Perverting science for politics

What is ID but politics.
No science gets into textbooks by political voting... why would the ID people not want theirs to go through the same scientific rigors and path as any other hypothesis to get to textbooks as any other theory?

[tw]

Many have little idea how widespread are scams and misinformation. You can buy devices to discharge the sky so that lightning will not strike (Early Streamer Emission (ESE) lightning rods). Some will even add radioactive materials that somehow make them better. Or Geritol for reduced aging. Pond's Institute for younger lasting skin. Power strip protectors so hyped in Circuit City. Atkin's diet. Head On. Listerine. In each case, they don't even try to make claims based in science and logic. Somehow observation or feelings alone is proof enough.

Add to that list Intelligent Design. They don't even try to meet the well proven benchmark that make science successful and productive. Somehow we are just suppost to know - and that is sufficient.

Above is a list of items to benchmark yourself. Do you demand based upon principles taught in school science? Or do you just know? Did I mention I know this Prince in Nigeria who needs your help.

[Clodfobble]

Originally Posted by tw

Head On.

"Apply directly to the forehead!!"

[9th Engineer]

Right, you can't just drop science and logic once you leave the classroom, it has to apply to every decision that gets made. Every decision, most people get stuck on that.

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Originally Posted by Mundane Gorilla

Nor is anyone impressed when your being your usual tool self either.

You're trying too hard -- to be annoying, and apparently that is the sum total of your ambition. Enjoy being laughed at by nicer people than you, and go fuck yourself and put a smile on your face. Fuck yourself twice, while you're at it, and put two smiles there -- a bit of holiday cheer.

What difference does it make where he is from or what his primary language is? Do you sum someone up by their race and or language preference? Or was that crack meant to be comedic in some way? If that was the intention you missed your mark.

I'm curious. Having some familiarity with Slavic languages, I'm seeing what looks like an eastern European pattern to tw's sentences. It would also account for his distinctly Soviet view of history -- and of U.S. foreign policy, for that matter. Tw's non-intelligent, generally inadequate spelling gets particularly ill considered any time he faces a foreign language quotation or name -- "von Brahm" for von Braun, quotha! Does tw expect us to be as ignorant as he? He's doomed to disappointment. This is a man with zero copyediting skill. Your desperate attempt to find prejudice here will also be disappointed.

Aside from slumming around in the political and current events forums with snide remarks do you actually contribute anything?

And your own stellar contributions under any handle amount to what, again? Evidently, you don't visit Food and Drink much either, you non-searching, ignorant, easily-slapped putz.

Now please make some profound statement regarding my low post count and get back to your scheduled hateful little life.

And you demonstrate your saintly degree of enlightenment in this way, do you?

[snowman]

Here's some REAL perverting of science in the name of fundamentalist BS:

Grand Canyon National Park is not permitted to give an official estimate of the geologic age of its principal feature, due to pressure from Bush administration appointees. Despite promising a prompt review of its approval for a book claiming the Grand Canyon was created by Noah's flood rather than by geologic forces, more than three years later no review has ever been done and the book remains on sale at the park, according to documents released today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER).

"In order to avoid offending religious fundamentalists, our National Park Service is under orders to suspend its belief in geology," stated PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch. "It is disconcerting that the official position of a national park as to the geologic age of the Grand Canyon is ‘no comment.'"

[piercehawkeye45]

*chokes on food*

That is a joke right? Please please please be a joke.

[Hippikos]

For me Al Bore´s "An Inconvenient Truth" is the Mother of Perverting Science for Politics.

How does it feel to have a stalker, tw?

[suncrafter]

Bush sucks. Remember this the next time you think about voting republican.

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Any geology book, textbook or popular read, will tell you the Canyon itself is five million years old or a little less, and will tell you the age of the Vishnu Schist of the lower Canyon.

There might be such a thing as a young -- comparatively young -- schist. Somebody'd have to tell me about it, though...

Suncrafter, toe-tag Democrats may come by it honestly -- a very elderly New Deal Democrat is a friend of mine -- but they are the opposite of smart. The current crop of national-level Democrats aren't worth a vote nor a dime. They think like Socialists, and they are in too much of a hurry to find a substitute, any substitute, for victory in the War On Terror, which they believe in far less than the terrorists who actually killed some of us.

Expect the Dems to behave in one of two ways, and these only: stupid, or treasonous. Since I am neither, I suggest you join me in voting against the Dem candidates, and funding the campaigns of their opponents. The Republic is more important than any party.

[piercehawkeye45]

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

Expect the Dems to behave in one of two ways, and these only: stupid, or treasonous. Since I am neither, I suggest you join me in voting against the Dem candidates, and funding the campaigns of their opponents. The Republic is more important than any party.

No bias there...

We can argue about what party is worse all day long and all you will get is both parties doing the exact same thing but with a slightly different twist. Both parties are power whores that will abuse their power the instant they get it, helping only a select few instead of the majority.

[richlevy]

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

The Republic is more important than any party.

I actually completely agree with that statement. It's just the train of alleged thought that follows that has me completely mystified.

I also believe that the Republic rests upon the Constitution, and that the rush to achieve perfect safety by weakening that framework is a greater threat to the Republic than any terrorist weapon. I do not agree with men who disparage individuals who disagree with the adminsitration, people who claim that those who refuse to meekly submit to authoritarian demands to abolish or bypass Constitutional guarantees to freedom are the enemies of freedom.

Unlike UG, I will not ask for anyone to join me in opposing all Republicans, just those who abdicate their roles in acting to require that the adminstration seek real advice and consent from Congress.

For a man who declares his love of a Republic, UG acts more like a serf in a fiefdom, looking to his lord to protect and command him.

For a country that prides itself on it's 'citizen soldiers', how did we end up with someone like him?

[Urbane Guerrilla]

My, Rich, speaking of alleged thought...

But I've compared your thinking to Mario Cuomo's before -- how does a guy clearly that bright stay so often wrong? And just where is "serfdom" in rejecting the thrust of a given party's policy habits anyway?

It's the Democratic Party's record that has me disenchanted with them. Intellectually, their socialism is all shoddy goods, unworthy of an intelligent electorate, and relying for its success on an electorate that isn't so intelligent.

The Dem Party has not been selling anything I wanted to buy since 1992 and before. My coming to Libertarianism from reading Murry Rothbard in 1983 has made me particularly resistant to the Dem Party's socialistic trend.

Then there's this party's inability at foreign policy: none of the present lot could win a war, though some few of them could probably start a war. But having started a war, then they flag, and as Ann Coulter remarks, declare that the war, whichever and any, is "unwinnable." Recall how utterly clueless the Clinton Administration was in its use of the military -- sporadic, half thought out activity, pursued halfheartedly, withdrawn muddledly. The last Democratic President to win a war was Truman. All since have uniformly dropped the ball. That's a long time to stay this incapable. Was Coulter right -- does the Democratic Party have a tropism towards treason? Or is this mere incompetence -- or would that be better evidenced by at least half of their decisions redounding in the national favor? John Kerry voted against the Contras, and thus for the good of the Communists -- and that one vote was no anomaly in the man's professional life.

If you want the nation to win, nowadays the choice is a Republican, until such time as we have enough Libertarians who think like I do. This is because a major power's political schools of thought have to be able to exert force when necessary, and have the intellectual and spiritual robustness to see it through. If any should lack this, they lack any prospect of attaining any position of power or influence.

I doubt that any Republicans abdicated any role whatsoever -- for they understood and I hope still understand that there's a mess out there to clean up. The Dems have adopted a posture of abdicating any responsibility to act in the Republic's interest vis-a-vis the anti-democrats that are our foes.

For a country that prides itself on it's 'citizen soldiers', how did we end up with someone like him?

I raised my right hand in 1977 and swore to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States from all enemies, foreign and domestic. I stayed in a uniform and a short haircut until 1986. It is in considerable measure because of this experience that I speak as I do.

Now how about you, Rich? Did you commit so far -- or did you have "other priorities?"

[richlevy]

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

I raised my right hand in 1977 and swore to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States from all enemies, foreign and domestic. I stayed in a uniform and a short haircut until 1986. It is in considerable measure because of this experience that I speak as I do.

I took the oath in 1978 but I never wore a uniform (ok, maybe once but it was a training exercise). I never enlisted and it is because or in spite of this that I speak as I do. There are many people besides soldiers who take the oath - Public officials, naturalized citizens, some law enforcement.

Even people who never get the chance can still support the Constitution by simply exercising their rights. The Democratic wave in Congress, and the Republican wave that preceded it were examples of the people doing just that.

Being in the military does not give one special insight into the purpose and care of the Constitution. It also does not disqualify one from doing so. The founding fathers, in fact, created the 2nd amendment partially as a response to the creation of a federal standing army. Maybe they thought that it might be a good idea if local militias stood ready in case a group of guys like UG started organizing within the Army.

Recall how utterly clueless the Clinton Administration was in its use of the military -- sporadic, half thought out activity, pursued halfheartedly, withdrawn muddledly.

You do remember that it was Reagan who pulled out of Lebanon after the barracks bombing, right?

As for Clinton, he did pull troops out of Somalia, but he also managed to help successfully prosecute a war in Bosnia with real international support that didn't cost us 300 billion dollars and 3000 lives.

[tw]

Even Quantum physics (the source of Gb disk drives and new computer memories) is being quashed by the mental midget and his Republican dominated congress. No reason for things to change. From the NY Times of 8 Jan 2007:

Congressional Budget Delay Stymies Scientific Research
Last year, Congress passed just 2 of 11 spending bills — for the military and domestic security — and froze all other federal spending at 2006 levels. Factoring in inflation, the budgets translate into reductions of about 3 percent to 4 percent for most fields of science and engineering.

Representative Rush D. Holt, a New Jersey Democrat and a physicist, said that scientists, in most cases, were likely to see little or no relief. “It’s that bad,” Mr. Holt said. “For this year, it’s going to be belt tightening all around.”

Congressional Democrats said last month that they would not try to finish multiple spending bills left hanging by the departed Republican majority and would instead keep most government agencies operating under their current budgets until next fall. Except for the Pentagon and the Department of Homeland Security, the government is being financed under a stopgap resolution. It expires Feb. 15, and Democrats said they planned to extend a similar resolution through Sept. 30.

Some Republicans favored not finishing the bills because of automatic savings achieved by forgoing expected spending increases. Democrats and Republicans alike say that operating under current budgets, in some cases with less money, can strap federal agencies and lead to major disruptions in service.

Only a dummy in the spirit of Urbane Guerrilla would approve as if only military and Fatherland Security were important. A classic cost control mentality forgets when we spend $2 Trillion on Iraq - a number that will increase because the mental midget is sending more (and too few) troops to Iraq.

Among the projects at risk is the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider at the Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York, on Long Island. The $600 million machine — 2.4 miles in circumference — slams together subatomic particles to recreate conditions at the beginning of time, some 14 billion years ago, so scientists can study the Big Bang theory. It was already operating partly on charitable contributions, ... and now could shut down entirely, ...

Only a president with Urbane intelligence would call that a good thing.

When I was growing up, transistors were the promise of the future. Today, quantum physics is that same future promise.

“Things are pretty miserable for a year in which people talked a lot about regaining our competitive edge,” Dr. Aronson said. “I think all that’s stalled.”

Another potential victim is the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Illinois, where a four-mile-long collider investigates the building blocks of matter. ...

Congress and the Bush administration could restore much of the science financing in the 2008 budget. Scientists say it would help enormously, but add that senior staff members by that point may have already abandoned major projects for other jobs that were more stable.

Other projects ...
A $1.4 billion particle accelerator at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee ...

A $30 million contribution to a global team designing an experimental reactor to fuse atoms ...

A $440 million X-ray machine some two miles long at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center ...

In 2003, Gen Jay Garner accurately reported that we were losing in Iraq. When did you finally see what he knew that long ago? Wars are short term events. Science takes longer. But already American economic development is at risk. Do you see what is happening now, or do you wait for symptoms to become painful. Garner said what was obvious in 2003. And finally in 2007, people are finally 'feeling' reality. The destruction of science - especially to promote George Jr's legacy: finance a man to Mars - is significant and destructive. When does it appear in your pocket? Long after he is gone and famous?