Groups Call for Scientists to Engage the Body Politic

[groovedaddy]

When asked to name a scientist, Americans are stumped. In one recent survey, the top choice, at 47 percent, was Einstein, who has been dead since 1955, and the next, at 23 percent, was “I don’t know.” In another survey, only 4 percent of respondents could name a living scientist.

While these may not have been statistically rigorous exercises, they do point to something real: In American public life, researchers are largely absent. Trained to stick to the purity of the laboratory, they tend to avoid the sometimes irrational hurly-burly of politics.

For example, according to the Congressional Research Service, the technically trained among the 435 members of the House include one physicist, 22 people with medical training (including 2 psychologists and a veterinarian), a chemist, a microbiologist and 6 engineers.

Now several groups are trying to change that. They want to encourage scientists and engineers to speak out in public debates and even run for public office. When it comes to global warming and a host of other technical issues, “there is a disconnect between what science says and how people perceive what science says,” said Barbara A. Schaal, a biologist and vice president of the National Academy of Sciences. “We need to interact with the public for our good and the public good.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/09/science/09emily.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha210

[ck4829]

1. "All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing"

Lot of problems out and about today regarding pseudoscience... Denial of global warming, conversion therapy, intelligent design, and more. We can't debunk this stuff if we don't actually ever speak up about what makes these things ludicrous.

K&R.

[Jim__]

2. I don't agree with everything they said.

I particularly don't agree with:

In a telephone interview, Dr. Ehlers, a Michigan Republican who retired this year, said he thinks a kind of “reverse snobbery” keeps researchers out of public life. “You have these professors struggling to write their $30,000 grant applications at the same time there are people they would never accept in their research groups making $100-million decisions in the National Science Foundation or the Department of Energy,” he said. He said it was “shortsighted” of the science and engineering community not to encourage “some of their best and brightest” into public life.

It's fine if a scientist wants to enter political life. But, I don't think that should even be especially important. Scientists advising politicians on technical issues should be sufficient.

There used to be (something like) a congressional Office of Technology that advised congress on technological issues. That worked fine. The office was eliminated by Newt Gingrich, probably with the goal of ringing in an age of ignorance. I don't believe the problem is so much ignorance as willful ignorance. Representatives and senators that are uninformed on scientific and technological issues are deliberately uninformed; and that is the real problem.

[bananas]

3. Office of Technology Assessment

FAS has an archive of their reports,
IIRC a university does too (can't recall off the top of my head).
July 2008: FAS Launches OTA Archive
http://journals.democraticunderground.com/bananas/591

edit to add a snippet:
"The site also features a new video interview with Congressman Rush Holt (D-NJ), who has been spearheading the effort on Capitol Hill to revive OTA. According to Rep. Holt, “if OTA were here, doing this kind of work, we would have better legislation for school safety, chemical exposure, grain dust explosions, the R&D tax credit, on and on.” He goes on to describe some current policy issues that OTA could address and explains why Congress should bring back OTA."

Rush Holt is the one House physicist mentioned in the OP,
and he had a tough challenge from a teabagger last election.

[Jim__]

4. OTA - that's it. Thanks. - n/t

[Enthusiast]

6. "I don't believe the problem is so much ignorance as willful ignorance."

I must agree with this.

[Enthusiast]

5. Now THIS is a great article. nt