Por riba Myrmecos Alex Wild acaba de chamarme a atención un ataque bastante persoal dun par de senadores republicanos (Tom Coburn, R-Okla., e John McCain, R-Ariz). Unha vez máis empecei a comentar, pero tendo en conta o preto da casa isto golpea, Sentín que se achegaba unha diatriba máis longa…
Aparentemente, o meu traballo é un desperdicio de diñeiro xigante. Financiamento da Academia de Ciencias de California (o meu empregador) recibiu, está sufrindo un ataque directo. Ok, meu posición non ten nada que ver con Antweb e non estou apoiado con fondos públicos – pero algúns dos meus compañeiros son. Compañeiros que teñen exactamente o mesmo posto de traballo que o meu, traballar unhas portas máis abaixo, e pasan a traballar en diferentes proxectos financiados con diferentes fontes. O que isto se resume non é só unha guerra republicana contra a ciencia (vai buscar ese libro), senón unha guerra republicana contra o intelectualismo. Todos os que a man pequena e escamosa elaborou este informe non só son ignorantes deliberadamente, senón que están sendo francamente deshonestos. Cal é a súa premisa principal non declarada aquí? A falacia lóxica corre nalgún lugar na liña de…
A) Os demócratas malgastan cartos porque non estamos no poder.
B) Ao sinalar onde están estes cartos “desperdiciado” axudaremos a salvalo e á súa vez congraciarnos cos votantes.
B) Apoio á ciencia (por exemplo. gasto despilfarrador) é a causa dos nosos problemas económicos.
So to be explicitly clear the massive unstated major premise and logical fallacy is “science funding is causing our economic problems (among other things we deem unfit)”. Somehow they are telling the American people that they would do a better job of not spending money on such silly things like “science”. They would “create American jobs” by not giving jobs to American scientists. So if were let the republicans cut the funds what would happen? That money wouldn’t support a curator, a team of students, technical-staff (just like myself), general museum staff, the American businesses that build our equipment and the domestic airlines that fly us around the world. This isn’t even approaching the secondary benefits that come from the research itself that are much more valuable and slightly more intangible. Alex is right of course – Antweb is a massively powerful tool used world-wide to help identify a group of insects that impacts our lives on the scale of trillions of dollars annually (on a global scale). This is the same sort of logic that forced the cancellation of the superconducting super collider in Texas. Following the wake of that decision was a mild recession in Texas followed by a ‘brain drain’ that drew physicists out of American institutions and to Europe where the LHC was constructed and put online last year. Thousands of jobs were lost in construction and thousands of long-term science jobs were never created.
I’d like to know who sets these republican strategies and where he gets his giant black cape and the white cat that sits on his lap (Cheney-mart?). Somewhere far, far away exists a think-tank where they decide the best strategy is to willingly mislead the American public because they know they are fundamentally ignorant (extrapolating Alex’s idea). This is of course to their massive benefit because while on one hand they cater to the beck and call of big business yet on the other hand they tell the populous that it is them they are watching out for most of all. And in the end they get away with their appalling condescension without anyone being the wiser and they get to call it patriotism. Of course only John Stewart will aptly point this out to the mass-media, which is never really heard by the audience who really needs to hear it most.
Much of this comes from the strange logical fallacy of the “real” American (akin to the naturalistic fallacy where ‘natural’ things are good, like arsenic right?). A blue-collar, hard-working, deeply republican, gun-toting, fundamental christian who goes by the name “Joe”. They are at odds against us regular “Chris the scientists” who are out there sitting on piles of their tax dollars snorting giant mounds of cocaine and flying around the world catching bugs. Yet I believe in a free market (albeit regulated), pay taxes, rent an apartment, drive a car, own a gun, work hard and have the freedom to not believe in God. Yet somehow I’ve been rounded down to wasteful spending that doesn’t count as a job. To me, and likely to all of my readers, we slap ourselves in the forehead and wonder how we got here in the first place.
So whose fault is it? Somewhere along the line we massively stopped valuing science and science education. Our numbers are slipping in health care and education on a yearly basis. The average American sits at home on their couch growing roots out of their ass and fails to realize science is responsible for almost literally 100% of their daily life. Every month we are presented with infinitely more complex technology that widens the gap between the user and developer. And so here we are careening towards a future where scientists will exist as part of a mysterious class orphaned from society that not a single person understands. Perhaps not elevated on ivory towers as powerful magicians who control the world – but more like mole-people who are relegated to the underworld allowing our flying cars to operate. And as Arthur C. Clarke famously quipped, “unhany sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” – we now hold devices in our pockets that do more than a $4,000 computer could do five years ago. How this happens seems like magic – and when this magic crosses the lines into science and health we lose track of reality.
And so with a closing thought from Sarah Palin (emphasis not my own):
It’s about stopping Obama, Pelosi and Reed from what they are doing TO our country.
