McCain Answers Science Policy Questionnaire 829
thebestsophist writes "A couple weeks ago, I reported that Barack Obama had answered a questionnaire by Scientists and Engineers for America. McCain has now answered that questionnaire as well. You can also compare their answers. Perhaps with help from the Slashdot community, we can get all the Congressional candidates as well?"
Re:The best answer to the science questionnaire (Score:4, Interesting)
The problem is that the "public sector" is amazing, first and foremost, in funding research ... with specific outcomes. Confirming politician's views of things. There are actual Chinese papers, peer reviewed and everything, "proving" Tibet is not a country separate from China.
If you let public funding fund science, then you might as well kill the research in social studies, psychology, languages, ethnicities, and (soon to come) evolution, history ... it will merely parrot the popular talkpoints of the day instead of science.
I'd like to agree with you, because you're right, private sector money is scarce and hard to come by, especially for pure research (then again, public money is not doing anywhere near enough to fund the only really pure science there is ... mathematics), but really, public money is only useful in sciences were people are not involved at all. Stuff like particle physics (since no particles go on any type of jihad for any type of religion or poverty), astronomy or maths. Heck even chemistry is getting infected with politics (are drugs bad for you ? Do they badly affect others around drugged people ? have become politically incorrect questions, merely because the answer is yes).
Re:Choices, choices (Score:3, Interesting)
> And honestly, did you actually agree with every single thing Ron Paul advocated?
Forgive me, but that's childish. Are you suggesting that only a leader who agrees with you 100% of the time will be effective?
Like many here, I have a day job. I read a bit here and there, watch a little TV, and come to some conclusions. But in the end, I know that my judgement is easily flawed because I don't have the time or staff to properly evaluate the available information. So even if my core principals are somehow "right", my decisions are likely to be wildly askew from reality.
Therefore, I think it's ludicrous to pick someone who agrees with you 100%, or even close. See if you can match up some core values, check a couple of "key" (in your mind) decisions a bit more thoroughly, do a gut-check on the person, and vote. But trying for 100% is a laughable criteria.
-Jeff
Re:Innovation (Score:4, Interesting)
How about: "providing an alternative to trade secret protection so that industries don't gridlock because everything is confidential?"
- David Stein
Re:The best answer to the science questionnaire (Score:2, Interesting)
That would NOT be a good idea. The reason is simple, businesses almost NEVER do pure research. Its hard to turn the results directly into money, and (rightfully) that is all a business is there for. Taxpayer funded programs do the pure research, then businesses take the result and do the research needed to turn that into a product. Take the Fed out of research and a lot of innovation will come to a grinding halt.
When the Federal government gets involved in a market, it often takes over the market inefficiently. See: Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
Federal research grants have co-opted the Universities, for sure (add in government accreditation and there's even more monopolistic powers). It's not correct to say that private institutions DON'T fund research, the reality is that decades of Federal intervention in research have made it difficult to compete with public dollars, public regulators, public mandates and public approval systems that defeat the heavy investments made by private institutions.
For example:
Wisconsin private funding of stem cell research better than public funding [wistechnology.com]
25 charities in US fund $1.2 billion in private research [cfidsreport.com]
Private funding resources [nih.gov]
There are thousands of organizations that fund research privately. Competing with taxpayer-funded research is difficult, though, but not impossible.
Re:The null hypothesis of politics (Score:4, Interesting)
Translation:
Re:Choices, choices (Score:3, Interesting)
Isn't it great that we have so many choices for leadership? If we don't like the opinions of one person, we have one other person to choose from. Certainly each one of us can find one of these two people who will agree with and advocate for all that we believe in. Right?
In a sense, politics is a one-dimensional game at that level: at the extremes, either you believe that individual rights and responsibilities should be completely subservient to some "greater good" society, or you believe that individual rights and responsibilities are the dominant factor and any concept of society exists only to support them. A great many of the big decisions do flow naturally from this simple distinction: a preference for big vs. small government in general, and many more specific issues such as socialised healthcare vs. the private insurance model.
Of course it's not that simple in reality. There are some issues of ethics where perhaps people from both ends of the spectrum would agree. And there is no single concept of "society".
It seems to me that the biggest disruptive factor in politics, particularly in the US in recent years, is the concept of the corporation: entities that started as a group of individuals, taking advantage of collaboration in a free market to build a power base, are now recognised as having rights of their own, which necessarily compete with those of both individuals and society as a whole, while the people controlling those entities are shielded as individuals from most responsibility for the actions they control. Thus we have things like the recent banking collapses and the Enron fiasco, where the laws have not served to protect either individuals or the community as a whole for a long time, and now it is the rest of the people who have to deal with the mess. Likewise, we have Big Media raking in most of the profits from the work of a few individuals, backed by laws which have been distorted so they serve neither the individual artists nor society as a whole.
Right now, there are only two parties with a realistic prospect of winning power in the US in the near term, and both of them are heavily pro-corporation, so there is no real choice at all. It is an eternal mystery to me how this position was reached, given that corporations do not (yet) have the vote and there are other candidates in most elections. But now that the position has been reached, it seems that nothing short of fundamental reform of the electoral system will fix it. Of course, the parties in power are unlikely to do that voluntarily given their corporate affiliations, so it's going to need a slow, grass-roots process.
That's silly... (Score:3, Interesting)
Saying the Democrats are not tied to the entertainment industry is about as ridiculous as saying that Republicans are not tied to the oil business. Let me break it down for you:
Democrats : Entertainment, Legal Services, Accounting, Education, Financial - Investment Banking, Software
Republicans : Manufacturing, Farming, Mining, Drilling, Financial - old Banking, Hardware
Just look at how the economy does when either party gets in. Clinton - farms, oil, commodities all crash, services takes off. Bush - services take a beating, but farms, oil, commodities in general take off, and manufacturing gets a boost.
Each party has its own commercial interests allied to it.
Re:Innovation (Score:3, Interesting)
The bill passed with a supermajority. Had it been vetoed, the veto would have been entirely irrelevant. A perfunctory veto would not have done any good. What would have made a difference would have been pressure on the issue prior to the bill's signing, but Clinton was too busy defending his sex life from charges that ultimately didn't stick.
Re:Innovation (Score:2, Interesting)
Technically true, but disingenuous.
Hardly disingenuous to point out there's no one party to particularly blame, but nice try. It's more disingenuous to try and claim one party is the soul responsible for a given act.
The only thing that could possible be clarified is that regardless of who's the majority in congress, there are people from both sides of the isle who can vote on a particular bill.
The thing that's disingenuous is politics in general. It's more sports team than issues these days.
Re:Innovation (Score:3, Interesting)
Like everyone's been saying the bill had enough votes to override a veto because both democrats AND republicans signed it. And Clinton didn't regretfully sign the DMCA, he happily signed it. They've all been bought by the big media companies.
Re:Innovation (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Choices, choices (Score:5, Interesting)
While it is a common belief that voting third party is "throwing your vote away", it really isn't in the long term. The two big parties look closely at the candidates who received votes in every major election and then try to determine how to convince voters to vote for their candidates next time around, typically by modifying their platforms and including items that appear to be gathering steam with the populance. You can help steer the process a bit by voting for exactly for who you want to fill the position your voting on. Just because your guy didn't win doesn't mean your votes didn't matter.
Re:Innovation (Score:3, Interesting)
Oh really? Pop quiz time then....
Name the 12 secret herbs and spices in Original recipe KFC, and their proportions therein.
What is the formula for Coca-Cola, any variation thereof.
Stem Cell Research (Score:5, Interesting)
In the interests of giving McCain props where I think he should get them (even though I don't agree with him on most subjects):
Kudos to McCain for correctly identifying the glaring hole in the pro-life argument against embryonic stem cell research. The pro-life crowd will often argue that the embryos that stem cells are harvested from are humans and thus deserve a better fate than being used for research. They ignore the reality of the situation, however. Those frozen embryos are most likely going to be discarded/incinerated if they aren't used for stem cell research.
Which is a more dignified fate for the embryo? To be incinerated/tossed out like trashed? Or to be used in an attempt to save lives?
Re:Innovation (Score:2, Interesting)
All the more reason to get out and vote for Obama. Let's see how far the GOP is willing to go to retain power.
All well and good but what if we don't want Obama to win? I don't want McCain to win either really. I think I'll be writing someone in and I'll even be eligable to run for President of the United States in the next election (I am just 34 right now).
Now to figure out how to drum up a few billion dollars for the campaign.
Re:Innovation (Score:5, Interesting)
Rather, look at how they've voted. unfortunately, Obama's a first term Senator and hasn't cast enough votes to get a good picture of where he really stands.
Au contraire. I think we've been able to see exactly where he stands: in the same place as every other main party politician, when he went back on a very strong promise NOT to vote for any bill that included telco immunity.
And where is that? A little place I like to call "whateverwheneverwhereverwillgetmeelected."
Re:Old Skool Science Mavericks (Score:3, Interesting)
In fact, Bush himself rarely governs even when he is physically present in the White House. His handlers, cronies and lobbyists do what passes for "governing". When Bush is at his mansion (that you like to call "the ranch", though it doesn't do anything but pose photo ops), he's doing even less. He's watching football with his buddies, and practicing whatever is his next big "catapult the propaganda" gig somewhere.
Oh, and Reagan took naps. Lots and lots of naps.
I don't know why Republicans pretend that they're electing a president. Especially when Republicans have claimed for decades that the government doesn't do anything, anyway - but does way too much of it. And then proves it by running the government that way.
Just look around. Doesn't the ruins of the US economy, foreign policy and credibility after years of Republican rule give you a hint?
Re:Innovation (Score:5, Interesting)
Hm. Nothing immediately comes to light.
However, his Wikipedia Article [wikipedia.org] makes it pretty clear that he's spent about half of his career leading crusades to repeal legislation that he drafted himself.
Even if I were a libertarian, I'd be apprehensive as hell about the guy.
And the GP is mostly correct. The Libertarian party has been increasingly used as a puppet party to mask the agendas of its members. Ron Paul's a huge states-rights advocate who runs with the Libertarians, because they share the common goal of reducing the size of the Federal government, even though his views on state government are borderline tyrannical.
Most of the "true" libertarians have already jumped ship, and are scrambling to form a new party (several have already been formed over the last few years). Their belief is generally that the government (at all levels) should only do things that individuals absolutely, positively cannot do for themselves. In many cases this actually does include civil rights and gun control to a certain extent.
Of course, I personally believe that humans are inherently social creatures, and that a libertarian government would be doomed to failure. Still, I don't like to see their core values distorted like this.
Re:Old Skool Science Mavericks (Score:3, Interesting)
The crux of the problem is the word "better". I think you'll find that evaluating this stuff unavoidably goes into the realm of informal logic, and all kinds of subjective issues come into play. I.e., different people can judge different explanations for the same evidence to be "better". And there's really no where to go from there in terms of resolving your different conclusions.
Maybe some of them are idiots. Maybe some of them get irrational when backed into a corner during a debate, and/or try getting philosophical during the debate without having previously developed their critical thinking skills. Maybe you've run into a particularly dense cross-section of them.
All I'm saying is that sometimes a proposition can be true, even when lots of people give bad arguments for that proposition. Personally, I've read some pretty good (but not slam-dunk) arguments for the version of Christianity that's compatible with old-earth Creationism. Which is why I believe that they're not all idiots or wackos, despite the sampling you've come across.
I think you're assuming that the only things we can reasonably believe are those things that can be proven by the scientific method. I think that's an unrealistic standard. (To be more technical, I think that adopting such a standard would likely prevent us from holding a number of true beliefs, especially regarding historical facts.)
There are two pieces of evidence that are pretty hard to apply the scientific method to, because we can't readily perform repeated experiments with controlled conditions. For example, historical events.
Take for example the alleged existence and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. Whether or not he died, and whether or not he was walking around after having died, were (at the time) observable events. The problem is that they're probably not repeatable events, so they're really hard to probe with the scientific method. And unfortunately, our grasp on science just isn't good enough to use science to determine whether or not something like that happened 2000 years ago. We're forced to use other disciplines like historical research to make informed guesses about that. And conclusions about historical events definitely involve some subjective judgment. But if Jesus really did live, die, and live again, that's a pretty strong piece of evidence for the veracity of Christianity, and maybe in turn for some version of Creationism.
Not quite sure what you mean by "proven false". Are you talking about evolution vs. Creationism? If so, then even if most popular version of evolutionism is actually an accurate account of history, then all that does is disprove the Young-earth Creationist standpoint. It's entirely compatible with Old-earth Creationi
Why Does McCain Hate HP? (Score:4, Interesting)
Carly Fiorina severly damaged Hewlett-Packard [wikipedia.org] as its CEO, and has been campaigning for McCain ever since HP fired her.
With that kind of endorsement, America's tech industry should fear McCain as Fiorina's choice for president.
Re:Innovation (Score:5, Interesting)
Does it also bother you that Europeans are supporting Obama almost unanimously?
Re:Old Skool Science Mavericks (Score:3, Interesting)
And you can't give any proof for evolution, either. Recall that at best, the scientific method can disprove hypotheses, not prove them. That's why I think the discussion should be about best evidence, not proof. I don't see how we'll get proof for either position.
And in terms of "evidence", like I said, we should probably try to account for the historical evidence for and against Christianity, because the veracity of Christianity is connected to whether or not old-earth creationism is a reasonable belief.
I disagree. I say there is evidence. Like I said earlier, we can quickly get to the point where we disagree about what make credible evidence. Welcome to a common impasse on this topic of debate.
I'm not trying to put words in your mouth with the following. But: if you hold that only scientifically verifiable beliefs are the beliefs worth accepting as true, then you're dogmatically holding a self-contradictory position. At the very least, that belief itself isn't scientifically verifiable, which is where the self-contradiction arises. So that standard would be problematic if you were to hold that.
As an example of other classes of propositions that you might want to consider as possible evidence, consider historical evidence. I think if we categorically refuse to admit it, then we come to some problematic results. For instance, we'd be unable to admit that George Washington was probably the first U.S. president.
I guess what I'm doing is challenging you to carefully think about how you decide to admit something as evidence (even provisionally) worth considering, vs. ruling it out before carefully considering it. One example of the kind of evidence that I'm talking about is the apparent fact that Christianity spread very rapidly throughout the Roman empire very shortly after Jesus is reported to have died. Or the historical records that 11 of the 12 apostles (the guys that spent a lot of time with Jesus) were executed for not recanting their belief that Jesus was the Jewish Messiah. Because people generally aren't willing to die to uphold claims they belief are false, that strikes me as a piece of evidence that needs consideration.
Anyway, I'm not trying to enumerate the evidence that I think supports Christianity (and thus some form of Creationism). I'm just trying to give examples of historical evidence that's worth considering but which may not fit your current mold about what makes good evidence. If you want to see specific arguments for the historical reliability of the Bible, one of the other posts I did in this thread lists some decent books.
Sorry, I just can't understand what you're saying here. It seems like a complete non sequitur.
Okay, prove it. I think that if you remain intellectually honest, you'll find it's a much, much harder task then you think.
Dragging out a list of fallacies and pasting it into a response doesn't make your case at all. You've failed to justify any one of those bullet items.
Re:Time for the end of the 2-party system (Score:2, Interesting)
I wish I had mod points, I'd mod you back up. In an era where the public can so easily exchange ideas, coalescing into like-minded groups that bear no relation to geography, it makes sense that those groups should each have some sort of representation in government. As much as I despise the French and/or Israeli systems, I think we need to move toward some form of proportional representation -- at least for half of our bicameral legislature.
But of course that can NEVER happen. The two-party system is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Why would either major party (even when it's in the minority) really want to give up the possibility of being in complete control after the next election cycle?
Not to mention the fact that this would require a change to our Constitution. Right now most of the people in our country are so incredibly polarized into these major divisions that I can't imagine getting the types of supermajorities needed for ANY constitutional amendment, let alone something as fundamental as reformulating the allocation of legislators.
So we're stuck with our decaying government. As I've heard many people say before, this experiment in democratic representation had a good run. Maybe next time we'll get it right.
Re:Innovation (Score:3, Interesting)
IANAL, but I played a lot of poker with my colleagues at the UofC law school. They speak with great respect about Barack Obama.
Knowing these people well, it is a good enough recommendation for me. And first-hand, too.
Let's see, Sarah Palin has a 6-year bachelor's degree in Communications. That qualifies her to be a bank teller, but not Vice-President. If that makes me an "elitist", so be it.
I want a President with an IQ higher than his body temperature. For a change.
Re:Innovation (Score:5, Interesting)
What? You clearly do not understand.
The reason Libertarians are moving away from the LP (Libertarian Party) is because like you, nobody knows what that word means anymore. I mean who can blame people for being confused when you have people like Glenn Beck and Bob Barr calling themselves Libertarian. Much less people like you describing it.
Ron Paul's a huge states-rights advocate who runs with the Libertarians, because they share the common goal of reducing the size of the Federal government, even though his views on state government are borderline tyrannical.
Ron Paul not being an anarchist supports the Constitution. You have heard him call himself a Constitutionalist before right? I think you misunderstand the 10th amendment but clearly Paul has the correct understanding of it. States really do have the freedom to enact a varying degree of laws you or I might call tyrannical, that does not mean they will, and even if they did local government is much easier to change than federal government, AND EVEN if you couldn't there are 49 other states to go to that compete with each other for your tax money. Your comments makes it sound like Ron Paul is only a libertarian because he is a closet authoritarian wanting to use the powers of the states, and that is absolutely wrong. If you read Paul's writing you will see that he absolutely understands the danger that government proposes to people, he is on the ball with some of the best libertarian minds that there ever was.. in fact.. many of his campaign positions are out of whack with what could only logically be his philosophy.. It is my believe he takes those positions because he is pandering to the right wing base.
Their belief is generally that the government (at all levels) should only do things that individuals absolutely, positively cannot do for themselves. In many cases this actually does include civil rights and gun control to a certain extent.
So, what you are basically saying is that Some "so called" Libertarians believe that people can not have "civil rights" or gun control without government.
If you believe that then you CAN NOT logically have a sound understanding of the nature and concept of rights.
The term "civil rights" is pleonastic description of rights. You have "rights" and they are all the same. You do not need to separate your rights into individually divided groups, such as "civil rights", "existing rights", "breathing rights", etc. Also "civil rights" implies that these are rights awarded to citizens, or that only citizens have rights. It is a ridiculous concept and I will explain why.
To have a right is to have the supreme authority over something. If you have a right to something you do not need to ask anyone for permission to do something with what you have a right to. The reason you have rights is because you own your body, you own your life and you own your liberty. No other person can claim ownership over you, just as you can not claim ownership over other peoples lives. Rights are supreme authority over some piece of property and they can not be given or taken away, they can be infringed upon but are never lost.
The opposite of a right is a privilege. This is where someone with supreme authority over something allows or grants you an ability to use it. To make this simple lets say you buy a pizza from someone else. You have justly acquired your property and now you can do whatever it is you like with it, even stuff it in your mouth, and you do not need to ask anyone for permission to do so. You have a right to this pizza. However if someone else owns this pizza you must ask if you may have some, they own it, and grant you a permission, or a privilege to have some.
So the distinction between rights and privileges is important. Privileges mean you have to ask someone of higher authority, rights means asking a higher authority is not necessary because there is no higher authority. Privileges are granted bu the higher authority
Re:Innovation (Score:4, Interesting)
Except that those polls don't account for new voters, which are overwhelmingly Democrat. They also don't call cellphones, only landlines.
Could be, could be.
But if that position had any connection to reality, you'd logically expect to see its consequences in the primaries, yes?
The RCP average of polls in New Hampshire had Obama leading by 8.3 percent; he lost by 2.6 percent. In Nevada, the RCP average was 4 percent; Clinton won by 5.5 percent. In Pennsylvania, the RCP average was Clinton by 6.1 percent; she won by 9.2 percent. The final RCP average in Ohio had Clinton by 7.1 percent, but she won by 10.1 percent. In Texas, the RCP average had Clinton ahead by 1.7 percent, but she won by 3.5 percent.
Now ... how exactly is it that you reconcile the demonstrated actual facts of substantial UNDERperformance from polling numbers with your blithe prediction of overperformance from methodologically identical current polling numbers? I'm not really coming up with any good reasons on my own, here...
Re:Innovation (Score:3, Interesting)
Non-sequitor. African-Americans have always been near unanimous in their support of the Democrat party; note how Bill Clinton was called the first African-American president.
This might sound like a strange notion, but some folks actually prefer voting for a party that at least doesn't anally-probe you.