A science committee that doesn’t get science

http://arstechnica.com/staff/2012/10/editorial-meet-a-science-committee-that-doesnt-get-science/

by chinmoy • 14 years ago

184 116 14 years ago

fusiongyro• 14 years ago

This is basically a Daily Show segment from last week with some additional details thrown in.

prawks• 14 years ago

Articles like this always renew my distaste for discussing politics. There are clear problems with the US's legislative process and elected officials, but there seems to be no way to effectively induce change in them, especially as an individual. Not just riding the science bandwagon here either; partisanship in general, etc. are all incredibly frustrating to discuss, and I'll almost always just stay out of discussions on politics as a result.

I'd love to help change these kinds of things, but I don't feel I could give up my job to start some sort of organization against it, nor do I feel such an organization would gain much traction anyhow. Maybe I'm just an a-typical slacktivist.

Any suggestions on stifling my feelings of futility? It seems the only way to affect change in this country is to get enough upvotes on reddit (see: SOPA). So I'm upvoting this.

goostavos• 14 years ago

I'm right with you on your slactivism. I like the idea of being very involved in politics, but I just cannot stand (a) listening to politicians, or (b) talking about politics.

I just don't have the heart for the current discourse in the country. Every once in awhile, I'll try to go the good citizen route, look into the current issues, and then draw my own conclusion.. but what was all that effort for? I've tried my best to present logical rebuttals to people's points. I try to source only relevant, publicly available government data when possible, but it means nothing. The response I usually get? "Yeah, but.. still.." and then they go back to making their talking point.

"But still.." is not a rebuttal, people.

I spent several hours investigating the energy policy of the candidates. I pulled a bunch of charts from the EPA, compiled them all into an email, and then gave my armchair analysis of the policy given the available data. I was told that "I'm missing the important issue."

So... fuck it. I'll just go back to studying.

jessedhillon2• 14 years ago

IME the role of logic in decision-making has been greatly overemphasized. People need to first be convinced in an emotional/intuitive way, then given logical arguments to support what they are experiencing.

The idea that a person -- anyone, not just "dumb people" -- think first about a matter rationally and then act in a matter consistent with logic, is failing to address a huge component of human behavior: people only behave in their rational best interests if/when they are not emotionally invested in the outcome.

mikeash11• 14 years ago

The current US government is mostly atrocious, but I'm convinced that the American people have the government they, or we, collectively deserve. Congress hasn't become horribly dysfunctional and stupid because they've somehow become disconnected from the people. Rather, the electorate has become horribly dysfunctional and stupid, and Congress simply follows along.

I think the main problem is that our system is set up so that fringe elements have much more power. Voting happens in the middle of the week and is not an official holiday. Who turns out to vote, then? The people who care most passionately will inevitably show up in much greater numbers than people who are less enthusiastic. Passion is great, all else being equal, but I believe that passion correlates strongly with craziness in the political arena. Primary elections are even worse in this respect, since most people don't care about them, and the result is that you end up with two major ballot choices, both of whom are nuts, because the primaries got decided by the fringes.

A lack of term limits means that members of Congress get deeply entrenched, with a result that turnover is not all that high. Why bother voting when the winner is a given anyway? Why bother voting even when the winner isn't a given if it's pretty much a given that the overall structure of power at the national level won't change? And even if that might happen, why bother voting when the other party will just filibuster the shit out of everything anyway?

Finally, the Electoral College means that the decision for the top man in government gets decided by, what, maybe 10% of the total population of the country? Presidential candidates concentrate on swing states because they're the only ones that actually count, and that makes the whole business even more fringe.

In short, it seems like the whole system is rigged to discourage moderate, sane people from wanting to participate in any meaningful way.

I know it works on me. I vote in Presidential elections and midterms, but not enthusiastically. I would never dream of joining a political party, let alone volunteering for one. I hang up on surveys, ignore campaign flyers, and never, ever donate. I haven't even written a letter to my representative in years, after realizing that all it does is generate a mail-merged form response.

wmeredith• 14 years ago

Hands down the best way to affect change in politics is to get involved locally. (e.g. School board, voluntary emergency response services, local PACs etc...)

The only thing more powerful than the lobby is true grass roots (not astroturf). And I don't mean voting in gerrymandered districts, I mean true political activism.

jordanb3• 14 years ago

I think it's easy to miss the forest for the trees. There are billions of problems with the American system, but if you take a step back you see that, as a whole, it works pretty well -- especially in comparison to the rest of the world.

Consider science funding, for instance. Despite the neanderthals on the house committee, US funding is still comparatively extremely generous on a per-capita basis:

http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone...

saraid21614• 14 years ago

This is Hacker News. Most of us are either entrepreneurs or understand the fundamental thinking behind being entrepreneurial. Surely we can do better than upvoting.

If you can't do anything effective as an individual, stop being just an individual. My path has been to develop an idea of what I want government to look like, and then start convincing other people, getting feedback to tweak my vision, and convincing more people. I won't recommend my path, since it's slow and probably will take longer than my lifetime; I have friends who are bootstrapping legislative bodies and know other people who are working on creating better cross-partisan dialogue and so on and so on.

Figure out what you want, figure out what it would take, and start climbing. This is a lot like entrepreneurship. Don't sit in your cube and imagine how much better it'd be to be your own boss; get an idea, get a prototype, get a notion of the market, get going.

javajosh2• 14 years ago

Well Jesus, you can't say something like this and then not share your vision! Not an effective strategy.

woodchuck643• 14 years ago

Partisanship is not the problem, anti-science is the problem. A major political party should not be anti-science and until people who respect science stop voting GOP, this won't get solved.

eru• 14 years ago

Have you considered voting with your feet?

rayiner2• 14 years ago

I think the best thing is to cultivate some perspective, and not hold the political system to unrealistically high standards.

We live in a 236 year old democracy of 310 million people. Let that sink in. We have more people than there are lines of code in an entire Linux distribution. Think of the complexity of a human being, over a human being's lifetime, versus a line of code. We're an incredibly heterogeneous, diverse country that has never agreed on anything, not even on our founding documents.* We are, by virtue of our post-WWII status, the de-facto political and military leader of the world. We're the world's largest economy. We're the world's reserve currency. We have all of the responsibility that comes with that status.

We do not blink twice when we hear of a company like Yahoo (14,000 employees) or Nortel (86,000 employees at peak) becoming unmanageable basket cases. Yet we rail on the President for not getting more done than he does! We forgive Windows for being layers upon tangled layers of bug-for-bug compatible code, but complain endlessly about the complexity of a tax code designed to regulate 300m people acting together in a $15 trillion economy.

I am of the opinion that too many people, especially engineers who maybe have a particular love of simplicity, simply expect too much of the country they live in, and as a result become disillusioned with the whole system.

It is my opinion that these expectations are unreasonable and counter productive. The fact of the matter is that the US government is a paragon of virtue and efficiency compared to most others. Some of the western European countries may have better governments, but they also have far simpler and more homogenous societies to govern. We certainly have a better government than most any country in Asia. China, which has no particular love of anything American, has spent the last couple of decades trying to model their legal system after America's. Think about that: something that most Americans consider to be a broken part of our society, is a model for a country looking to cement it's place among the world's great societies.

So if you're frustrated by the system, take a step back and appreciate the fact that it probably doesn't get any better than it is now. As I've gotten older and this realization has sunk in, I have found politics far more enjoyable.

*) The more you learn about the Constitution, the more you realize it's ridiculous to ask "what does the Constitution mean?" The 40 signatories to the Constitution had 40 different opinions about the meaning of the document they were signing!

maratd• 14 years ago

The more you learn about the Constitution, the more you realize it's ridiculous to ask "what does the Constitution mean?" The 40 signatories to the Constitution had 40 different opinions about the meaning of the document they were signing!

And yet, it is the oldest working constitution that still grants rights to its citizens rarely found elsewhere. It has provided for our prosperity for over two centuries. Whatever it means, it means well.

saraid21614• 14 years ago

Absolutely. Scandinavia is often held up as an example of a set of ideal democratic states. After a friend moved there, I start poking around for details and the first thing I found was a mild warning that they were xenophobic. Visiting Sweden was the first time I had ever felt visible because of my race. It's not that they're racist (they're not); it's just that they're more homogenous so differences become quickly obvious.

> appreciate the fact that it probably doesn't get any better than it is now

I can't agree with this line, but mainly because you're talking about the future. I agree that it probably couldn't be better than it is now, but we can certainly improve it.

> The more you learn about the Constitution, the more you realize it's ridiculous to ask "what does the Constitution mean?" The 40 signatories to the Constitution had 40 different opinions about the meaning of the document they were signing!

There's an entire branch of government dedicated to answering that question on a daily basis, too. Established by the very thing they're interpreting. How's that for meta?

noobplusplus• 14 years ago

doesn't instead of dosen't

sageikosa2• 14 years ago

What would we do without government committees, and how did we ever survive without them?

zb• 14 years ago

We had kings to make our laws unilaterally without parliamentary scrutiny.

sageikosa2• 14 years ago

Not in the US of A.

About 1.75 centuries elapsed between 1776 (when the US said a farewell to kings) and 1958 (when the predecessor committee was established). I guess science in the United States just progressed without non-scientific scrutiny during that time.

At least for the topic at hand.

newbie12• 14 years ago

This post is partisan and too short on supporting facts. The author claims that a couple of goofy public statements by 3 lawmakers mean they don't "get science". That's 3 members on a committee of 40. Also, the scientific debate over climate change is far from settled.

CountHackulus• 14 years ago

How is this partisan? He explicitly calls out both parties.

Ntrails• 14 years ago

I assume partisan is being used in place of 'heavily biased'. I can see it is a reasonable substitution in most cases.

The 'Pure Science' people (similar grouping to the militant atheists) are, like it or not, pretty dismissive of any non scientific opinions and beliefs. This makes many religious people take a very defensive (aggressively so) position on many matters.

This is simply a different version of the "two parties facing each other and calling each other dumb" political system.

Edit: I could be misreading though

freehunter• 14 years ago

And even if only one party was called out, it doesn't mean its partisan. Not all opinions deserve equal weight. If someone started the Anti-Science Party and said the Earth was flat and only 7 years old, it wouldn't be partisan to say they're insane and you wouldn't want them in charge of important decisions, it would just be that this one party happens to be even more insane than the rest and you're calling them on it. The other party might believe the Earth is only 6000 years old, but fact remains that this hypothetical Anti-Science Party is basing their entire campaign on their belief rather than their understanding.

Playing the partisan card is just deflection to avoid the realization that some things simply cannot be argued seriously in a respectable conversation. Pointing the finger and saying "they do it too!" doesn't make your side any better.

archgoon• 14 years ago

What are some questions you feel aren't accounted for in existing climate models? Do they significantly alter the IPCC predictions?

jtc331• 14 years ago

I'm guessing that articles like this are what's he's talking about: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2217286/Globa...

scarmig2• 14 years ago

The scientific debate over climate change is only not "settled" in the sense that scientists still debate the particularities of climate models.

It is settled in the sense that it is known that anthropogenic carbon emissions are a major driver of global surface temperatures.

mikeash11• 14 years ago

"Also, the scientific debate over climate change is far from settled."

Well of course you think the article is bad. You're one of the people they're railing against!

tptacek2• 14 years ago

Assignment to the House Science Committee correlates with a -$46,000 drop in fundraising relative to all other committees in the House. Though Science has oversight over important agencies, like NOAA and NASA, they aren't a lobbying target. The result is that the best & brightest in Congress avoid Science, and adverse selection produces the worst possible Committee.

What's particularly aggravating about this is that there are agencies properly in the purview of Science & Technology that are lobbyist targets, but that aren't managed by House Science. FCC, for instance, is overseen by House Commerce; DARPA, obviously, is House Defense.

The fact of Congress is that if you don't play the game, and get the best committee assignments you can, you lose your seat. Each Congressperson can only have 2 committee assignments. Principled pursuit of the right assignments is thus a bit of a stag hunt.

fnordfnordfnord• 14 years ago

Call me a pessimist. When I see guys like Akin and Broun on a science committee, I assume that it didn't happen by accident, and that they probably have an axe to grind. At best, they may be looking to have their ethics represented on subjects like the ethics or morality of subjects like stem-cell research.

protomyth• 14 years ago

Some committees collect members that senior leadership do not want on other, more important, committees. You can pretty much tell how low that committee is by the amount of vacant seats. It sounds important to us, but as tptacek points out, much business in this area is handled elsewhere.

fghh45sdfhr32• 14 years ago

It's not an accident. It is exactly what tptacek described. Every other smarter/better representative wanted, and got committees which pay them more. And that forced these losers to end up on the science committee.

No accident, but also no "axe grinding" conspiracy. Just simply money.

saraid21614• 14 years ago

<pedantry> You're confusing pessimism with cynicism.

Pessimism is about what is going to happen; like its opposite, it deals entirely in possible futures. A pessimist can say, "Call me a pessimist, but Akin is going to join the Science committee because he's got an axe to grind." Or "Call me an optimist, but Akin was false flagging all this time and when he joins the Science committee, he'll do great things on behalf of science."

</pedantry>

jordanb3• 14 years ago

Planet Money did an excellent podcast on committee assignments and fundraising:

http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2012/04/06/149714908/the-most...

I figured that's where Thomas got his 46k figure but it doesn't seem to be on their graph.

tptacek2• 14 years ago

Nope, The Sunlight Foundation.

joshuahedlund• 14 years ago

> They've been put in place when the US is arguably more dependent upon science and technology than at any time since World War II.

I could say the US is arguably less dependent upon the government's role in science and technology than at any time since World War II. I honestly don't know if that's true, but it would at least be an interesting discussion (I'm thinking of the transitioning privatization of space exploration, for starters); I don't see that it's clearly obvious either way.

_delirium• 14 years ago

I think operationally this is getting more true, but not as much funding-wise, so intelligent control over appropriations is still important. For example, SpaceX is a private company, but largely publicly financed: government contracts provide the majority of their revenue, since they don't yet have significant private-sector clients. If their NASA contract were cancelled (e.g. because a committee cut that program), they wouldn't be solvent as a company.

Also common in the private-sector research world, outside a few big places like MSR that are mainly privately funded. A lot of biotech companies depend on public/private NIH research grants, and the SBIR/STTR programs are also a big source of funds for riskier research in small companies (http://www.sbir.gov/).

cheeseprocedure• 14 years ago

It would be very interesting to see some data on the impact of government-funded blue-sky research (in other words, science that didn't have an obvious short-term commercial application).

Intuitively, it seems like such spending would open up new commercial frontiers for the private sector, but I'm not personally aware of specific examples of net payoff.

777466• 14 years ago

We all know it's an awful situation. But what do you do about it?

hexagonc2• 14 years ago

You know, I feel ashamed every time I think this because I know I haven't fully thought it through, but why do we need to share the same country with these bird-brained politicians? I mean, would it really be so bad to let these people secede and have their own country? Yes, there is the argument that we are stronger (in some sense of the word) together than apart, but who really gains from this arrangement? Let them live in their own middle ages like the Taliban and leave everyone else alone.

bduerst• 14 years ago

Honestly, the solution here would be to give the federal government less control and allow the states to have more control.

The states were established so that U.S. citizens could move to the state with the laws that best suited them.

HillOBeans• 14 years ago

I know I'll probably get down-votes for this, but its probably good that there ARE people who would at least question Evolution and the Big Bang. There are significant problems with both theories, but most people just assume "its a fact" not because they KNOW, just because thats what they've always been told. But there are plenty of reasons to doubt without having to invoke religion.

Roboprog• 14 years ago

Blame Lincoln. The South tried to secede, but the Union of course did not let them. Big mistake, if you ask me, as "holy" as the fighting of the Civil War is presented in this country's history. I think the Northern US would have been better off without the South, culturally and economically.

But what do I know, as most of my ancestors (except for a few natives) came here after the Civil War.

ars• 14 years ago

Because it would only take a single generation for each group to split in half.

Are you planning to to do mass migrations every few years to force people with different opinions to go to a new location?

And why is there a need for geographical separation of ideas anyway?

People have wrong ideas about TONS of things. What makes this one so important that you would split the country over it? For most people the biological origin of the world is a very unimportant issue.

And do NOT answer me that the difference is scientific belief of not, because most people have no understanding of the science at all, no matter what they believe.

What it's actually a proxy for is acceptance of authority or not. Some people believe this authority, some this one - but there is no real difference between them - neither one actually understands the subject matter at all.

zerostar073• 14 years ago

I wonder why people don't see political campaigns as a system ripe for disruption. People are basically voting for their rulers the same way they vote their favorite movie. Kind of scary how anachronistic the election procedures have remained. Certainly a number of actors benefit from it.

pc862• 14 years ago

Because you can't just say "we're going to disrupt the way people campaign/vote/get elected." It is a staggeringly massive government bureaucracy even at the most local levels, and it prevents that kind of change at every point possible.

Edit: Not to mention the fact that as much as we like to pretend all politicians and millionaire slime balls, they're working people providing for their families. Very few are going to entertain the idea of running their campaign in an entirely different way because chances are they'll lose their job if they do.

zerostar073• 14 years ago

I don't see a reason you can't. I believe mass media dominate campaigns because of the sheer amount of money thrown onto them.

saraid21614• 14 years ago

Most people don't actually understand political campaigns. They just think it's that thing over there that I hear about on occasion, and maybe get a phone call from one day.

eli_gottlieb• 14 years ago

Because there's no easy fix, only massive trade-offs between different values.

Does the USA have an exceptionally bad system of government and of political economy right now? Yes, undeniably. The problem is, any talk of improvement brings up fairly deep-running conflicts between Americans about what they actually want from the systems that run their lives.

Surio2• 14 years ago

Now I've seen everything! !Bang!

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SeenItAllSuicide

Surio2• 14 years ago

Downvotes? I don't believe it. To that title, I now humbly add: A scientific audience that doesn’t get humour!

bicknergseng• 14 years ago

I just want to point out something I haven't seen anyone else discuss.

It's politicians like this who push CISPA or the laws in DC attempting to protect the cab industry from Uber's disruption.

While politics seems distant and has totally gone off the deep end these days, this stuff does matter. It helps shape the direction our society decides to take. If everyone in science and tech checks out of politics, politics will move on without and possibly against us. It is unimaginably important for us to continue advocating for science, math, and technology in politics.

Zakharov• 14 years ago

If you look at this from another angle, it's not so bad. Would anyone be angry if there were three pacifists on the Defence committee? A certain portion of the American population opposes science, and as harmful as that is to the country, a democratic system means they get their say.

EDIT: For the record, I wish these people had never been elected, and think the American government should increase science funding significantly. It's not my call, though.

saraid21614• 14 years ago

On one hand, you're right. On the other...

Well, "representation" is not quite what it sounds like. A representative is, by his office, held to a higher (and different) standard than non-elected non-officials. That's why you can say "I wish these people had never been elected".

Effectively, what you're describing here is analogous to a tolerance of intolerance, whereas actual tolerance requires an intolerance of intolerance. The relevant quotation, rather than being "I disagree with what you say, but I would die to defend your right to say it", is instead, "All opinions are not equal. Some are a very great deal more robust, sophisticated and well supported in logic and argument than others."

tete• 14 years ago

Officials not grasping reality? As sad as it is, but I think this stops being newsworthy.

A science committee that doesn’t get science

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