It’s been an article of faith on the left that the Bush administration has been staunchly “anti-science”, mostly because its positions on AGW and stem-cell research on human beings. However, it looks like the Obama administration is heading in that direction a lot faster than George Bush ever did.
His science adviser is likely to be a man named John Holdren, a man who still believes the long-discredited “Population Bomb” theory of the 1980s and spent the entire decade being colossally wrong about nearly every scientific statement he made. Holdren has been, for almost thirty years, a global warming cultist who believes that we taxpayers should be footing the bill for his crackpot theories.
Yet should you disagree with him, he will call you a “denier” and scoff at your lack of credentials without offering any more proof than his own, frequently wrong, word. If only he could put some of that big brain toward doing science instead of huckstering for his pet political cause (which, best I can tell, involves the old progressive standbys of thinning out the human herd a bit and putting the rest under progressive government control).
The President-Elect claims he wants to “once again put science at the top of our agenda” but with a man like Holdren at his side, he’s proving that politics and the environmental lobbyists matter a whole lot more to him. A few more folks like Holdren and he’ll have something far more akin to a revival tent meeting than a group of scientists.
Tags: Big Government, Climate Change, Environmentalists, John Holdren, President Barack Obama
When I was a member of the local school board (I’ve retired), one of the problems we had was the need to computerize the school. The biggest problem was that we – the governing board – knew nothing about computers. The teachers knew nothing about computers. The Superintendent/Principal knew nothing about computers. We had no idea what we actually needed to accomplish – how to establish goals or what goals to establish. Of course we could hire consultants, but the consultants for the most part were also representatives for companies that wanted to sell us stuff (also called lobbyists, I guess, though we didn’t call them that). We just began. We accepted donations, we bought a few, we hired someone to keep them running. We required all teachers to use the system we established for record keeping, which required that they learn PC programs instead of or in addition to Mac programs. We learned as we went along.
Some 15 or so years later, we seem to have a pretty good program going. It’s mostly a two tiered program, one tier being mostly administrative, the second one being mostly teacher’s record keeping, which of course, ties into the administrative. The kids get computer instruction, and use computers to do classwork and research, but imo, we haven’t approached two remaining issues: use of special computer programs(actually, I don’t know if there are any) to maximise a teacher’s time in a way that enables the slow kids in a class and the advanced kids in a class to progress at a continuous rate while allowing the teacher to concentrate on the average student, and instruction of the parents of the children so that they can be aware of what their children are doing on the computer and the dangers of the internet.
We – the board – were responsible for this program, and we simply didn’t know anything. How do you evaluate information when you don’t know anything about the topic? My long story is to point up the fact that the problem Obama has – along with way too many who are responsible for establishing policy and making laws – is that they lack the background to evaluate the information they are given on a topic. Obama may have a law degree, but what is his background in science and economics? No one questions his intelligence, but intelligent and educated are two entirely different concepts, though related. Many people assume that ignorant is the same as stupid. It isn’t – but by the same token, intelligent is not the same as educated. There’s no doubt he can learn, but who will educate him? If he’s educated by people who are non-scientific (by which I mean they have a desired outcome and then garner evidence to support their desired views), he’s getting a very flawed education, and we’re the ones who will suffer.
PP “celebrates” World Population Day every year…highlighting the “crisis” we have with the explosion of people being born, which of course goes back to their environmental extremism. This theory that “we” need to control the growth of the human race because we are destroying the planet & other species seems to be quite prevelant among wealthy liberal elites. So, I’m quite sure Obama is educated in it already & given his strident support for abortion, to the point of killing live babies outside of the womb, it is entirely believable that he has other motives for this beyond just wanting to make sure teen girls who get raped by their fathers don’t have to give birth to their babies. (Which IMO, is really just a cover story for the real agenda of ridding the earth of undesireables.) You would think Obama, being of mixed races himself would know better the history of such groups & who they ranked as the “undesirables” fit for sterilization & abortion. But no matter I guess, when you believe you are the One who can control the rise of the oceans….
Yeah…well…
He needs to learn about Malthus, and he needs to read “America Alone”.
His (or not his, who knows) islamic brethern are doing more than their fair share. He needs to be preaching to _them_, not the nortamericanos.
And we have _no_ idea what fantastic technological breakthroughs might occur in the next hundred years or so. Eventually we’ll probably have a population crisis – and maybe it’s a good idea to start worrying now, but I just don’t think he’s the man to do it. We also have no idea whether or not someone out there will manage to kill of 2/3 of the world’s population with nuclear bombs, or whether there’s some devasting illness that will kill all but a handful of people with a natural resistance to it.
Still…planning for catastrophes is a good thing. I just don’t think Obama has the science background to do the job.
>>So, I’m quite sure Obama is educated in it[need for population control] already…>>
Familiarity with discourses on potential problems doesn’t indicate scientific knowledge.
Familiarity with discourses on potential problems doesn’t indicate scientific knowledge.
>>I don’t expect he’s going to seek out any advisor that would present science that contradicted his ideology.>>
(I assume your quote box and original comment got switched?)
On that score we absolutely agree. Did you see this today…?
http://www.americanthinker.com.....rojec.html