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chloric1
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Bush signed the Real ID act into law May 11, 2005 and gave a time tabe of three years until its implementation. Eighteen states have since rejected
this bill as it absolutely NO federal funding and the individual states get the bill.
Fellow molecular manipulator
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MagicJigPipe
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I don't think sending troops to the middle east (Afghanastan sp?) is a bad idea. Troops to Iraq, however, was stupid.
"There must be no barriers to freedom of inquiry ... There is no place for dogma in science. The scientist is free, and must be free to ask any
question, to doubt any assertion, to seek for any evidence, to correct any errors. ... We know that the only way to avoid error is to detect it and
that the only way to detect it is to be free to inquire. And we know that as long as men are free to ask what they must, free to say what they think,
free to think what they will, freedom can never be lost, and science can never regress." -J. Robert Oppenheimer
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quicksilver
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Boots on the ground in a Islamic country is a quagmire. It's a long term issue no matter the country. The cost is staggering and thus the revenue that
cannot be spent on our own country. Quite frankly I am an isolationist. I think it's about time to solve the problems in our own country and let the
rest of the world be second on the list or priorities. I know that the world is getting smaller and smaller but the amount we spend on the middle east
is so vast that we actually could gain energetic self sufficiency with that money. We could do something that would help all of humanity by not
sticking our economic nose in the world's business. If we were to turn our attention to energy self sufficiency we would not HAVE to support the Saudi
monarchy.
This in turn would allow us to think globally without the encumbrances of maintaining private economic interests. Let them (private enterprise) fend
for themselves. Without the "house of economic cards" with major energy producers we COULD look at the totality of environmental impact in a mature
manner. We would not have to have choices of weather a child eats or a tree is cut down; we could do both.
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MagicJigPipe
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Yes, if we had energy self sufficiency, we might be able to avoid the middle east altogether. Then, like you said, we could focus on things that
really matter. Maybe we could even take the ~$70 billion we spend on the War on Drugs and use it elsewhere.
"There must be no barriers to freedom of inquiry ... There is no place for dogma in science. The scientist is free, and must be free to ask any
question, to doubt any assertion, to seek for any evidence, to correct any errors. ... We know that the only way to avoid error is to detect it and
that the only way to detect it is to be free to inquire. And we know that as long as men are free to ask what they must, free to say what they think,
free to think what they will, freedom can never be lost, and science can never regress." -J. Robert Oppenheimer
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microcosmicus
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| Quote: | Originally posted by MagicJigPipe
Maybe we could even take the ~$70 billion we spend on the War on Drugs and use it elsewhere. |
Like building the SSC, medical research, NSF budget, support for science
students, space exploration, etc.? I think it is a downright shame that the state which, a few years ago, was slated to have the world's biggest
piece
of scientific apparatus is now cracking down on labware.
As I see it, the current policy is a sort of national suicide. What made
America great is not its might as an imperialist power, but Yankee
ingenuity. Therefore, policy which all but outlaws backyard chemists
and garage inventors is destroying what has historically been a national
asset. Coupled with moving funds from institutional science to wars on
drugs and terror, this is a disaster.
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quicksilver
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I think it would help if we had a grasp on where this movement away from institutional science began so that we might understand where we went wrong
in the first place. If we understood where this shift took place, perhaps we could prevent further erosion or at minimum understand what forces drive
us to [what I would agree, are,] intellectually suicidal efforts.
This did not happen overnight: that much is obvious. IMO, several forces were at work. One such thing would be common marketing / advertising,
depicting the scientist as a "nerd" or outsider in comparison to the athlete. We all saw that much at school. Socially, the science-oriented
individual was not given status in western society.
Another force may have been that of "political correctness". Not all people are capable of, or even appropriate for a university level education. The
demand for inclusion of those less suitable for such an education, instead of attractive alternatives may have "dumbed down" our efforts to a
substantial degree.
Our universities are filled with people who simply don't belong there. They are not less important, vital, & contributing members of society but
they don't belong in higher education. A plumber or mechanic is a damn important person but he does not belong in a upper level bio-chem class. Those
people suited for such vocations have few technical schools to attend. That is a serious issue. Athletes as such, should NOT be given a free ride. In
fact our whole emphasis on sports in university is a serious mistake. We may go back to that agenda during the latter part of the nineteenth century
to trace that phenomenon.
[Edited on 17-1-2008 by quicksilver]
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MagicJigPipe
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You're right quicksilver. That's because everything, in the end, always comes down to one thing; money. The universities and the NFL/NBA will do
anything to keep it coming, therefore, they encourage sports activities over academics for certain individuals they feel can make money for them. I
think being healthy and playing sports is a great idea, but all this money being made on it is just rediculous. Not to mention the fact that at any
high school in America one is given special priviledges (getting less homework for example) for playing football or basketball (most of the time). I
know this from personal experience. This is especially a problem in the south.
I don't think the advertising depicting scientists as "nerds" is as detrimental (I mean come on, many of them are socially ackward and people know
this) as the common portrayal of them as 'mad scientists', and 'evil creators of doomsday devices' in books and film. I mean, if someone dresses up
as a "scientist" on Halloween, it is always a mad scientist. Many villans in comic books are 'Professor This' or 'Dr. That'. Moreover, most of the
time a chemistry lab is depicted on television or movies (aside from that STUPID show, CSI) it is being used for evil by evil.
I fear the average American dolt has an image in his/her head of a mad scientist creating a chemical device to destroy the world when they hear the
word "scientist".
I, however, always imagined someone that looked like Albert Einstein in a white lab coat messing with a particle accelerator. When I was a kid of
course.
"There must be no barriers to freedom of inquiry ... There is no place for dogma in science. The scientist is free, and must be free to ask any
question, to doubt any assertion, to seek for any evidence, to correct any errors. ... We know that the only way to avoid error is to detect it and
that the only way to detect it is to be free to inquire. And we know that as long as men are free to ask what they must, free to say what they think,
free to think what they will, freedom can never be lost, and science can never regress." -J. Robert Oppenheimer
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Ozone
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There is a decent rant about this at (a conservative website):\
www.uncommonacumen.com
specifically:
http://www.uncommonacumen.com/oppeds/Ockhams%20Razor.dwt
Cheers,
O3
[Edited on 17-1-2008 by Ozone]
-Anyone who never made a mistake never tried anything new.
--Albert Einstein
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microcosmicus
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Based on my experience, the thing started unravelling when the Berlin wall
came tumbling down. With no more Soviets to defeat, the U.S. government
lost its motivation to promote the natural sciences and instead set about
redirecting the cold war from communists to drug dealers and terrorists..
The reason that this had such an impact was, in my opinion, due to the
economics of academia the social situation of the general public. Since
the days of the Manhattan project, universities and institutes became
addicted to government grants. Sure, while accelerators, observatories,
and similar big science may need the sort of funds which can only be
provided by an organization the size of a government, there is really no
need for government grants for small science, let alone the theoretician
whose only equipment is pencils and paper. Unfortunately, however, the
ready availability of grant money led to a situation where pretty much no
science, not even theory or small-scale experiments gets done unless
funded. As example of the disatrous consequences of such a situation, I
have watched firsthand as much of the field of general relativity
evaporated, with even well-established research groups going belly-up
because the NSF decided to spend the relativity budget almost exclusively
on gravity waves to the detriment of other branches of relativity physics.
Sure, private funding helps some, but it usually only applies to narrowly
practical research so doesn't do much for pure science.
The general economic situation did not help much either. In universities,
tenure is pretty much a bygone memory and one-or-two year appointments
are common. Between this, growing administrative bureaucracies, and
downsizing (or elimination) of departments, academic science has become
a publish-or-perish pressure cooker with fewer graduates are staying in
academia. At the same time, the great industrial labs which supported
both pure and applied research suffered from downsizing.
As for the general public, not only is there the perception of scientists
as weirdos, but I think there is a deeper problem --- most people, even
otherwise well educated people, have rather distorted notions of scientific
method and epistemology. Most of the folks hanging around this board
have a good understanding that truth in science is tentative, always open
to re-examination with even the most fundamental theories open to
revision and replacement should observed facts warrant a change.
Unfortunately. the average man in the street has a much more simplistic
black-and-white understanding of the matter. As one of my buddies at
PlanetMath pointed out, this general naivete and inability to think critically
and quantitatively can lead to an instability where people either believe
all science or believe no science. Back in the heyday of the 1950's, the
stream of pro-science propaganda kept the American masses pretty well
pointed in the "believe all science" direction. But once this external
influence disappeared in the 1980s, people started flipping to the "believe
no science" direction like so many spins in a magnet. A major reason surely
was the backfiring of hype--- when nuclear power plants blew up (think
three mile island and Chernobyl) and DDT turned out to harm birds, people
who bought into the hype of scientists as some sort of supergeniuses
with a privileged access to truth were at a loss as to what to think and
wound up coming to the conclusion that they had been duped and that
science was some sort of hoax or sham.
As to what could be done, here are some thoughts. I don't claim to
have anything like a complete solution, just a few things that could help.
All too often, scientists have stayed away from public life either because
they figured that they did not have the necessary expertise or because
they were put off by the messiness and illogic of politics and business.
This is a tragic mistake which means that policy gets left in the hands of
people whose expertise is in getting votes and pleasing lobbyists, resulting
in baking soda bills and similar nonsense.
This "believe all science or believe no science" thing is best attacked at the
root --- people need to learn how science really works. While being lectured
in class helps, actual experience is the best. Every week around here, it
seems another kid asks for help finding apparatus or doing an experiment,
then gets hooked on science. Not to exaggerate the drop in the bucket, but
that means one less ignoramus advocating bans on chemicals down the road.
As I am learning every day, there is quite a large contingent of people (like
me) who have advanced degrees in science but are not researchers in
universities or institutes. To be sure, most of these people have jobs which
make use of their technical knowledge, while that pays the bills and all, it
isn't quite the same sort of intellectual stimulation, so these people are taking
up their scientific interests on the side. To this, we can add some people in
temporary teaching positions who would rather be doing research. There is
considerable potential here, and it would be a shame to see it going to
waste. Given the appropriate (self-)organization, I could see this group
making a significant difference.
The internet makes science possible in non-traditional settings. Most
importantly, it provides a library of technical information and interaction
with colleagues which previously only existed in universities and institutes.
Granted there is quite a gap between what is currently available online
and what a good university library can offer, this gap is shrinking as new
preprint servers, websites, open access journals, virtual libraries, etc.
appear. In addition, the internet of course provides a new media outlet
for educating the public about science and presenting the subject in a
positive light.
I also see potential for the virtual communities now appearing and envision
some of them evolving into new types of scientific societies and institutes.
For instance, while I may be a newcomer here at ScienceMadness, I have
been heavily involved for some time with PlanetMath both as contributor
and administrator. While progress is slow, we are already established
relations with mathematical organizations, put out a technical reference
which is used daily by students, engineers, and scientists. and even served
as a locus for some original research. We have incorporated, are raising a
budget and looking for partnerships with industry. Hopefully. in a few years,
we may mature into a new type of virtual scientific organization which not
only benefits the math community at large, but also offers some economic
support for non-traditional mathematical careers.
A most pleasing aspect of my involvement with PlanetMath is seeing how it
bridged the gap between amateur and professional. Knowledgable,
competent amateurs who have produced quality content there are
respected and treated as colleagues by academic mathematicians. In the
future, I could see the distinction blurring --- for instance, maybe someone
with a math degree who is working in some unrelated business collaborates
with academic researchers online. Or maybe someone starts out
with a home lab as a hobby, eventually gets good at it, then maybe gets
some sort of funding to pursue a line of research as a part time job through
a suitable organization (which may need to be created).
I am not so bold as to claim that these alternatives provide a replacement
for what is being lost, but only that they could at least help some and
provide niches of opportunity for a few people who take the initiative to
pursue them.
[Edited on 17-1-2008 by microcosmicus]
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len1
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Its not just GR thats disappearing, particle physics and many other areas of physics are going with it.
The reason is that these areas have not borne fruit in the last couple of decades. The publication have flourished no doubt - but thats bourne of the
public-or-perish mentality you mention rather than the need to report results. As a result most of what phys rev etc. has to report these days is
rubbish - and few read it. Compare it with an average phys rev volume 50 years ago. I guess its called saturation - after the exponential growth in
physics of the 20th century almost everything has been found out.
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microcosmicus
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If you consider contemporary physics to be rubbish, I supposed you're entitled
to your opinion.
I'll just point out that GR is flourishing just fine in places like Paris and Vienna (and
New Zealand for that matter --- I remember having a nice chat with a kiwi relativist
at an international conference a few years back) so obviously there are some people
who have a higher opinion of the subject. This decimation of the subject of which I
speak is local to the United States, due to the policy of the NSF.
As for everything being found out, Kelvin expressed a similar sentiment 100 years ago
as did Lagrange 100 years before him.
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len1
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You too are entitled to your opinion - although Im not sure what contemporary physics you mean. If you mean what has mainly been filling
international journals over the last twenty years, its easily tested. Will any of it make it into future physics textbooks - as whats been done 40
years ago did, or wont it. I like to think of things in clear terms. We are already seeing the answer.
As for this argument that at the end of the 19th century they thought they found everything out - and were they wrong -> the same holds now. Ive
heard this non-science from many scientists funny enough. Its like saying - theres no such thing as saturation because last time we thought so we
were wrong. Len
[Edited on 18-1-2008 by len1]
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quicksilver
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I think many remember essay questions wherein the answer was required to "have x amount of words" or some such craziness.
The "Publish or Perish" phenomenon may have some aspect of diluting the joy of learning for learning's sake.
The people today are made to crank out material and published material (& volume) becomes paramount. Therefore we see vast amounts of published
material that hones a point finer than need be or re-hashes an old shoe to a degree of monotony....I understand this but fortunately missed it as I
graduated in the late 70's and that pressure was almost absent. I certainly wouldn't use the term rubbish but I understand that much fewer people are
sitting under the apple tree letting their minds open and wonder.
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