineer a state of permenant emergency that keeps them in power forever, and you can bet your sweet ass that this is exactly what they want and are working toward, they will not be replaced by shaggy leftists with peculiar ideas about vaccination and red meat. They'll be replaced by Democrats.
Stefan
Tony - your raising of the metaphor of the lamb is apt. Someday I shall commence serializing my essay on theology. “Twelve Modern Questions About Humanity’s Relationship With its Creator In the Context of an Age of Science”. Buckle your seat belts!
Coturnix- I see nothing that disagrees with me much at http://sciencepolitics.blogspot.com/2005/08/lefty-and-righty-excesses of-pseudo.htm It is an intelligent blog. But it has much more room to work in than my 2,000 word limit in a metropolitan newspaper. ANyway, I think I make the same points.
Rob - you are right that we have alternatives to the federal govt. California is the world’s seventh largest economy and even under republican GuvAhnold we are pushing research and alt-energy stimulation as hard as any European nation, and as hard as federal obstructionism will allow. (Funny, now we are the ones demanding states rights!) This may happen more and more as the Culture War makes many nations out what had formerly been one.
“ Y'know, churches used to be the willing allies and tools of the Enlightenment. Where did we all go wrong that that seems no longer to be the case?”
Goll dang freepy lefty lib’rals had to get in the faces of every single dang thing that smacked of being white, middle class, reserved, shy, demure, reticent, squeamish... you name it.
For example, most of the nation was okay (if uncomfortable) with “Civil Unions” allowing gay folks to have all the PRAGMATIC benefits of marriage. (All right, adoption was still a fight.) But the freakazoids just HAD to wage a war to get it called “marriage” didn’t they. A pure example of the romantic-nostalgic worldview in which symbolism is vastly more important than practical consequences... and indignant fury is vastly more attractive than looking your opponents in the eye and negotiating.
In so doing, they pretty much handed W another term in office. These people were Karl Rove’s fifth column. And at the underlying memic level, they are his bosom allies.
Dylan - I agree that in the long run we must hope and pray for whistle blowers. Lots and lots of them. In today’s context, these are the battlefront heroes, the men and women deserving silver stars and purple hearts. Our goal must be to find ways to encourage them. Hundreds. Thousands.
----
Oh, here’s an interesting white paper on future energy sources: www.triplercommunities.info
I was surprised to reach the end and see that you were actually recommending the book (albeit, cautiously). I hadnt really gotten the impression that you would.
While I can see your point about criticising both left and right looniness, it seems like that's an unnecessarily large bite to take in one book. The bridge before us now is the Neo-Cons, and it's a really, really big one. Cross the liberal one later.
As for the title, I wonder if it was Mooney's choice, or one made for him by the publishing house. I doubt, sales-wise (and therefore say-so-wise), he's a big wheel, and this title will sell better than something more neutral. Perhaps a better title would have been "Reviewing the Neo-Con War on Science", so that moderate Republicans could read it without guilt (except for the guilt they really ought to feel for allowing their party to be hijacked).
Lastly, Tin-Foil Hat time: maybe the publisher is a neo-con, and deliberately chose the title so as to allow the Republican party to more easily dismiss it, while assuring plenty of sales to frustrated Democrats (after all, bidness is bidness).
-dcc-
Perhaps a better title would have been "Reviewing the Neo-Con War on Science"
This is a very good point.
I think that title would be far more accurate. Even more accurate would be to call the book The Movement Conservative War on Science.
Certainly, the G.O.P. of old wouldn't have tolerated this disingenuous nonesense.
However, the war on science wasn't a sneak attack. Anyone with half a brain could have seen it coming.
At the very least, the Republicans did nothing to oppose it.
They could have raised a red flag when Reagan blathered about having his doubts about evolution.
They could have made it a party plank to oppose Creationism in schools, back before it was prettied up as I.D.
They did nothing, and are therefore culpable.
Stefan
It seems to me that some of our resident conservatives have been driven off. Otherwise, it would not be left to me to raise the damage done by the loony left.
And, although I have repeatedly said that the deliberate campaign of the neocon troika is vastly worse, the damage done by the left has been severe. Even if the ONLY effect was to give ammo to Cato and Heritage and their ilk.
Think about that. Right now, there is one thing that could save us. There are about two hundred august and well-known American conservatives out there who could save this republic. All by themselves. If Newt Gingrich and WmF Buckley and so on were to stand up -- the way the AFL-CIO stood up in 1947 -- to denouce the madness on their side, we could exit this era with remarkable speed and alacrity.
One of the things preventing them from doing this is human nature. Their minds will - naturally - struggle desperately to excuse inaction. This can be rationalized by splitting the neocon crimes into small sub-units and criticizing them one at a time, while desperately denying a pattern. George F Will is a master of this art.
The other half is to create strawman images of the liberals and democrats that anecdotally seem to balance out the neocon anecdotes. Emotionally, they can then tell themselves that the old enemy - the Left - would still be "even worse".
And at least W cut taxes.
In describing their rationalization process, this does not mean that I forgive them for their outrageous moral cowardice at this, the hour of their country's need. A moment when true conservatives could add gloss to their movement, the way the US Labor Movement became the stalwart bulwark of America against communism, long ago.
Nevertheless, we are left with a practical problem. HOW can we start a snowballing of prominent American conservatives, toward the Big Break with the FratboyKleptos-Apocalypts-and StraussianNeocons? What measures can we take, in order to help them find the guts to step up and save us?
I can only think of one thing that has a strong chance of working. Somehow, we must find a way to get these guys on an airplane with Bill Clinton for 12 hours... perhaps on the way to a conference in Praetoria or Delhi. Trapped aboard a plane with Clinton, no human being on the planet can escape becoming converted into Bill's Best Friend.
The most hilarious example - our best revenge so far - has been the chumminess between BC and W's father. It is adorable to watch them together now. And it sent my moral soaring just to imagine what W thinks of it.
Clinton, that lazy, brilliant SOB, could save us. We must shovel conservatives into his company relentlessly, till he charms them all.
Till then, we have GOT to get into their faces in ways that offer an alternative view of liberalism/pragmatism/modernism than the convenient strawman images. That means disassociating ourselves from the left's lunatics.
The Modernist Agenda is meant to offer these people a home.
I agree, the democratic party is the last American institution of any size that has not been taken over by anti-modernists. What I think Stefan misses is how crippled it has been, by the huge antimodernist minority within its ranks.
I don't agree at all that leftists are better at science than rightists. Even if they deny that they're practicing a religion, they still behave in precisely the same ways about their premises as a rightist does about Bible and Creationism.
(Incidentally, there are *lots* of ways to freely believe in a Creator-God without taking the Bible so literally that you have to bend your brain around eight tons of cognitive dissonance!)
The expediency of getting 7-calendar-day Creationists to stop foisting junk science or denying real science is compelling, to be true, but the left is just as good at nonsense as the right. (And have we forgotten that ol' Jimmy Carter, that quasi socialist goodguy, believes in Creationism?)
Rob has just perfectly illustrated our problem!
His post refers to "they" and the caricature that he presents certainly does apply to a version of "they"... in other words the postmodernist frekazoid lefties...
...but that only serves to comfort and assuage and distract from a fundamental fact.
The "they" that he refers to is a loud, awful and powerless minority among liberals.
Whereas their counterparts on the right OWN AND OPERATE THE ENTIRE MACHINE of the Republican party, and the government of the United State, and most media corporations and half the boradrooms in America.
We owe Rob a debt of thanks for illustrating why and how the moderate conservatives of America have been able to rationalize not standing up - as the AFL CIO did in 1947 - and denouncing a raving madness that has gripped the extremum of their movement.
They are able to rationalize it by saying "all sides have gone mad, so I might as well sit on my customary side of the fence."
Sorry Rob. While I hate using left-right.... or rather I use left-right to stand for the antimodernists... the truth is that the monstrous things you see on the left are barely there at all.
THank you. I am much happier now. ;-)
David,
If that's true, then where are my safe nuclear power plants, and why is general aviation very nearly and universally vilified as a vector for terrorism?
OK, the latter is a difficult one to pin on leftists. (But as a private pilot it's still really annoying....)
And I know you've raised the former point before. Thing is, it's an example of where and how the loons on the left are winning, and thus prolonging our dependence on foreign energy resources which keeps foreign policy so edgy, IMO.
(What *are* the federal restraints on energy research, anyway, that keeps CA from doing what you say it wants?)
But the reason you state is not the reason I sit. First of all, I don't sit, and I take a little umbrage at the idea that just because I claim to see an equally influential insanity on the Left as I do on the Right, today, that means I don't act when I can.
Second, you're making a comparison between the AFL/CIO, a heirarchical organization which was able to speak out about Communism, and "moderate conservatives" a group which has no such structure in place for punditry. Practically speaking, how are you (we? they?) gonna rally that group as a force, especially considering the power base on the one side and the sheer volume and provocativeness of the other?
That's an uphill battle, and, frankly, I don't see George Soros helping us with it at all. When I think of the money that man wasted on doomsaying and vilification...
(Also, I'd wager that if your context were a bit wider than the last 10 years, by going back perhaps 40 years and including soft sciences in with the hard ones, you'd find I'd have enough evidence to be right about left/right anti-science.)
Rob, you are welcome to build a case against left-wing antimodernism! Hey, I am often the one RAISING that issue! I agree that nuclear power is an area in which they have done great harm. Indeed, their hatred of mega engineering - preferring to prescribe ONLY conservation (the prescription to “shiver in the dark”) shows why Kyoto has been unpalatable to Americans. We probably could have agreed to something Kyoto-like, if it had ALSO been accompanied by something vigorous and optimistic. A Manhattan project to replace the power we were giving up.
(Side note. Although it is staggeringly foolish for lefties to preach only conservation and reflexively resist assertive engineering projects that might add to supply, nevertheless, it is a simple fact that we would all benefit from a lot more conservation! They are half right, while being half wrong. A far better record than their opponents.)
Still, you are SO far off base in seeing these caricatures as representative of genuine liberalism. Jimmy Carter, for example, may believe the Earth is 6,000 years old on Sundays. The rest of the week, though, he has been an engineer and pal of scientific progress, and about as far from an apocalypt as you could ask.
(ALL modernists need desperately to learn the diff tween “evangelicals” and “fundamentalists”. If you do not know the difference, then it explains why you cannot distinguish between “liberals” and “lefties”.)
I do not accept that it was easy for the AFL CIO to do what it did in 47. Learn about it! The fight was huge, rancorous, bitter, and very very hard. It divided old friends, many of whom never spoke to each other again. But in the end, the policy of containment was set in motion... for which the risk-eager endgame gambler, Ronald Reagan would later be given all the credit.
Anyway, it wasn’t just the AFL CIO. They FOLLOWED a great many individual liberals who first made the break, denouncing Stalin and demanding that he be fought and/or contained. Those heroes helped to save the world (at a time when Vandenburg and the GOP leadership were preaching isolationism.)
A great many decent conservatives could stand up right now and do the same thing about rightwing madness. There are conservative organizations that could emulate the AFL CIO and state, aloud, that they stand for Barry Goldwater’s “conservatism” and not this crazy, mutant-loony version.
A conservatism that tends to our military readiness instead of squandering it.
That uses force judiciously, instead of as a fratboys’ toy.
That balances budgets instead of going on the worst pork frenzy of all time.
That welcomes the sagacity of scientists and other experts, instead of claiming that ideology can “remake reality”.
That respects the sagacity of professional soldiers, instead of engaging in rampant political meddling, purging the officer corps and claiming that ideology can “remake reality”.
That perceives new business startups as a surer sign of market health than the size of CEO bonuses.
That recognizes the vital importance of accountability, which is killed by excessive secrecy.
The sees acrimonious culture war as a sure sign of FAILED leadership, since the political leaders of a nation bear responsibility if that nation becomes divided against itself. Whether or not it is their fault. (In this case, it sure is.)
That sees us strengthened by steadfast alliances and adult diplomacy, even if it calls for compromise and addressing other nations’ heartfelt concerns.
That sees rudeness as a sure sign of immaturity. Especially the rudeness of deliberately peeing in the faces of our allies.
I could go on... but what’s the point? The surest sign that we are entering a dark age is the way people care more about incantations than measurable criteria. If you can find even one basis for Barry Goldwater to have been happy with these “conservatives” then please tell!
And then explain why the state of Arizona is drawing half its power from the spinning in his grave.
I'm going to butt in here and once again point y'all at WorldChanging, an online community which defies every trope of right wing slander of progressives trying to change the world for the better.
Right now they are running a retrospective of notable past articles.
http://www.worldchanging.com/
Amusing aside: A recurring theme is water filtration technology, which a comment spammer posted about here.
Stefan
Oh too right; I withdraw the Jimmy Carter crack; forgot he was an engineer, too.
I doubt there's enough residual iron in Barry Goldwater for power generation, but I suppose if the neocons are spinning him fast enough...
And maybe they are...
BTW, I've read Rush Limbaugh transcripts of tirades from time to time about many of the fiscally irresponsible things the Bushies are doing while in power. (Let's see who kneejerks that...) ;-)
And re the difference between "Evangelicals" and "Fundamentalists", it's hard for a Mormon to tell; both groups call me not at all Christian and expect I've an appointment with the Devil...
But I take your point. The Evangelicals *are* nicer about their ignorance on that particular subject.
OK, I'm not a conservative, more a raging moderate, but there are a few arenas in which leftists misuse science to drive ideology. The biggest one of these may be the field of preventive health care, in which a whole coalition of busybody leftists is toiling to save us from (of course) ourselves.
It started with the war on Big Tobacco. No one will deny smoking is a very risky vice for its users, but what really got the ball rolling in this war was the issue of secondhand smoke. Over the past decade or so, studies (or "studies," with quotes, in some cases, as several of these have been conducted by avowed antismoking advocates) have been released linking SHS not just with general risks for nonsmokers but with, for example, sudden infant death syndrome (what hasn't been linked with SIDS by now?) or asthma (despite the fact that asthma has been on the rise for about the same amount of time that smoking rates have been declining).
But while all of these studies get trotted out by the news wire services, and treated as proven by activists thereafter, one case that didn't get a lot of press is the case the tobacco companies won: They went after the godfather of all studies, the 1993 EPA report on SHS, in court in 1998 and successfully demonstrated that the EPA had cherry-picked its data, lowered its own standards of proof and, in general, shaped the whole report to fit a conclusion the agency had decided on beforehand. (Note: This ruling was eventually overturned, but on jurisdictional grounds; the appellate court basically found that courts can't strike down reports by non-lawmaking advisory bodies.)
But the War on Tobacco is mostly old news now; the new target is "Big Food." Again, no one doubts that Mickey D's is not the place to go for three meals a day, seven days a week, but it wasn't until after the Tobacco War was largely won that the personal-health coalitions began blaming fast food for all of our ills (including more than a few people who actually blame global anti-American sentiment in part on the industry).
Now we're starting the lawsuits, the fat taxes, the menu-labeling requirements and, in some places, considering actual restrictions on what restaurants can cook up. All so we can fight the War on Obesity — i.e., force the whole populace to conform to a health standard because a portion of the populace hasn't been setting any standards for themselves.
Then there are the "safety" campaigns against "frankenfoods" (already cited on the previous thread, I forget by whom. Sorry!), power lines, cell phone use, etc., all based on studies that are ambiguous at best. And often, studies that dispute some of these cherished campaigns stir up such a backlash that their authors actually have to publicly recant (as recently happened when, IIRC, someone released a study that suggested being mildly overweight wasn't in itself unhealthy and, for some people, might actually be beneficial).
What these campaigns all have in common is that, while their results have been embraced by politicians on both sides of the aisles, the basis has been solidly rooted in the same blindly anti-technological, anti-corporate, pro-"natural" thought (see the Center for Science in the Public Interest site for examples of this obsession with Big Bad Industry) that some here are dismissing a toothless eccentricity of the left.
OK, maybe there aren't any healing-by-crystal advocates in Congress. But that doesn't mean they're necessarily marginalized; many just find other areas where they can have influence, such as lobbying groups or bureaucracies such as boards of health.
This conservative hasn't let, I've just been extremely busy (business is business)!
Returning to the topic--I'm one for voting for "more of the same." Humor me and follow my reasoning (picking it apart where it needs to be)...
Like I have said in the past, politics begin where certainty is. You know, I have never heard W deny that the globe is warming, but I have heard him acknowledge the uncertainty to the degree to which human activity since the Industrial Revolution controls that warming. Given the degree that radical conservation would hurt the US economy (as opposed to the _dirtier_ industrial base of the EU _in its entirety,__ which the Kyoto Treaty uses to judge EU responsibility), is it worth the potential impact to human life that a bad US economy would have if we were to engage on such a happy-face path to salvation? Heck, on the issue of global warming it seems that W has been more pragmatic and "scientific" (aknowledging and working within the limits of known certainty) than his critics. Is W right? I don't know, but given the uncertainty levels inherent in the science itself, I find it little wonder that politics is thick around this issue.
On the issue of federal funding for human embyo cloning: how was this "anti-science" rather than an effort to make a critical decision regarding an issue that confronts science, technology, and _a very real human propensity for many members of our species to engage in religious thinking?_ As much as I am a proponent of Russellian skepticism, scientism and rationality, I also find that I must also respect the beliefs of those who feel the need to be far more religious than I am. Since federal funding of any kind is considered a type of expression of the population of the US as a whole, what can we do when confronted with an issue that can mean so much to a significant fraction of our fellow citizens?
Part of me doesn't want to bother reading the book because I really don't want to deal with third-, forth- and fifth-hand opinions disguised as fact. On the other hand, I am curious to see if -- FINALLY -- a serious scholar has emerged. Golly, then again I don't have too much time for reading these days (I'm still trying to get through T.S. Kuhn's book, "The Road Since Structure" -- interesting thus far).
- Nicole Tedesco
Sorry, I meant to say that politics begins where certainty ends.
Thanks, Nicole and Finn, for articulating some of the things I didn't have time or energy to hunt up...
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