EPA Dismisses Half the Scientists on Its Major Review Board (nymag.com) 279
An anonymous reader shares a report: A few weeks after the election, pro-Trump commentator Scottie Nell Hughes heralded the dawn of a new era when she declared, "There's no such thing, unfortunately, anymore as facts." In the age of Trump there's little need for people who've devoted their lives to studying scientific facts, and over the weekend the administration finally got around to dismissing some of them. According to the Washington Post, about half of the 18 members on the Environmental Protection Agency's Board of Scientific Counselors have been informed that their terms will not be renewed. The academics who sit on the board advise the EPA's scientific board on whether its research is sound. The academics usually serve two three-year stints, and they were told by Obama administration officials and career EPA staffers that they would stay on for another term. But on Friday some received emails from the agency informing them that their first three-year term was up and they would not be renominated. Republican members of Congress have complained for some time that the Board of Scientific Counselors, as well as the 47-member Science Advisory Board, just rubber-stamp new EPA regulations. A spokesman for EPA administrator Scott Pruitt confirmed that he's thinking of replacing the academics with industry experts (though the EPA is supposed to be regulating those companies). Gretchen Goldman, research director at the Center for Science and Democracy, expressed her disappointment and asked, "What's the scientific reason for removing these individuals from this EPA science review board? It is rare to see such a large scale dismissal even in a presidential transition. The EPA is treating this scientific advisory board like its members are political appointees when these committees are not political positions. The individuals on these boards are appointed based on scientific expertise not politics. This move by the EPA is inserting politics into science."
Money (Score:5, Insightful)
Who's watching the watchers if they're watching themselves?
Some additional sources (Score:4, Informative)
Other sources reporting the story:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/0... [nytimes.com]
http://www.freep.com/story/news/politics/2017/05/08/epa-michigan-state-professor/101429388/
https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/05/epa-boots-at-least-5-scientists-off-board-may-favor-replacements-from-industry/
http://www.cnn.com/2017/05/08/politics/epa-scott-pruitt-board/
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/the-epa-just-got-rid-of-a-bunch-of-scientists-on-its-top-review-board-vgtrn
http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2017/05/08/EPA-dismisses-five-members-of-scientific-review-board/6031494254095/
Nine (Score:4, Informative)
From looking at the other stories, apparently the number of scientist dismissed (in the story here listed as "at least five") is nine.
From http://www.cnn.com/2017/05/08/... [cnn.com] :
"An EPA spokesman told CNN there are a total of 18 positions on this particular advisory board, and nine of those scientists were not renewed following the end of their three-year term."
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A bureaucracy is not necessarily a GOOD THING - even if they are populated by people with STEM degrees as opposed to attorneys and MBAs.
Re: Nine (Score:4, Insightful)
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500 PPM, here we come!!!
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Shows what you know.
We've been living in Idiocracy since the 90's.
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And so the end of the supremacy of the United States of America begins. Long live the USA!
Fortunately for the history of the world the Chinese do not have a problem keeping scientific progress separate from politics and they will soon be bearing the standard forward.
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Because some alt-right AC troll is such an example of financial success.
Just because you're a basement dwelling piece of shit doesn't mean the rest of the world is. I hope your parents throw you out on your ass so you have to actually get a real job.
Brain surgery (Score:5, Insightful)
Those damn scientists think they're so smart, with their highfalutin PhDs and science stuff. We need more straight-shooting regular people doing science.
OK, this shit ain't funny no more.
Re:Brain surgery (Score:4, Insightful)
Interestingly enough, when a medical committee is looking at brain surgeons, they typically have a few on the committee.
Government is about balancing interests of multiple groups against each other and deciding the best public policy.For instance, eliminating ALL cars from the road would save tens of thousands of lives and reduce the CO2 emissions of the US by orders of magnitude. But we don't do that because a destroyed economy isn't worth it (at least to rational people).
The EPA must always balance the cost of regulations with the expected benefit. If you have a committee of people who do not know the industry, don't know the real costs of a policy, then you end up with bad policy. The very LEAST that should have been done is to augment the committee with industry experts.
As it is they are keeping half the scientists and will be bringing in Industry people.
Re:Brain surgery (Score:5, Insightful)
You have fellow PHDs on the board, you dont invite the patients to review potential brain surgens, but that is what you are talking about.
The EPAs job is not to balance the cost of regulations with the benefits, that is congress' job, the EPA has one job, and it is in its name.
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Industry experts are in fact, the brain surgeons with respect to the cost of regulations.
And in fact, the EPA DOES make value judgements about regulations.
Re:Brain surgery (Score:4, Insightful)
So do you want the brain surgeons to determine policy for which fuckups during brain surgery your next of kin can sue them for?
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you dont invite the patients to review potential brain surgens
There is this website called RateMDs (https://www.ratemds.com/) and wouldn't you know, people do exactly that......
If your surgeon is a fuck up patients can and do notice.
Re:Brain surgery (Score:5, Informative)
Interestingly enough, when a medical committee is looking at brain surgeons, they typically have a few on the committee.
Two things:
(1) As another reply already pointed out, a medical committee on brain surgery invites brain surgeons, Ph.D.s in neurophysiology or whatever, etc. They don't invite patients for their opinions on how best to do the surgery, which is a closer analogue here.
(2) Your idea may have some merit in the sense that having input from industry experts could be useful in formulating the best policy plans if they will require restructuring businesses. Perhaps there is already some sort of committee like that at the EPA, or maybe input is ad-hoc -- or maybe even one could be formed. HOWEVER, it does NOT make sense to appoint industry experts on business policy to the Board of Scientific Counselors or the Science Advisory Board.
Maybe the brain surgeons don't understand the realities of patient care and comfort. Maybe they should have a hospital committee that includes some patients to think about those issues. But the brain surgeons should NOT appoint a bunch of patients to an advisory board on the science and practice of brain surgery itself!
Re:Brain surgery (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't think one should fear the participation of non-PhDs in EPA decision making.
Please re-read the post you replied to. I explicitly said that perhaps there should be a role in discussing and generating environmental policy that could incorporate industry experts. But TFA is talking about SCIENCE advisory boards, i.e., groups of people who are experts in SCIENCE. If they want to have an "industry advisory board" at the EPA too, I'm not necessarily opposed to that, or some sort of joint group. But it seems really odd to claim that we should put people who aren't science experts on a SCIENCE board.
Re:Brain surgery (Score:5, Insightful)
"In our research we have found no evidence that lead levels in the atmosphere is higher than the natural level nor that atmospheric lead is harmful to human health"
"You wouldn't, since you're in the business of selling lead".
That actual conversation happened in front of congress in congressional hearings about whether lead in gasoline should be banned. The second speaker was Claire Cameron Paterson. Paterson had, several years earlier - set out to determine the age of the earth by doing uranium dating on an asteroid dating from the earliest days of the solar system. Uranium dating works by figuring out what percentage of uranium had turned to lead.
But he ran into a problem - the lead levels were impossibly high, as in the earth was apparently created last Tuesday high. He realized that lead pollution was interfering with the results. To actually get the answer he had to produce a lead-free environment to do the testing in - and to do that he had, had to become the world's top expert on detecting trace amounts of lead.
He did just that- and along the way realized that lead levels in the atmosphere was astronomically high (a big problem for something known to be a deadly poison that made people crazy and violent). The lead industry argued that lead in the atmosphere wasn't harmful and was, in fact, normal. Paterson proved (using ice core samples) that, prior to leaded gasoline being introduced, the lead level in the atmosphere was ZERO. He also collaborated with numerous doctors and proved there is no safe dosage of lead - a single lead atom is harmful to humans.
That hearing happened in 1955 with Paterson presenting his evidence to congress and begging them to ban leaded gasoline for the sake of the health of all Americans. The industry experts, despite their clear incentive for manipulating and lying about their data, won.
In fact they won for another 30 years. Leaded gasoline wasn't banned in the USA until 1985. Many other countries didn't follow suit until a decade later.
Thirty years during which millions of people needlessly died - to make a few companies a little richer.
The person who is going to be regulated by something CANNOT have a say in the regulations because is NEVER in his best interest NOT to flat out lie. If you ask him "if X harmful" he will lie if he makes money out of X.
If you ask him "how much will banning X cost" - he will lie and pretend it's a trillion times the real number, pretend he'll have to fire more people than he actually employs and tell you that fart goblins will crawl up the toilet and bite your asshole if you ban X.
He'll say ANYTHING to ensure X keeps making him money - and he won't care who dies so he can do it.
Aztec brain surgery: cutting w/o knowledge (Score:5, Insightful)
A Scientist might say that you could get cancer from, you know, carcinogens, so they should be removed from cigarettes, or cigarettes should be not sold to children who are not assumed able to make informed decisions. Or pregnant women. Or stupid people.
An industry expect would say, sure, but we have this cute camel, see, and the kids love it, and besides, no one wants to hear that shit about cancer, so we'll just keep on keeping on, eh? Which is exactly what they did.
THAT is what happens when there is no scientific oversight with punch.
Science brought you everything good you have. Science is the dirt technology grows in. Unscientific hand-waving is the dirt that lung cancer from cigarettes and tailpipes and dirty coal power plants grows in.
Re:Brain surgery (Score:5, Insightful)
Industry was already on the committee, by law they have to be, just like by law other groups are supposed to be represented as well. He's firing everyone that's NOT industry so industry is the only one on the committee and the only one with a voice. This is why everyone called Pruitt a Shill for industry, make no mistake he's getting paid for this, either now or later.
Because clean air and water should be something only the rich can afford.
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"The EPA must always balance the cost of regulations with the expected benefit."
"augment the committee with industry experts."
Except what will really happen is these 'experts' will just rig the environmental policies so that the industry can pollute more and make more profits at the expense of health and the environment. Industry does not care about external costs.
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I would like to use the same argument for military. But, apparently, spending more than the next 20 countries combined isn't enough
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Is it irony or cluelessness? How can you tell (Score:5, Insightful)
Elections have consequences. In this case, America spoke with a single unified voice
Is that intended to be ironic? If so, you need to understand that irony is invisible on the internet, since it is camouflaged by the ubiquitous cluelessness pervasive on comment posts.
If this is not intended to be ironic: that's ironic. Because, in fact, America did not speak with a single unified voice.
and declared that we are sick of all the burdensome environmental regulations destroying our lives and careers and they need some one to rain them in.
If this is intended as ironic: ROFL on the phrase "rain them in."
If it's not intended as ironic: that's ironic.
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Elections have consequences. In this case, America spoke with a single unified voice
Is that intended to be ironic?
No, it is intended to be sarcastic, or maybe just trolling and testing the limits of Poe's Law [wikipedia.org], but definitely not irony [wikipedia.org].
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Bah! You elitists with your "facts" and "actual definitions of irony." I'm proposing that we name Alanis Morissette to be in charge of the definition of irony.
Next up: Literally changing the definition of "literally."
Re:Is it irony or cluelessness? How can you tell (Score:4, Informative)
Next up: Literally changing the definition of "literally."
That literally already happened [merriam-webster.com]
Re:Brain surgery (Score:4, Insightful)
These people need to go find an honest way to earn their bread.
They become industry consultants and get their old jobs back. And then some people wonder why nothing changes in Washington.
Re:Brain surgery (Score:5, Insightful)
"These people that are controlling things right now are in their own little world with no regard or though for the consequences of their actions on real peoples lives"
Do you honestly believe that the world would be a better place if anyone could do anything they want to the shared environment? Think about what that world would look like. If your neighbor could burn whatever they want, dump whatever they want. What if your neighbor was a chemical plant.
Look at the history of companies like DuPont, Dow Chemical, etc... Look at what happens when there is no EPA. Think about living next to one of these without somebody keeping them in check.
Without a check on behavior, people will live like they "are in their own little world with no regard or though for the consequences of their actions on real peoples lives". And they will destroy that world given 1/2 a chance. I'd like them not to destroy the world I share with them.
Re:Brain surgery (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, now, you can pay for your own lung cancer from car exhaust with your own money! Enjoy your freedom!
We are well into diminishing returns territory on both emissions and mileage - modern cars are good enough
Good enough for what, exactly? Good enough to cause massive pollution? Good enough to collectively warm up our environment? Good enough to cause illness?
Look it's fine if people want to kill themselves. Have a grand ol' time. But when your desire to kill yourself interferes with my desire to live a relatively long, healthy life, then we've got a problem. So, please, go suck on an exhaust pipe. Those of us interested in clean air would appreciate it.
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While you might be still living the wild 60s, the rest of the world moved on. We invented something called catalytic converter that at least since mid 80s made this a non-issue.
Catalytic converters need expensive Platinum to work, and they reduce performance by forcing the exhaust through their baffles. Why would a competitive car manufacturer install a device that simultaneously increased the price and decreased the performance of their product? It certainly wasn't [wikipedia.org] through pure benevolence.
Re: Brain surgery (Score:3, Funny)
Amen. Next we can get rid of all basketball rules and let the market decide who wins. Then I want less Copernicans on advisory boards to more accurately reflect the controversy regarding whether or not the Earth goes around the sun.
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It is about time heart surgeons get held to the same standards as the rest of us. Elections have consequences. While we're at it, so do health inspectors with their goddamn PhDs. And those whiny medical scientists throughout academia, the nerve of them to try to cure diseases in the rest of us; damnit, we earned those diseases. Frikken physicists working on new energy, we have every damn right to pollute the shit out the Earth and give it good fucking.
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America spoke with a single unified voice
...and yet when speaking on their behalf you're too chicken to comment other than as Anonymous Coward. By "America spoke with a single unified voice" do you mean "a large minority of the voters in the 2016 presidential election spoke with a single unified voice?"
...rain them in
Are you sure you represent America? Your average redneck would know this is a horse-riding reference and the proper word is 'rein.'
Re:Brain surgery (Score:4, Informative)
Earth gets hot, Florida ends up under water? I don't care. My kids and my siblings stay alive? I do care. So I'm against fossil fuel power sources and all for renewable energy, nuclear, and research into fusion power.
For those of you who wouldn't lose half your family if we had Chinese air quality: lucky you.
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We did not (Score:5, Informative)
We (the plurality) voted for Clinton. By almost 3 million votes. Trump lost the vote of the citizens.
A very small group, specifically the electoral college, put Trump in there. The voters didn't. It's a technical win at best. What it isn't is an indication that he actually won the hearts and minds of the US population. He didn't. He still hasn't. There's no sign he ever will.
Re:They EPA is faking research (Score:5, Interesting)
The scientists may be smart. but as a agency, the EPA is faking research to justify regulations.
Actually, there is no evidence of faking research. There is the accusation of using "secret science". The accusation as it stands is just this: an accusation.
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care to back that up with evidence ? I am in IT for various organisations, both private and gov, and I don't really see a diff.
Do they ever learn? (Score:3)
Indeed, people can learn from their mistakes (Score:2)
According to the Washington Post/ABC News survey...nearly 100 percent of voters who backed Trump and voted for him in last year’s presidential election say they do not regret their vote. Of those reached by the polling agency, 96 percent said they don’t regret their vote, while only 2 percent said they do.
On the other hand, only 85 percent said the same of Clinton. Of those who regret their vote, very few say they would switch their vote to the other candidate. Instead, they would vote for a thi
try worrying about pollution (Score:5, Funny)
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If there was a market for low-priced lead-free water someone would supply it.
The fact that none of them has taken it upon themselves to make a nice living doing so just shows that not only do they deserve to be poor but they deserve to be poisoned too.
--
roman_mir
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How low priced? It's common for supermarkets to sell distilled water for $1 per gallon. Culligan and others deliver drinking water in 5 gallon containers. There are firms with tanker-truck delivery for filling swimming pools.
For really low prices you need pipe-to-the-home, which has high up-front costs and needs permission to dig up the roads.
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Time to make a play in the canned air [sciencealert.com] market segment.
Facts get in the way. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Facts get in the way. (Score:5, Insightful)
Remember, he promised jobs; just like the way China grew it's economy at 10% annually for over a decade.
We should not be surprised when we end up with the same toxic waste land that has Beijing : China has 7 of the 10 most polluted cities in the world
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Of course if your a capitalist, you can just claim this is fake news and continue your pillage.
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Well, if Trump country is anything to go by, there will be less Trump supporters in the future. They didn't want any government supplied heath care because they can die very well on their own:
https://www.washingtonpost.com... [washingtonpost.com]
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China doesn't have pollution it's just fog.
https://daliandalliances.tumbl... [tumblr.com]
Just think in a few years we can have fog here too! /s
Let's talk about money being bad in elections... (Score:3)
In the Georgia 6th District race--and this data is from *before* the jungle primary held a few weeks ago...
"Jon Ossoff on Wednesday announced record haul in the race for Georgia’s 6th congressional district, a stunning figure for the previously unknown Democrat.
"Ossoff’s raised more than $8.3 million in advance of April 18’s special election, a number 17 times greater than his nearest competitors in the multi-party election and an apparent record for a congressional candidate in a single q
All the scientists (Score:3, Insightful)
Since more scientists are better, why doesn't the government just employ ALL the scientists? This 18 member panel didn't actually do scientific work, but they reviewed the scientific work of the actual working scientists, so that makes them more like bureaucratic scientists? The scientific work produced by the EPA should be peer reviewed in any case, and not reviewed by a static group of scientists that almost certainly have a net bias towards the viewpoints of whatever administration made the decision to hire each of them.
The academics usually serve two three-year stints, and they were told by Obama administration officials and career EPA staffers that they would stay on for another term.
Well that's just ridiculous. I hope no one believed that had any merit in reality.
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reviewing science is a part of doing science
Not political? (Score:5, Funny)
Could someone name two or three of the dismissed people, for whom he can vouch that they do not have a Che Guevara T-shirt?
Foxes in the Henhouse (Score:5, Insightful)
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A spokesman for the henhouse comfirmed that he's thinking of replacing the roosters with "chicken experts" (i.e. foxes).
Yes, this is what regulatory capture looks like. It's usually not quite so rapid though. RIP EPA.
All Cretans are liars (Score:4, Funny)
Before adding, "apart from that one, obviously."
Wrong Way Around (Score:5, Insightful)
Shocked that msmash published this article! (Score:2, Insightful)
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Why? I mean it's been up for a short period of time and yet it already has more comments than most of the front page. Maybe this is the kind of thing Slashdot actually wants to be posted.
Truer words were never spoken (Score:4, Insightful)
When "alternative facts" are said to be true because they're declared to be true, when vaccines are once again said to cause autism, when the settled science of climate change is used as the reason to build a sea wall around a golf course while at the same time declared to be fiction concocted by a foreign government, it is quite clear the manipulation of the uneducated is the end goal.
This whole debacle of declaring untrue what is patently true is a page taken right out of Putin's playbook. Lie, lie, deny and make the other person appear to be the one who has to prove anything despite the overwhelming evidence already presented.
If they all agree more of them are pointless (Score:2)
If the committee always agrees and is unanimous removing half of them won't make any difference; they could whittle the committee to three or five members.
It sounds like this committee has become a resume filler.
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That depends who replaces them. The committee isn't getting smaller: Members are just getting replaced. I wouldn't be surprised to see if the replacements are all ex-lobbyists who start explaining that carbon dioxide is plant food, so the world needs more of it to boost agriculture.
Science is not about facts (Score:2)
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How about we suspend a 200-pound rock over your head, and listen to you explain how gravity is "just a theory" until we get sick of hearing your voice.
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What a nasty reply. I will respond anyway - perhaps others are interested in actually exchange ideas instead of insults.
Observations are facts - to the observer (not necessarily to others). However, theories are not facts. Gravity is a good example, because while we thought we understood gravity, it turns out that we don't - there are some predictions that general relativity makes are in conflict with quantum mechanics. So the theory of gravity is not a "fact" - it is just a theory.
That does not mean that t
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Get back to me when you figure out what "theory" means in a science context. Until then, kindly quit wasting people's time.
I call bullshit (Score:2)
"The individuals on these boards are appointed based on scientific expertise not politics."
No matter what your scientific position may be, few if any individuals on such a board are not political animals. Anyone in academia who *tries* to get onto university boards, etc. is more interested in the power (or perception of power) of such a position than in the science purportedly being done. They get there by virtue of knowing and kowtowing to someone else in political power.
And soon they will fire the other half (Score:2)
Re:Shouldn't people be fired for incompetence? (Score:5, Informative)
Trump much?
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American Stinker is one of the fakest news sites out there, far worse than CNN. against my better judgement I clicked on that one, and it was basically just a bunch of accusations, no actual evidence that I could see. In fact one of the "bad" things the epa did is pay people to try and peer review the work, OH GAWD the horror.
Re: Shouldn't people be fired for incompetence? (Score:5, Insightful)
Your first link is a google list of fake news sites.
That gold mine spill was because the gold miner was illegally storing waste water. The EPA didn't cause a thing. The fault is 100% the gold miners.
See, what mining companies do is they mine, store their toxic waste on site, extract the profits to their investors, go into debt, pay their investors even more money, then go bankrupt and leave the taxpayers wth the cleanup bill.
Privatize profits, socialize the costs.
Then conservatives use this shit as "proof" how bad the EPA is.
It's like lie that Mitch McConnell (R-KY) invented that the EPA has a war on coal when in fact the decline in coal is 100% caused by the free markets that conservatives worship.
See, the EPA is the fall guy that businesses use to hide their exploitation of us and our environment.
And stupid people beleive the lie because they think the business community has nothing but their interests at heart.
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The removal was an accident...
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+1 for knowing a bit of chemistry
-10 for being completely ignorant of actual mining history
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The academics who sit on the board advise the EPA's scientific board on whether its research is sound.
Ok, then if you are producing a bunch of faulty research [google.com] that is getting past these advisors, why should they not be fired? They obviously are not working out.
I mean the EPA actually CAUSED more pollution than they have prevented [denverpost.com] in recent years, without any consequence - so there is some major house cleaning to be done there.
So... in your mind one accidental spill by the EPA is more pollution than all of the pollution prevented across the US through EPA laws over that year... I'd like to see your scientific calculations to prove this assertion. Somehow I think that your opinion is tragically flawed.
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Contractors for the EPA dropped the ball.... Accidents happen, the EPA owned it and worked on fixing it. Flint on the other hand...
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So, in your mind, the problems in Flint were nothing to do with the emergency manager, appointed by a Republican governor, who decided to supply Flint with acidic water, against technical advice?
"Owned it" - Not (Score:2)
Contractors for the EPA dropped the ball.... Accidents happen, the EPA owned it and worked on fixing it.
If by "owned it" you mean "ignored 1.2 billion in damages", then yes they owned it. [cbsnews.com]
But fuck the wilderness right? Or anyone along the river the EPA poisoned? They should be grateful the government chose to bless them with anything besides the boring old clear natural water they had been getting from the river.
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I wasted my time looking at the google search you linked and guess what, pretty much nothing there, sure they're not perfect, no-one is. But if Trump et al get their way, the EPA will install a bunch of industry figures who don't care about science and instead will wreak havoc in the EPA in order to be able to pollute more for profit.
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Name a POTUS that didn't lie that you have lived through.
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LOL, thanks for the laugh. I will be sure to remember the "most transparent administration" as honest. Meanwhile in the real world;
http://www.politifact.com/pers... [politifact.com]
That was just the first link from google. Good god you are sheltered.
Oh come on! (Score:2)
Even the left-leaning "fact-checkers" marked him with multiple lies, even at least one "Lie of the Year"
http://www.politifact.com/trut... [politifact.com]
In fact, pretty much his first official act (Score:2)
Was to make himself a liar...
Obama promised that he "will not sign any non-emergency bill without giving the American public an opportunity to review and comment on the White House website for five days."
One of President Obama's major campaign planks was making government more open and accountable. It's a reaction to a habit in Congress of rushing bills through the House and Senate without giving people much opportunity to know what the bills would do. Indeed, sometimes members of Congress don't even know w
Re:Science and politics? (Score:5, Insightful)
Horseshit. If one political party accepts science and the other rejects it, using that science to make decisions not equate to supporting the party that accepts it. If Democrats believed that foodborne illnesses were caused by demons, the FDA would not be furthering a political ideology.
Where we would like to think that *somehow* facts will win the argument, there are way to many alternate realities floating around with their on version of facts and truth these days.
Fuck that. An abundance of lies does not mean we can't have an objective reality.
Re:Science and politics? (Score:4, Insightful)
Horseshit. If one political party accepts science and the other rejects it, using that science to make decisions not equate to supporting the party that accepts it. If Democrats believed that foodborne illnesses were caused by demons, the FDA would not be furthering a political ideology.
All true. However, I have to bring up some of the points mentioned by the AC that got modded down to -1, because he wasn't entirely wrong. Democrats -- thanks mostly to the element of the party from the education-loving Northeast -- tend to take a more favorable view of educated opinions, and therefore science, but they're far from perfect. In particular, anywhere that science conflicts with other elements of their ideology, science loses, e.g. all of the science that shows that GMOs are safe. Both parties take an anti-scientific perspective on nuclear power (though the Dems are worse on this issue than the Reps). The Democrats most often diverge from science when it interferes with the anti-establishment element of the party from the left coast. The Republicans most often diverge from science when it interferes with the religious right element from the deep south. But there are other cases for both.
There is no "party of science". There are two parties that each have their own bundle of ideological views, derived from the allied subcultures that compose them, and both love science when it supports their ideology and ignore/hate it when it contradicts. On the whole, Democrats are more pro-science than Republicans, but not in every area.
Where we would like to think that *somehow* facts will win the argument, there are way to many alternate realities floating around with their on version of facts and truth these days.
Fuck that. An abundance of lies does not mean we can't have an objective reality.
Indeed we can... and it starts by objectively comparing your own and your party's beliefs with the best ground truth knowledge available, which is provided by science, and admitting where they do and don't coincide.
Personally, I find it's easiest to do that if you avoid being emotionally tied to either party.
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I'm not saying there's a "party of science," I'm considering each scientific issue at the issue level. Science is right and on any issues where parties disagree, they are wrong.
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I'm almost afraid to ask this, but what do you think science is? And how on earth do you square that definition with the way you keep using it?
Don't forget anti-vaxers (Score:2)
Seems like the prominent anti-vaccination folks are in that same group.
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What half am I dismissing? I'm siding with the vast majority of scientists on any issue you choose, if any parties disagree with science they are wrong on those issues. I am an unashamed diehard "partisan hack" for science though. Bullshit can get fucked.
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Oh you mean I'm dismissing half the population's stupid-ass unscientific mind-sharts. Yes I will, gladly, no matter how many people hold such opinions. Finding the facts is easier now than ever before, there's no excuse for "concluding" that the facts are wrong.
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there are way to many alternate realities floating around with their on version of facts and truth these days. The EPA has been awash in political power and has participated in it's own demise by allowing its regulatory power to be used for furthering a political ideology, even when the facts and environmental benefits may be in dispute
is to say that the natural world is inherently unknowable and that regulatory power should not be exercised unless there was complete consensus among (nearly?) all the infinite Earths--that is to say, never.
Science works. Temperature, lead in water, and the existence/extinction of species can all be observed and acted upon.
Science is only a wedge issue because Republicans have to pander to several ascientific alternate reality constituancies: creation
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How many years they been going now ?
Israel still has rockets heading its way ever week.
Never mind the missiles coming the US way from China and Russia in retaliation.
And how much US IP that China has access to would suddenly get leaked ?
And how much stuff will the US be able to do without for YEARS, factories take time to build as do power generation plants, roads, etc etc etc, staff take time to train. Chinese manufacturing impacts ALL of the US ec
Politics, religion, and science. (Score:2)
You need to capitalize the "f": "... believing in Facts is ..." The discussion has been religion-ized - not just politicized - for decades.
Each of the major sides of the discussion believes the other has faked data and promulgated falsehoods disguised as science. People convinced on either side are now beyond sceptical that any alleged scientific results that disagrees with their own paradigm is not more of the same.
It's now going to take dec
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Slight problem though: Around half of US government spending is on their obscenely bloated military. Military spending is a sacred cow for the Republican party - they might talk about cutting spending a lot, but they would never even consider cutting the military budget. They are constantly pressing to spend even more there.