What is playing out on this thread IS the problem with Americans and science. I'm a scientist. I've been doing it for years. I see it first hand and have to deal with it. Science has major issues and one of the biggest is how bad or weak science is co-opted into causes and becomes concrete dogma...then often it's used to attack a political opponent..and the actual science which is changing gets ignored. Most of the liberal/progressives on this board do it constantly, and then pretend anyone not a believer in the dogma is a "conservative attacking science". That's what the OP is doing...attacking Americans as dumb for questioning "science". People are trying to undermine me for ever suggesting it happens, that should tell you something.
I completely disagree that this is one of the biggest issues in science. It is, in fact, not an issue of science, but of science administration, university and media manipulation. Politicians gonna politick. Scientists are not the issue here; they're not responsible for funding cuts or access issues or for how their research gets co-opted. They're far more often handcuffed by restrictions of their grant funding or their lab head/university. Sure, scientists are trying to advance their careers, and will do so early on by quantity over quality in publishing, and by listening to the "established dogma" of their lab heads or PIs. And I'm not picking nits with your examples about science; I haven't yet on this thread. I'm lumping you in with the evolution/climate change deniers because you chose a thread about America's scientific skepticism to jump on systemic scientific problems. And it's a worthwhile discussion, but perhaps not in the context of why Americans are so bad with science. No one in this thread has suggested that prevailing or common thought doesn't change in science; of course it does. I for one am not trying to undermine you for that at all.
Take your stem cell dig. A common sense/moral restriction on embryonic stem cells arguable precipitated the biggest advances in the field, advances that had to happen and would have happened but probably much later. I was actually agnostic/against the restriction. But what happened? The funding moved to how to get around the restriction and it worked, precipitating huge advances. But you are lamenting the restriction and lumping it into the mythical "conservative attack on science". You bought into science by press release, that stem cells would be instant cures so anyone that restricted it was hurting our future and an idiot. I bet you can't even admit huge advances occurred as a result because the issue is so entrenched in your political views, you can't separate it and could NEVER believe something good came of it. I bet you think I'm attacking ALL science on this thread because you lump me into that category....and think I'm politically motivated when I'm not at all.
This is a hilarious rationalization. Of course you're right that by not allowing scientists to investigate embryonic stem cells, we got a huge leap in other areas of stem cell research. But how could you possibly pretend there is no conservative attack on science. Embryonic stem cells are THE example. There was a socially conservative moral outcry that led to policy/funding changes. It's not a conspiracy theory; it played out in a very loud and public way. I never bought into anything, I was barely out of high school. Something good came out of it in spite of itself, and guess what, that's how science operates sometimes, by accident. People make discoveries in fields they aren't associated with that lead to accidental discoveries. People's hands are tied by policy, funding, or lack of creativity. Of course it happens. But are you seriously suggesting that this is a good reason to tie people's hands? I know you aren't, so why follow that line of reasoning???
Here's another example. I've done a lot of drug addiction research and the major conference is CPDD. We were in Bal Harbour FL once and at that conference some lady who had never been there before showed up and talked about how addiction was a choice, not really a disease. The conference was abuzz with "Bush was trying to interfere with science" kind of talk. It got to a fever pitch with the late night hot tub crowd......going on and on about how evil it was for conservatives to try to influence science (as if liberals aren't trying to do that). The crowd there was mostly behavioral pharm and clinical/human lab friends, quite a few from Wake. After a while I finally piped in and pointed out that...they all research addiction as a choice paradigm, which it is. Was this lady that far off from what they actually believe? Dead silence for a while...and then they agreed they were going way overboard with their criticisms and her view was not really that much different. We all finally decided they called it a disease, she did not. That was it. It was amazing to watch.
Of course politicians on both sides have a skin in science. One has systematically and actively cut biomedical research funding and tried to get Congress involved in the NIH. The other has tried to co-opt for environmental and social affairs. I tend to be more forgiving to the latter.
