8 ms·

Even if you don't expect any scientists to want to be on a Republican ticket, why refuse to support prospective scientists who would do so? There might not be

by cderwin 10y ago

Even if you don't expect any scientists to want to be on a Republican ticket, why refuse to support prospective scientists who would do so? There might not be many conservative scientists, but I'm sure they exist. The only answer that seems feasible to me is that they're not really interested in getting scientists elected, instead they're more interested in scientists who are willing to abuse their authority to promote progressive causes.

MaxfordAndSons 10y ago
Maybe it's just based on a political calculation that a candidate who believes in climate change would have a vanishingly small chance of getting elected on the Republican party ticket given that they'd be in direct opposition to a core plank of their national platform.
croon 10y ago
I'm all for changing parties from within, but with: * Life starts at inception * Man-made climate change * Evolution (taught in school) * Not a single payer healthcare system when comparing to any industrialized country on earth * Anti-consumer ethics in FCC, compared to any other industrialized country on earth * Tax policies clearly aimed at keeping money flowing upwards, only very slightly veiled, yet again compared to any other industrialized country on earth all being partisan issues, can you rise in ranks and still be a republican while opposing those views? While anti-vaccination movements and GMO fears are more prevalent in liberals, they ARE spread across the spectrum, as well as not being party issues. I have read no attempt to legislate against vaccinations. If "progressive causes" == science backed causes, then go right ahead.
- hueving 10y ago
  >If "progressive causes" == science backed causes, then go right ahead. No, "progressive causes" will be whatever is in vogue in the party. So anti-GMO with labeling campaigns and leverage the scientists to cast doubt on their safety would be very possible. Perhaps it will be to convince people that science has shown that people with more money are evil and should be jailed based on the UC Berkley study with the BMWs.
  - croon 10y ago
    I of course can't know, but I estimate that about 0.1% of Bernie support were because of GMO labelling. The real question is WHY something is in vogue. Sure, money doesn't mean evil, but I have no trouble believing that money is the root of a ton of obviously bad policies and legislation. The healthcare, tax code, FCC points above, and many more.
  - redler 10y ago
    Anti-vax lunacy trickles through both parties, and gets little mainstream traction (although that may change with Trump injecting oxygen into the movement). But if you're running as a pro-science Democrat who is not an anti-GMO bandwagoneer, you will generally not find yourself blackballed by the party or opposed on your flank by billionaire string-pullers obsessed with purity tests on this issue. The Democratic party does not have the same ideology enforcement infrastructure that so tightly binds the Republicans; that's a strength if you think monocultures are pathological, but a weakness if you're looking for lockstep execution of some received ideology. Accordingly, if a Democrat is in power and the findings of a science-based agency contradict some policy desire, they would sigh and fret and perhaps try to initiate other studies to see if there's any other way to align their policy goals with reality. But you would not see scientists and entire agencies of thousands of workers gagged, studies removed, data destroyed, conclusions banned. You would not see them scrambling to align reality with their goals and literally banning facts. It's little exaggeration to say the Trump administration is now engaged in book-burning. Whatever the flaws of the Democratic party, what's "in vogue" with the party is an epiphenomenon, not the driver. If you want to run as a pro-science non-religious Republican, you are desperately needed for the health of the US political system -- but you will almost certainly be structurally unable to do so.
    - nonbel 10y ago
      >"Accordingly, if a Democrat is in power and the findings of a science-based agency contradict some policy desire, they would sigh and fret and perhaps try to initiate other studies to see if there's any other way to align their policy goals with reality. But you would not see scientists and entire agencies of thousands of workers gagged, studies removed, data destroyed, conclusions banned. You would not see them scrambling to align reality with their goals and literally banning facts. It's little exaggeration to say the Trump administration is now engaged in book-burning." So if one political party is in power they will ensure BS results are generated to support whatever they wanted to do anyway, if the other is in power they get rid of any results they don't like? Both strategies act to lower the signal/noise ratio, just by different means. One adds to the noise, the other removes the signal. Sounds like a great place to do research, the people funding it are actively creating obstacles for the scientist at every turn.
- hueving 10y ago
  >I'm all for changing parties from within, but with: The Democrats were once pro slavery and the parties have effectively flipped positions of support for various things throughout the years. The parties change because people that try, not people that dig their heels in on their side that just got slaughtered in the election.
  - croon 10y ago
    You're right. But if you want to make a car, would you start from a motorcycle or a boat? There's a lot more work to be done by going through the GOP.
- RcouF1uZ4gsC 10y ago
  > Life starts at conception Isn't that scientific fact? The zygote is not viable, but it is in fact a living instance of Homo sapiens sapiens. So scientifically, life begins at conception. Now saying that life begins at conception, does not mean that abortion should be illegal. There are legal and philosophical arguments based on privacy and bodily autonomy that say it should be legal. However, this illustrates an important point. Because you wanted to support a political point, you embraced a scientifically incorrect idea. This is not much different than the climate change denialists.
- curun1r 10y ago
  Don't lump abortion in with those other issues that involve denial of either rational thought or scientific evidence. It's an issue where rational people can disagree. The only way that it verges on that is in the fact that people will try to do it anyways, in ways that are historically very dangerous. In that way, it becomes like prohibition of drugs and legalization becomes a harm-reduction strategy. But, like drugs, that doesn't mean that it's a fundamentally good thing. FYI...I say this as someone who is intentionally ambivalent on the issue of abortion. Had abortion been safe, legal and reliable in 1940, I would not be alive to write this since my mother would have never been born. And yet my grandmother would have never been forced to marry her rapist, which basically ruined the majority of her life. In confronting the issue of abortion, I'm forced to weigh my grandmother's life against that of my mother and I. I haven't figured out a way of doing that yet. But it really bothers me when people like you who've likely never had any personal connection to the issue imply that only one side of the debate is rational. Personal nit...life does start at inception, since that's a tautology. The beginning is the beginning. It's life starting at conception that's usually debated.
  - EdHominem 10y ago
    The "but then I wouldn't have been born" argument misses that you have billions of potential first-cousins who never were born. Your grandmother would have had a less assuredly bad life (no idea if it would have been better, but we can only hope...) and someone else would be having this anthropic discussion. > But it really bothers me when people like you who've likely never had any personal connection to the issue Cough. > imply that only one side of the debate is rational. Well, look around at those who believe what you do. Most of them do so because of religion, which by definition is irrational. As an opinion, you're welcome to yours. As policy, it comes with all the rest of the baggage of the religious. > But, like drugs, that doesn't mean that it's a fundamentally good thing. But, like TV, that doesn't mean we should ban it. Control, control, control. Why the need to control?
    - curun1r 10y ago
      > Well, look around at those who believe what you do I've yet to meet another person who is intentionally ambivalent on the issue, so I can't exactly do that. I'm neither pro-choice nor pro-life. I've chosen to remain neutral on the issue and allow others to make the decision since both sides of the debate seem wrong to me and I can deal with either outcome. But I can see both sides of this argument and both sides feel irrefutable to me. That's not to say that the religious origins of many pro-life viewpoints aren't irrational or that it isn't hypocritical to oppose abortion and support war, the death penalty or any of the other anti-life policies often advocated by pro-life supporters. But just because someone arrived at a correct conclusion by specious reasoning or impure motives doesn't make that conclusion wrong. I recognize that many people aren't as conflicted as I am on this issue. I'm happy for them. But to suggest that this issue is one where science and logic makes one position definitively correct and the other incorrect is wrong. It is an issue of morality and philosophical beliefs and, as such, science cannot decide it any more so than religion can.
ocschwar 10y ago
Because even pro-science republicans, if they win election, are going to be under pressure to caucus with and cooperate with the anti-science damn-near-Khmer-Rouge GOP. I actually contacted 314 offering to run as a pro-science republican against my pro-science democratic congresswoman. I won't win, as her support is solid, but I'd perform quite nicely as a pro-science republican candidate to (I hope) shame the rest of the GOP. If they change their minds, you may see me on the ballot.
- nkoren 10y ago
  Thank you. We need more of you. Keep trying!
rconti 10y ago
Or a third party. Limiting it to Democrats is making it partisan. Simply banning support for Republicans makes it anti-partisan. Seems unnecessary to throw in this hurdle.

by cderwin 10y ago

MaxfordAndSons 10y ago

Maybe it's just based on a political calculation that a candidate who believes in climate change would have a vanishingly small chance of getting elected on the Republican party ticket given that they'd be in direct opposition to a core plank of their national platform.

croon 10y ago

I'm all for changing parties from within, but with: * Life starts at inception * Man-made climate change * Evolution (taught in school) * Not a single payer healthcare system when comparing to any industrialized country on earth * Anti-consumer ethics in FCC, compared to any other industrialized country on earth * Tax policies clearly aimed at keeping money flowing upwards, only very slightly veiled, yet again compared to any other industrialized country on earth all being partisan issues, can you rise in ranks and still be a republican while opposing those views? While anti-vaccination movements and GMO fears are more prevalent in liberals, they ARE spread across the spectrum, as well as not being party issues. I have read no attempt to legislate against vaccinations. If "progressive causes" == science backed causes, then go right ahead.

hueving 10y ago
>If "progressive causes" == science backed causes, then go right ahead. No, "progressive causes" will be whatever is in vogue in the party. So anti-GMO with labeling campaigns and leverage the scientists to cast doubt on their safety would be very possible. Perhaps it will be to convince people that science has shown that people with more money are evil and should be jailed based on the UC Berkley study with the BMWs.
- croon 10y ago
  I of course can't know, but I estimate that about 0.1% of Bernie support were because of GMO labelling. The real question is WHY something is in vogue. Sure, money doesn't mean evil, but I have no trouble believing that money is the root of a ton of obviously bad policies and legislation. The healthcare, tax code, FCC points above, and many more.
- redler 10y ago
  Anti-vax lunacy trickles through both parties, and gets little mainstream traction (although that may change with Trump injecting oxygen into the movement). But if you're running as a pro-science Democrat who is not an anti-GMO bandwagoneer, you will generally not find yourself blackballed by the party or opposed on your flank by billionaire string-pullers obsessed with purity tests on this issue. The Democratic party does not have the same ideology enforcement infrastructure that so tightly binds the Republicans; that's a strength if you think monocultures are pathological, but a weakness if you're looking for lockstep execution of some received ideology. Accordingly, if a Democrat is in power and the findings of a science-based agency contradict some policy desire, they would sigh and fret and perhaps try to initiate other studies to see if there's any other way to align their policy goals with reality. But you would not see scientists and entire agencies of thousands of workers gagged, studies removed, data destroyed, conclusions banned. You would not see them scrambling to align reality with their goals and literally banning facts. It's little exaggeration to say the Trump administration is now engaged in book-burning. Whatever the flaws of the Democratic party, what's "in vogue" with the party is an epiphenomenon, not the driver. If you want to run as a pro-science non-religious Republican, you are desperately needed for the health of the US political system -- but you will almost certainly be structurally unable to do so.
  - nonbel 10y ago
    >"Accordingly, if a Democrat is in power and the findings of a science-based agency contradict some policy desire, they would sigh and fret and perhaps try to initiate other studies to see if there's any other way to align their policy goals with reality. But you would not see scientists and entire agencies of thousands of workers gagged, studies removed, data destroyed, conclusions banned. You would not see them scrambling to align reality with their goals and literally banning facts. It's little exaggeration to say the Trump administration is now engaged in book-burning." So if one political party is in power they will ensure BS results are generated to support whatever they wanted to do anyway, if the other is in power they get rid of any results they don't like? Both strategies act to lower the signal/noise ratio, just by different means. One adds to the noise, the other removes the signal. Sounds like a great place to do research, the people funding it are actively creating obstacles for the scientist at every turn.
hueving 10y ago
>I'm all for changing parties from within, but with: The Democrats were once pro slavery and the parties have effectively flipped positions of support for various things throughout the years. The parties change because people that try, not people that dig their heels in on their side that just got slaughtered in the election.
- croon 10y ago
  You're right. But if you want to make a car, would you start from a motorcycle or a boat? There's a lot more work to be done by going through the GOP.
RcouF1uZ4gsC 10y ago
> Life starts at conception Isn't that scientific fact? The zygote is not viable, but it is in fact a living instance of Homo sapiens sapiens. So scientifically, life begins at conception. Now saying that life begins at conception, does not mean that abortion should be illegal. There are legal and philosophical arguments based on privacy and bodily autonomy that say it should be legal. However, this illustrates an important point. Because you wanted to support a political point, you embraced a scientifically incorrect idea. This is not much different than the climate change denialists.
curun1r 10y ago
Don't lump abortion in with those other issues that involve denial of either rational thought or scientific evidence. It's an issue where rational people can disagree. The only way that it verges on that is in the fact that people will try to do it anyways, in ways that are historically very dangerous. In that way, it becomes like prohibition of drugs and legalization becomes a harm-reduction strategy. But, like drugs, that doesn't mean that it's a fundamentally good thing. FYI...I say this as someone who is intentionally ambivalent on the issue of abortion. Had abortion been safe, legal and reliable in 1940, I would not be alive to write this since my mother would have never been born. And yet my grandmother would have never been forced to marry her rapist, which basically ruined the majority of her life. In confronting the issue of abortion, I'm forced to weigh my grandmother's life against that of my mother and I. I haven't figured out a way of doing that yet. But it really bothers me when people like you who've likely never had any personal connection to the issue imply that only one side of the debate is rational. Personal nit...life does start at inception, since that's a tautology. The beginning is the beginning. It's life starting at conception that's usually debated.
- EdHominem 10y ago
  The "but then I wouldn't have been born" argument misses that you have billions of potential first-cousins who never were born. Your grandmother would have had a less assuredly bad life (no idea if it would have been better, but we can only hope...) and someone else would be having this anthropic discussion. > But it really bothers me when people like you who've likely never had any personal connection to the issue Cough. > imply that only one side of the debate is rational. Well, look around at those who believe what you do. Most of them do so because of religion, which by definition is irrational. As an opinion, you're welcome to yours. As policy, it comes with all the rest of the baggage of the religious. > But, like drugs, that doesn't mean that it's a fundamentally good thing. But, like TV, that doesn't mean we should ban it. Control, control, control. Why the need to control?
  - curun1r 10y ago
    > Well, look around at those who believe what you do I've yet to meet another person who is intentionally ambivalent on the issue, so I can't exactly do that. I'm neither pro-choice nor pro-life. I've chosen to remain neutral on the issue and allow others to make the decision since both sides of the debate seem wrong to me and I can deal with either outcome. But I can see both sides of this argument and both sides feel irrefutable to me. That's not to say that the religious origins of many pro-life viewpoints aren't irrational or that it isn't hypocritical to oppose abortion and support war, the death penalty or any of the other anti-life policies often advocated by pro-life supporters. But just because someone arrived at a correct conclusion by specious reasoning or impure motives doesn't make that conclusion wrong. I recognize that many people aren't as conflicted as I am on this issue. I'm happy for them. But to suggest that this issue is one where science and logic makes one position definitively correct and the other incorrect is wrong. It is an issue of morality and philosophical beliefs and, as such, science cannot decide it any more so than religion can.

ocschwar 10y ago

Because even pro-science republicans, if they win election, are going to be under pressure to caucus with and cooperate with the anti-science damn-near-Khmer-Rouge GOP. I actually contacted 314 offering to run as a pro-science republican against my pro-science democratic congresswoman. I won't win, as her support is solid, but I'd perform quite nicely as a pro-science republican candidate to (I hope) shame the rest of the GOP. If they change their minds, you may see me on the ballot.

nkoren 10y ago
Thank you. We need more of you. Keep trying!

rconti 10y ago

Or a third party. Limiting it to Democrats is making it partisan. Simply banning support for Republicans makes it anti-partisan. Seems unnecessary to throw in this hurdle.