Posted on 10/01/2004 5:05:06 AM PDT by foolscap
DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) -- Mixing science and politics, Nobel laureates and former presidential advisers are heading to campaign battleground states with a message that George W. Bush is no friend of scientists and should be replaced by John Kerry.
"They feel strongly that President Bush has used ideology to distort scientific integrity in energy policy, the environment, global warming, AIDS politics, bioterrorism preparedness and in a number of other areas," said Joy Howell, spokeswoman for the newly formed Scientists and Engineers for Change.
The group, which includes 10 Nobel winners and two former presidential advisers, accuses Bush of spending too little on research and appointing people who aren't qualified for top government science positions.
Bob Hopkins, spokesman for the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, dismissed the group's message, which he said "has nothing to with science and everything to do with politics."
"President Bush has been a strong and generous supporter for science," Hopkins said. "He has increased the federal R&D (research and development) spending by 44 percent to a record $132 billion."
Members of the scientists' group were among 48 Nobel laureates to sign a June 21 letter endorsing Sen. Kerry, the Democratic presidential candidate.
Lyle H. Schwartz, recently retired director of the Air Force Office of Scientific Research, said the nation's investment in science over the past half century had had a great impact on the economy and national security.
"That investment is seriously threatened by policies ... since the Republican takeover of Congress, and in particular over the past 3 1/2 years with the present administration, he said.
Schwartz said Kerry and the Democrats would provide more support.
Other participants include Vint Cerf, one of the Internet's founding fathers; Nobel laureate Harold Varmus, director of the National Institutes of Health under President Clinton, and Maxine Singer, president of the Carnegie Institution.
Scientists are taking their message to colleges and universities in battleground states, including Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Oregon, Virginia and
So, scientists who are employed at the nuclear weapon labs the Kerry wants to close are supporting him?
Robert Stadlers OF THE WORLD UNITE!
Maybe they can meet up with Mike (The Moron) Moore. Since all they will be doing is singing to the choir.
Is Linus Pauling still above ground?
Yeah. Guess they had to postpone their studies on flatulent cows' effects on the environment... Gee... how sad.
Is this the same "Nobel" group that gave Arafat the "Peace Prize", oh yeah they have status with me.
I'm a scientist. My brother is a scientist. I think Bush is the best thing to happen to this country since sliced bread.
I forgot to add, so does my brother.
No
I am wondering which Nobel Prize winner these are. Did they all get their award in science or in litertature and the arts.
That means he can/will vote in Illinois and/or Maryland
Untenured con-men begging for taxpayer bucks.
Need a job? A got one digging fence post holes. Pays $5 an hour. Wonder if a scientist can apply his theory and dig faster and rounder holes.
The way I read this is that the guy's funding has been cut for his pet project, and he might have to get a real job.
Anytime a "scientist" is ticked off by something follow his money trail.
Dr. Mary Good, former Undersecretary for Technology of the U.S. Department of Commerce and former chairwoman of the National Science Board
Dr. Margaret Hamburg, former Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
More clinton people.
>>I am wondering which Nobel Prize winner these are. Did they all get their award in science or in litertature and the arts.
My question, too. And if they were "sciences", were they the "sciences" that have to have "science" in the name, so you know they are "scientific". You know, like "social science", or "environmental science".
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The National Science Board has selected Dr. Mary Good, dean of the UALR Donaghey College of Information Science and Systems Engineering, recipient of the 2004 Vannevar Bush Award.
"UALR and the CyberCollege are privileged to benefit from Dr. Good's expertise, leadership and ability to champion all kinds of research. She has a gift for generating enthusiasm for it among students, faculty, community partners and philanthropists," UALR Chancellor Joel E. Anderson said.
Dr. Good, 72, returned to her home state less than five years ago to head UALR's Donaghey CyberCollege, one of 20 academic institutions in the country with a Virtual Reality Center featuring a 3-D COVE immersive environment. Since then, she has expanded UALR's partnerships with Arkansas companies and has recruited more than 30 new, world-class faculty members from institutions like MIT, Purdue and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology.
"It is an honor to receive an award named after Vannevar Bush, who is considered the father of federal research and development from WWII until now," Good said. "It also provides a wonderful opportunity to recognize the research being done by students and faculty in the CyberCollege and UALR, as well as in Arkansas."
Former chair of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the world's largest organization of scientists, Dr. Good has held positions in both the public and private sectors. She was undersecretary of technology administration at the U.S. Department of Commerce, where she mitigated or removed many regulatory barriers to enhance the nation's position in global markets. She formulated policies that improved U.S. innovation and productivity and helped develop policies that shaped the nation's economy during the growth of the Information Age.
Dr. Good joins Dr. Oliver Sacks and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation as this year's honorees the NSB is recognizing for increasing public understanding of science or engineering.
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One of the better "Clinton people".
The names of the laureates signing the letter are at the bottom of the link above. Chemistry, Medicine, and Physics are their fields. Choose a name and Google it to see what they did (my favorite is Arno Penzias, one of the discoverers of the Cosmic Background Radiation that is the remnant signature of the Big Bang that created the Universe -- scientifically speaking, of course.)
Why is it that these loudmouths get to speak for ALL of us involved in the sciences?
Makes me ashamed of my education....
Bet they all want tax increases, too...
bump for publicity
Another Triumph of Seeming. No one did more harm to scientific research than Clinton/Gore with their Riady style crony capitalism. Bush has done far more to boost good science R&D, although major changes are needed that he seems blind to.
They got their awards in the sciences, but it should be noted that most of them are over fifty, and either came of age during either the Oppenheimer hearings and the beginning of the Cold War, or during the Vietnam War. I'd like to know what the political leanings of most scientists under fifty, who came of age in the eighties and nineties, are and if they contrast strongly with the two previous generations.
No the awards are in Physics, Chemistry and Medicine.
What do other scientists you speak to think of Bush? Do you find in general that the scientific community is more conservative than the press seems to make it out to be?
A good deal of the faculty in my department coincidentally got their degrees from Berkeley, so I'm not sure that the people I work with day-to-day is really representative, but I would say the majority lean liberal. On the flip side, One senior faculty member is actually on leave in order to act as Bush's assistant secretary of defense for nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons. He gave a lecture recently in which he talked about interviewing Iraqis whose job was to shoot other Iraqis whose job was to bury "unidentified material" out in the desert. He is quite conservative, and another professor who happens to be the most respected and well-known researcher in the department also leans conservative, I believe.
One has to ask. Just look at some of the "scientists" that have signed some of these Global Warming letters.
Quite incidentally, the Republican physicist in Congress, Vernon Ehlers (who has a far more distinguished science career than his Democratic counterpart, Rush Holt) is also a Berkeley graduate, and has been on the defense regarding Bush science policy.
And a lot of the people in the UCS aren't scientists at all.
Ping
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