Science and Politics

....or "Why are there no facts in my science?"

I'm taking a scheduled break on notifying you of how the last several bossman meetings went (hint: "Can you meet at 4:30pm at this location not remotely close to work? I 'worked from home' today.") to discuss the jagged and dangerous meeting of science and politics. I am a science grad student, after all.

I read the science debate this year between the two major party presidential candidates. [Aside: my political quizzes suggest that I should vote for the green party candidate this year, which A) I never thought would happen because I'm not a crunchy granola treehugging hippie (although I do love to shop at TJ's) and B) is neat because their candidate is a lady.] It was a thrilling piece of literature, with such gems as:

"Well, I can definitely tell you that the climate is getting warmer. But as for that whole climate change thing? I just don't see the scientific proof."

"We need LESS government.... And it isn't that we need to give more money to NIH and to NASA, its that we need to *regulate* how they spend it better."

"Science shouldn't dictate scientific policy."

"Well, we'll weigh the scientific facts with the financial and regulatory end of things and then see what happens."

But the best one? "Its 'Global' warming, not 'America' warming."

(all comments are summarized from the main page at sciencedebate.org, to prevent readers' heads from exploding)

In this debate, there is a lot of "Yeah, that thing there, thats a problem. This is why it is a problem. We should definitely address it." And almost zero "This is how we address this problem." Now, I went back and read the answers from the 2008 science debate, and I think the candidates did a much better job of addressing questions (ok, at least one of them did). They actually addressed them instead of dancing around subjects with no concrete understanding or methodology.


And I was sitting here, thinking about all of this and then it hit me like a brick of shit, which is to say it made me freeze for a moment and wrinkle my nose in disgust... and say "...REALLY?" This is essentially no different than the politics that are going on in my department at my university right now.

A strong division between two separate, warring factions of leaders? Check.
Vacancy in the uppermost leadership position? Check.
Ridiculous opportunity losses for the department because people don't want to work together? (Pride! "But I want my courses to be the only required ones...") Check.




Excuse me, I'm having an epiphany. It requires me to open this ninth floor window so I can JUMP THE FUCK OUT OF IT.