Comments on: House Republicans won’t stop science suppression

By: Moonage Political Webdream » When astronomers tackle politics

Moonage Political Webdream » When astronomers tackle politics — Thu, 26 Apr 2007 17:48:37 +0000

[…] I read Bad Astronomy Blog’s article where he steps outside what he does best and offers political comment. What floored me most was he […]

By: Left to chance » House passes Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act

Left to chance » House passes Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act — Fri, 16 Mar 2007 16:31:26 +0000

[…] suppression of scientific findings for the past few years. Examples of this aren’t terribly hard to dig up. And those are just from my site. Try going to Chris Mooney’s blog, or The […]

By: Moonage Political Webdream

Moonage Political Webdream — Fri, 04 Aug 2006 02:58:56 +0000

Democrats are suppressing science ( does anyone care if it’s NOT Republicans doing it? )…

A while back, I responded to a post on Bad Astronomy when the author decided Republicans were destroying science. I got plenty of hate mail over my rebuttal. He then went at it again not too long ago, citing a…

By: PK

PK — Sun, 18 Jun 2006 23:24:41 +0000

In reality, libertarians will not get elected. And in a two-party system, this means that one should not vote for them. Nice and circular, but what can you do?

By: Max Fagin

Max Fagin — Sun, 18 Jun 2006 23:08:43 +0000

It’s true, the libertarian party does put smaller government as #1 on their list. In general, Libertarians believe that a government’s job is to provide police, courts, roads, defense and nothing else. So it would seem that NASA would get the ax if Libertarians are elected. But in reality, it’s not that bad.
You’ll find several members of the Libertarian party (like me) who see the work of NASA as important for this reason. It fulfills the even more important job of ensuring our survival.
Carl Sagan once said that â€œAll civilizations become space faring or extinctâ€ It is for this reason that many Libertarians are willing to grant an exception to space science and space travel.

By: Tom

Tom — Sun, 18 Jun 2006 18:30:58 +0000

On the Libertarian side of things…

I’ve supported Libertarian candidates in the past (mainly due to a lack of choice on the part of “The big two”), and believe that while an official Libertarian position would involve an endorsement of science, their ideas of much smaller government (which I support in principle) would likely not sit will with the science researchers posting on this blog, if I read their interests properly.

Just to give an example, I heard one interview with a Libertarian presidential candidate (I think it was in 2000) who was going to get rid of income tax. The reporter seemed shocked at this, asking how the government could survive without that income. The response was “by doing much less.” Something tells me that the recent space mission cuts would seem to be a gentle shower compared to the downpour of mission cancellation to adjust to a “no income tax” budget. I haven’t followed the party close enough to know if the tax idea is still on their radar.

Ganted, related to this post, the answer may be “Minimal science funding may be OK, as long as someone feels free to whistle-blow about it” but I think that would be an oversimplification.

By: PK

PK — Sun, 18 Jun 2006 13:39:23 +0000

Adrian says: “What do they do in Europe?”

The EU allocates a certain amount of funding (called a Framework), which is about â‚¬73 billion for the period 2007-2013 (Framework 7). The areas that will be funded were determined during a consultation stage with the EU parliament, the member states, the scientific community (which is pretty much global), and industry. Once the money is in place, research areas organise in large collaborations (with funny acronyms) and try to secure a slice of the pie. Individual research grants are then doled out on the basis of (internationally) peer reviewed grants.

When your research is not funded (after appeals to the committee), you can’t go to the courts, because the political battles have already been fought at a higher level.