On March 9, Barack Obama signed the Presidential Memorandum on Scientific Integrity.
The memo basically says:
- Candidates for science positions should be selected based on the candidate’s knowledge, credentials, experience, and integrity
- Scientific information considered in policy decisions should be subject to peer review
- Scientific findings should be made available to the public
You probably won’t be surprised that as a scientist I think this is fantastic. Hopefully, this change in attitude towards science by the federal government helps improve the attitude towards science in our society overall. I think that we can only solve many of today’s problems by relying on a scientific approach.
This statement, along with the recently passed stimulus and budget bills seem to indicate the start of a period where we are investing heavily again in basic research. Time and time again, this has been shown to be a great use of resources.
The sculpture in the photo is just outside my office. The Nataraja is trampling a dwarf that represents ignorance. Scientific research is an organized fight against our ignorance of the universe. Let’s make trampling ignorance our goal.
Yes. Beautiful. What he said.
We are emerging from a small dark age, driven by certain elements in the American culture that not only glorified ignorance, but seemed to actively hunt down the pursuit of scientific knowledge. This more than any other bit of (merely) partisan dogma disturbs me the most, for it is the gateway to suffering (and fascism.)
I hope and pray that the U.S. involvement in the great endeavor that is the LHC, will help to usher in a new enlightenment here and around the world. Let’s make Ben proud!
http://www.fi.edu/learn/index.php
Ignorance is frighteningly powerful – we’re beginning to see an increase in things like the creationist movement here in the UK, where in the past it’s always been an utterly tiny minority.
Ignorance is frightening, because people make decisions based on it which harm other people… And ignorance plus certainty is the most dangerous. I hope the tide does turn in your country and here too. I hope Obama’s science ideals come to fruition.
PS In worrying about creationism I’m not anti-religion – I believe the world is a rational place held in being by a rational creator, and I see the fact that science and reason work as evidence of God – I’m not attacking religion.
I recently watched a presentation the other day on unifying EM with gravitation using quaternions and lagrangians http://tinyurl.com/cc874f. Alot of the video is pretty basic but the fact that he talks about using the lagrangian to get to field equations is interesting. I was just wondering if any of this is being tested in the software at LHC and if this is valid science. Since the LHCers are on the bleeding edge of science, I thought this would be a good place to ask.
There’s another video here http://tinyurl.com/clfhm3 .
The memorandum is great news in light of the recent related news.
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The International Aids Society
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Benedict said on the plane taking him to Cameroon that AIDS “cannot be overcome through the distribution of condoms, which even aggravates the problems.”
To suggest that condom use contributes to the HIV problem is not merely contrary to scientific evidence and global consensus, it contributes to fueling HIV infection and its consequences – sickness and death.
His remarks are insulting to the tireless efforts of committed scientific, public health and human rights leaders around the world to protect the poorest of the poor from HIV infection.
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It’s a brand new day here in the USA. Even if the economy is going down the toilet, the pleasure of having a president that can think and speak is still palpable. I find it ironic that people get as tangled in the complexities of religion as they do in those of science. The result is the aforementioned ignorance, which may seem powerful, but is ultimately vacuous and darkness. The previous administration kowtowed to the fundamentalists for political expedience, which made it all the more sordid.