Look at any college, and determine ethnic percentages of the students in doctoral Science programs.

Most Americans have it too easy to think.
Meanwhile, Doctoral programs in Theocracy and the likes are always running full.

I remember with fondneess as a curious, science-loving kid, Jack Kennedy's big initiative for public scientific literacy back in the early 60's. Or maybe, I was a product of this program. Especially in childrens programming you couldn't get away from it. There was "Watch Mr. Wizaed", (i'll always remember the battery made from lemons, and strips of copper and steel) and these little spots between Saturday cartoons called "Big World Little Adam". And regular programming - from cartoons to action/adventure movies was more scientifically accurate - not the absurd physics-law violating stuff I saw in movies like "The Day after Tomorrow".

Paradoxically, it is the computer era that may have fostered so much scientific illiteracy and even hostility to science. All the popular computer-programmed simulations of things, from games to TV and movie special effects, (and the whole movies themselves) end up following the creator-programmers whimsey rather, than scientific laws. So, I suspect that, as young people get bombarded with such stuff and indoctrinated in sort techno-capitalist triumphalism, they spend less and less time outdoors observing nature, or if indoors, building or fixing things. Pretty soon, physical laws themselves get percieved as dull, out of style, and can be disregarded. (Not!)

The full import of science is dreaded by the ruling class because it will make economics a pseudo-science governed by the real science of thermodynamics. Profits would therefore become a physical impossibility, a violation of the second law of thermodynamics. Until this issue is addressed, science will not be scientific; it will be just the janitor of Miss Haversham's decaying mansion.

US corporate leaders are not too worried about where their future scientists and engineers are coming from. The universities and academies in China and India will be busy educating them as US educational systems fade into obsolescence.

I didn't know Obama advocates net neutrality. In the long term, that's probably the most important progessive political stance of all, in terms of the impact it will have on the balance of political power in the future.

Three Republican candidates for PRESIDENT didn't believe in evolution. They should have also been asked " Do you believe the Earth revolves around the Sun?".

The current administration is virulently anti-science because they don't want ANY of the truth out. And that's waht science is. Part of the truth. How the heart works. how an ecosystem interacts. Darwin was a theist.

Martin Luther King Jr. said science and religion aren't rivals. But that's true if people are honest. I believe he said, "Religion and Science aren't rivals. Science teaches knowledge. Religion teaches values."

Power doesn't remain in the hands of a people who remain ignorant. Science education is critical for America. Also values education - but that might make youth critically analyze their religious or parents' religious beliefs.

Danger Will Robinson!

All of this is far too vague. Visiting Google as an example of science is about as silly as it gets. Google is nothing but a marketing machine for useless junk, and much of technology is used more for controlling people than liberating them. Publishing an article in the Wall Street Journal is also a suspect way to discuss the need for politicians to become more science literate. And do not add to the hype about John Kennedy and science. When asked, for example, about the affect of exploding nuclear devices into the Van Allen belt--the protective shield in nature that prevents us from natural radiation-- Kennedy's response was " ask Van Allen, it's his belt" thereby deflecting a very serious question into a politicians flip answer. The readers might not know it, but there was a science and technology office, and if one examines the record of that agency, one will discover that there was very little good that came from it, and a lot of bad because it was beholden only to the politicians who used the agency for their own, often deleterious, purposes. Much of science in the universities is controlled, and benefits, business to the detriment of the population. The pharmacutical industry is a good example. University researchers use government money and the industry then uses the results, when there is money to be made, to produce products that are then sold to the consumer at exorbitant prices, even though the citizen paid for the research in the first place. Just as everything else in a business and consumer oriented society, there needs to be direct citizen oversight and rigid regulation, or we will end up with more of a problem than a solution. Bush populates the science institutions with politically correct people, and if there was still an office of science and technology, they would be there as well, with even more dramatic results. And a science advisor to Bush would have been someone, most likely, who did not believe in evolution. The warning here is that one should not be taken in by claims about science benefiting society; always keep in mind the example of the atomic bomb, and how it has affected billions of peoples lives, and puts us all in peril today in the hands of Bush, as well as Musharraf. Politicians and business control science, and as long as they do, we are in grave danger. Adding to that danger is increased science funding, which is much of what the scientists are really about, without first determining how we are going to control science as citizens, adds to the danger.

The Executive Branch has been an intersection for science and politics since Reagan, and numerous collisions and the smoking, wrecked hulks of truth attest to it. In public health, sex education, climate change, evolution and other issues the Republican party has actively suppressed science in the interests of its political agenda. Reagan shamefully stalled on HIV/AIDS and Bush on climate change. It's time that the know-nothing and semi-literate, albeit Ivy League educated, right wingers were put in their place--at home, cooling their heels and watching Fox and CBN.

I must comment,

What complex and sophisticated remarks are consistently added by the posters above, esp: ClassAct, Bill BRG, analysis2008, and AlexLawyer.

Thank you Gentlemen all, you frequently make my day knowing that people with such astounding articulate faculties still populate the Earth!

How can we get a few of you into government?

Cheers,

pac

And forgot PJD!

I think you attract similar intellectual greatness!

I for one feel that supplanting the mainstream media into obscurity via broadband video programing (emphasizing science and grass root politics) is the number one way to entice sharp minds into commandeering the spotlight needed for the U.S. general population to become knowledgeable and effective in political change (and rejecting preda-capitalist TV.) The elite have detected this, imho, via the fallout from youtube and have purposely stalled broadband development with monopolization of the internet providers (consolidation of internet is the new insidious tact the neocons are using.) e.g: AT&T's swallowing up all the baby bells the last few years. Indeed, the U.S. now laggs behind most western nations in internet broadband availability.

Obomber says he's for net neutrality, could he stand up against corporate censorship/preference of router switching?

I wonder?

If I believed Obama could force net neutrality, that would be enough to swing my third party vote from the nader/green camp.

No other issue is as important to resistance of Corporate tyranny as this one is.

PACPLYER -- You're 100% on target:
"No other issue is as important to resistance of Corporate tyranny as this one is."

EXCEPT, that once the Bilderbergers have this, we're ALL going to be BORGized (chipped):

_____ R E S I S T A N C E _______
______ I S __ F U T I L E _______

And the 'planned' elimination of the middle class and any representational or organizational control of our destinies (independence from the control of international corporations = money + energy)

EVERYONE NEEDS TO LISTEN TO THIS, MAYBE THREE TIMES :

The Bilderberg Group - Rulers of the World

This is not a "conspiracy" -- it is a fact of history -- with 60 years of all gov't leaders being members of this secret cabal (interlocking 'directorates' amongst them with Trilateral Commission, IMF, CFR, & davos)

SYNOPSISInterview on KPFA's Guns and Butter Wednesday, November 28th, 2007-- with investigator and author, Daniel Estulin, on his book, "The True Story of the Bilderberg Group", which describes an annual gathering where the European and American political elite, and the wealthiest CEOs of the world, all come together to discuss the economic and political future of humanity. Highly secretive, the press has never been allowed to attend, nor have statements ever been released on the group's conclusions or discussions. Also discussed are the Council on Foreign Relations and the Trilateral Commission.

Ever wonder why the EU didn't participate in Geo the inferiors War in Iraq? Because their string pullers knew that their peoples would have rioted (lots of mid/central Easterners), at hundreds of millions strong, and that would interfered with "their" plans.

They've clearly setup the de-industrialization USA (and the globe's) economy of for what the BILDERBERGERs call "demand destruction", through destruction of our economy (and savings). The money is not lost, but simply re-distributed (as was done in 1929). Poor people (subjugated & threatened) are so much easier to control. Ergo (end game is not end of bin Laden, but us), get ride of middle class

Regardless of your belief, they're committed to destruction of our form of gov't (nation states & borders), that work for us with constitutions and human rights and return of owner/servant class structures = oligarchy

Not to worry, they have and will own our leaders -- until ONE WORLD GOV'T (not ORDER) HAPPENS.

They've been working systematically like recent consolidation of EU (planned US+Canada = N. American Union), since the people of 550 yr old 'Venetian Black Nobility' -- but not the through 'all seeing illuminati eye', but by co-opting the leaders of countries and corporations to become their collective agents of change.

! Talk about being REALLY committed !

Namaste … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … Mahatma Gandhi … … … … … … … … … …
« We must be the change we wish to see in the world »
« There is a sufficiency in the world for man's need but not for man's greed »

Here in Europe we are following the US election circus with a mixture of amusement and anxiety because we wonder why anybody interested in real change still bothers to vote at all. Barack Obama seems very authentic and likeable but how could he change the status quo in a political system so rigged by the financial elite?

Back to the issue of science: analysis8000 - In my opinion a great comment.

Thanks for bringing up the the most important question: Who really benefits from science? How do we judge whether a "science policy" is good or bad and what constitutes progress? Neil Postman pointed out in his book "A Bridge to the 18century" that 6 questions should be asked:

1) Which problem is solved by a new technology?
2) Whose problem is it and how many people are affected by it?
3) Which new problems could result from its application?
4)Which people or institutions will suffer from it?
5)Which people / institutions will gain considerable power /dominance through the application of this technology?
6) Which linguistic changes will be enforced by it? (This is important because language has a great impact on how perceptions and judgements are formed)

His point is that technology (applied science) is not per se always a good thing and only an idiot would welcome any innovation as a benefit to society. The word "innovation" is a good example of point 6) because politicians use it in this sense but it means only something new and says nothing about the value or danger of an invention.

Almost total disregard of questions 3-5 has brought us to the brink of environmental catastrophe ("climate change")fuelled by corporate globalization (read: control)and the sad fact that in an industrialized world people have access to enormous information sources but the most important knowledge (how nature works and how dependent we are on her ecosystems) has been ignored.

Postman rightly argues that science and technology are not just servants of the economy, instruments to increase control and profit and our convenience but that they should be part of moral philosphy because their impact on society and nature is so immense. A new technology always produces winners and losers but the trick is to make the losers believe that it is good for them resp. that it is good for the whole of society. The evidence for this strategy is easy to find: Pesticides, Herbicides, PCBs, Asbestos, Thalidomide and other medical drugs,lead as an additive to gasoline, the whole nuclear industry, and most of the biotech industry.

The latest global threat to our health and environment is the careless application of nanotechnology for household products and clothes to solve problems that do not really exist (e.g.shoepolish that stays on the leather for weeks or to prevent textiles from getting dirty. Nanoparticles are so small (about a millionth of a mm) that when they are inhaled or absorbed through the skin, the body has no defense mechanism for it and they interact with the biochemical microsystems of the cells with -god knows what -consequences.... There has been no thorough safety testing for long term health effects and yet these products continue to appear in the stores...hailed as the lastest achievements of modern science...

So the most important point is not which candidate for the US presidential race is more "pro-science", or which will allocate the biggest funds to scientific research but who decides what research is being done at all and to what end?

The ugly truth is that we have no saying at all in these decisions which affect our lives and those of our children. We are just good enough for footing the bill (not only in a financial sense)....

Is this a democracy?