He talks about why this particular administration and it’s party are particularly at fault. Part of his answer is the fundamental basis of conservatism, which is a political philosophy that resists change and strives to retain the status quo. Science is all about change, adaptation as information grows.

“The dynamism of science — its constant onslaught on old orthodoxies, its rapid generation of new technological possibilities — presents an obvious challenge to more static worldviews. From Galileo to Darwin and beyond, this conflict has played out repeatedly over the course of history.”

But there’s more to it than just the underlying conflict of attitudes of change vs. constancy. The modern Republican Party has built its power base upon two key constituencies: Commercial Industry and the religious right. Both groups have strong reasons to abhor science outcomes in certain areas.

Commercial Industry has been attacked by many over scientific results of the effects of their behaviors. Companies are subject to governmental controls on the basis of the health and safety effects from their products and actions, so they are motivated to fight the science that is being used against them. So they fight the data, they fight the interpretations, and they try to present their own studies that show what they want the outcome to be. Their economical advantage is in confusing the science and making their own “science”.

Religious conservatives are fighting the appearance of attack upon their beliefs by science (i.e. Evolution), which gives them strong motivation. They are also tempted to defend their moral agendas, and since our modern world revolves around science and uses science to study effects, they try to shape the science to support their moralistic agendas.

There are other factors at work. Conservatives’ distrust of big government gets aimed at scientists and science agencies funded by the government or taking place at government agencies. Also, science gets labeled as “liberal” because of the connection to academia and universities. Combine that with the “educated East-coast liberals” vs. “red state” commoners attitude held by many conservatives, and you can see that science is getting all the negatives from their point of view.

All of these factors combine to place the modern Conservatives that are the strong power base of the Republican Party at odds with science as a whole, and driving them to push their own agendas at the expense of good science.

Mooney does acknowledge that some on the Left are as guilty of science manipulation as those on the Right. He specifically mentions environmental groups and their concern over genetically modified foods, mercury pollution, and even embryonic stem cell research (hyping quick cures). But his emphasis is on the Republicans because their power base currently is more widespread and deeper involved in the abuse of science, and this administration is especially guilty of swaying the facts to fit their own agendas. It is not isolated groups within the Conservative faction, the way it is in the Liberal faction. It is a widespread and deliberate action by this administration.

Mooney does advocate supporting Republicans who show support for science – such as John McCain. However, he points out that so far the moderate Republicans haven’t had much effect in mitigating the right wing of their party.

“The Bush admisistration has alienated and spurned moderate Republicans such as former EPA administrator Christine Todd Whitman and former treasury secretary Paul O’Neill, who wanted to take global warming seriously rather than hide behind distortions and evasions of reliable scientific consensus.”

His attention is partisan, because the attacks on science are particularly coming from one party. He is also concerned on a more general level, but feels the Republicans are right now especially guilty and deserving of particular response. His recommendations for action are aimed more generally and applied in an even-handed manner.

Filmmaker Morgan Spurlock, of ‘SuperSize Me’ fame has purchased the rights to The War on Science. We may get a great documentary about this in the near future.

Phil – I hope you are a part of it!

I wish I could remember IF I EVER voted FOR someone rather than against the lesser of two evils! (At least I voted!)

In the future, please say what you mean and stop mincing words.

I love Fred S’s description of a political nudist. He and I could probably sit and discuss over a beer where our opinions differ without ever screaming at each other. Like I said I hate both extremes, but just feel in the big picture and the long run, where the distortion of science is concerned the left is less harmful than the right. I’m not saying more correct, I’m not saying they’re not just as guilty of spinning science for political gain, I’m saying in my opinion what they are spinning is less dangerous in the long run, I’d still like it to go away completely, but in the meantime I’ll point out issues with the current administration whatever it is, and currently there is a great need to point out just how abused science is by this administration. I wish I could remember the last time I voted FOR someone rather than against the greater of two evils.

Seriously, if you are posting links to National Review or Mother Jones, you need to seriously start thinking about deprogramming yourself. If you call yourself something like an “old unabashed Leftist” you need professional help, because that is a complete reality disconnect.

A pox on ALL you ideologues and political wonks. A burd-flu, ebola-like pox on every last worhtless one of you. You are no different than the ones you are criticizing, and you are going to bring nothing but ruin to the future.

http://www.motherjones.com/news/featurex/2005/05/world_burns.html

The problem is simple: if you confuse the public enough for a long enough period of time, they become fatigued and don’t care.

Add to that “organizations” that are propped up and used only to destroy research by reputable scientists. Perfect example: Global Climate Coalition. Check their website. They claim to have been “deactivated.”

http://www.globalclimate.org/

The topic is war on science. War means interactions with an enemy. Who are the enemy? (We need to read the book Phil mentioned, of course.) How do we confront them? How do we identify them? What can we do about people spinning for advantage? Aside from sharing opinions on a dedicated blog site, what can we do in our communities? I suggest calling government and political offices and raising awareness about the issue. Let science oriented government and political offices know the public is actively interested, not just posting blog opinions, about their honesty. I suggest that asking people how to deal with this, is a way to get their minds engaged. When someone says “It’s the Republicans,” reply with, “How could that be proved? What can be done to find that out? What can be done to prevent it? Is it parties or power that’s involved?” Action. Facts. Research. Research means asking questions. Basic to asking questions is, what questions do we need to dig out the facts?

Peoples minds are engaged better when they’re thinking about questions to ask, better than when they’re defending against attacks or staring at opinions. That’s my opinion. My question is, what can we do about it? What interactions with other people are going to raise awareness? I maintain that pushing our opinions on them will meet with resistance. Asking them how to deal with it might work.

What interactions with others, including the places where the lies supposedly come from (political and government offices), would help to uncover the lies, raise awareness, and change things?

As Fred demonstrated with his argument but didn’t quite make the point, energy is mass in the sense that energy-density will cause the curvature of space (i.e., put it on sufficiently accurate scales and you’ll find an increased weight, as with the box of photons).

In a more traditional sense, the heating up of molecules will increase the potential energy of the molecules (vibrations). Since this energy is located in the molecule, it will appear as a larger mass, but it is still energy. For a clear-cut energy-to-mass conversion, you probably have to look at the creation of heavy particles out of lighter ones.

(Of course it is important to set the records straight to prevent the misuse of science as well)

On your children’s question — Yes, energy is being converted to matter all the time. I guess the best example is absorption of light. When, say, your car absorbs sunlight, its temperature is raised, and this raises its mass. If a body of mass m is heated from T0 to T1, its mass per molecule increases by something like k(df)(T1 – T0)/c^2, where df = degrees of freedom for its constituent molecules (anybody who’s up on their stat. mech. can surely improve on this). Admittedly, this is a change so tiny as to be unmeasurable, but it can be seen from considering what takes place on the atomic scale, where the molecules pick up extra kinetic energy, thus gaining a little mass with respect to the center-of-mass of the body (by special relativity). But in principle, if you had a scale sensitive enough, you would see the increase. Also, if you had a cubical box of perfect mirrors with photons bouncing around inside, the photons would add mass to the box in the amount of E/c^2. This mass would be measurable with a good enough scale, and it would also act as a source of gravitational attraction.

A similar effect occurs when you charge a battery. Electric energy is then converted into mass. You can calculate the amount, dm, of the increase by knowing the current, I, flowing into the battery, the length of time, t, charging occurs, and the potential, V, of the battery. I think this is typically on the order of 10^-9 or less of the mass of the battery, even for a full charge.

dm = I * t * V / c^2

Another sort of process where this occurs is when a high-energy gamma ray encounters matter, resulting in pair production, usually an electron-positron pair. (Evolving Squid sort of stole my thunder on this one

On the main topic, I really don’t have a lot to add to what’s been said, about 80% of which is valid, IMHO. As one who has worn the coats of several political persuasions over the course of several decades, I find myself proud to be a nudist today, though leaning ‘conservative.’ There are a few good people in politics today (of both major parties), but mostly we seem cursed with sycophants (of both major parties). My personal view is that for some years now, most of the worst has been from the left, but the few very worst seem to be on the right, giving the political scene a curious, moribund asymmetry.

As one science-type and skeptic to a like-minded group, I would underscore what has been said a few times here already — that in matters of politics as well as science, it makes all the difference to get the facts, and I can assure you that you won’t get enough of this diet from the great bulk of mass media to keep a paramecium alive. I have recently discovered a remedy: C-SPAN (and C-SPAN radio), where you get all of what congresswoman X or senator Y or the pres. said, not the cherry-picked snippets fed to us by the rest. (Just think back to all the times you’ve seen astronomy news mangled in the press or TV, then consider what they do to any other field of coverage that you don’t have first-hand knowledge of. And here again, there are always a few exceptions.)

Well, the people trying to hijack the Republican Party are doing so on several fronts, one of them being certain key points of science. In the end they will not succeed, because at base, some of their most cherished views are anathema to the true philosophy of the party. I like to ask, ‘What would Ike have done?’ You can bet he’d have no truck with attempts to bring thinly-veiled religion into the science curriculum (and, remember, it was Ike who established NASA).

The other reason the hijackers will fail is that the facts are simply not with them. My dad had a saying (obtained from I know not where): ‘There is no greater tragedy in life than the wanton murder of a beautiful theory by a brutal gang of facts.’ And therein lies the essential difference between scientific thought and misguided adherence to any dogma, be it geocentric astronomy, creationism, communism, or political correctness. We in science follow the facts, wherever they lead, regardless of what we would personally like to believe.

I guess it boils down to this — religion and science don’t mix, in the sense that neither one can materially inform the other; they mix perfectly in the sense that they each cover aspects of the world that the other has nothing whatever to do with.

jbs

By “True Believers”, I meant those who believe something their religion tells them even when the overwhelming weight of evidence says otherwise: creationists, flat earthers, etc. Not Christians in general, or even conservative Christians as a whole. (I think the word “Believers” there may have encouraged misunderstandings.)

If the president believes in creationism, then yes I include him. I wouldn’t include the majority of Americans, because 1) a majority of them didn’t vote for him (a slim majority of registered voters did, assuming no major fraud in the election), 2) voting for president doesn’t necessarily mean endorsing the candidate’s view on every issue, and 3) he hasn’t specifically come out in favor of creationism.

Clarification: The title of this blog entry is “War on Science”. The title of the book mentioned is “The Republican War on Science”. As you say, this article is not just about that book.

Jeff Tibb Said:
> This is why I said that I would stay here for a short while yet to see if there is more to this than a daily bash on the current administration and people of faith in general (the ID piece specifically).

I just reread the “Truer Words…” article, and I still can’t find justification for the remark about a bash on people of faith in general. Perhaps you could point out (either here or in that thread) what exactly is directed at people of faith in general.

>Thank you for adding the link. My comment of course was about Phil not giving us any info.

As I understood this article, it wasn’t so much about the efforts of the Republican Party or this administration, but rather about the observation of the difference between science and politics. The observation was gleaned from a certain conversation with a certain person, so he was placing the observation in context and citing his source, and providing background for the audience (us). Therefore, specific examples were not really necessary because they weren’t the point of discussion. Read the summary again:

“I don’t care if you’re Republican or Democrat, what’s happening in the U.S. is a wholesale dismantling of one of our most precious resources: the scientific ability to sort truth from fiction. This ability is what my website (and blog) are all about, so I intend to be more active in this field in the future.”

Note that he specifically is talking about the efforts to distort science, no matter who the source.

>I don’t know if the data you bring to the discussion is mentioned in the book or not. However, the organization that you quote, the “Union of Concerned Scientists” is not exactly ‘above’ playing politics itself.

I don’t know what is in the book. I linked to that site because I could find it and knew it would have a list of the type of things involved. Whether you agree with the organization is up to you to decide.

Bill 34543, I don’t think one can come up with a scientific evaluation of who lies more by polling people on their opinions.