If Bush were serious about science being ‘cool’…

April 19, 2006

Yesterday, [tag]Bush[/tag] spoke at a magnet middle school in Maryland to talk up his “[tag]American Competitiveness Initiative[/tag],” and he emphasized how important it is for students to think of [tag]science[/tag] as being “[tag]cool[/tag].”

“We saw two [tag]scientists[/tag] who are here from NASA. These are good, hard-working folks who said, ‘I kind of want to lend my expertise to try to convince a child that science is cool.’

“You know, sometimes — you might remember those days, when you were in middle school, people say, you know, science isn’t cool. Science is not only cool, it’s really important for the future of this country, and it’s great to have people we call adjunct professors here, to help lend their real-life experiences to stimulate junior high students to the wonders of science.”

I agree with this message; I just wish the messenger knew what he was talking about.

If the president were serious about showing young people how great science is, how about leading by example? Bush could, for example, stop his administration from muzzling scientists at NASA, ignoring scientists at the EPA, and punishing scientists who stray from the party line at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the U.S. Geological Survey.

For that matter, if Bush really wanted to show kids how great science is, he could reverse course on teaching intelligent-design creationism in public school science classes, rejecting all scientific evidence as it relates to global warming, dismissing and restricting the scientific breakthroughs promised by stem-cell research, and generally give up on using bogus science to justify his political agenda.

That would be cool.

It would also be cool if he stopped asking people what kind of degrees they had, then saying “heh. He’s got a PhD, I got C’s, and I’m the preznit. Look at me.”

  • It is sad to listen to Bush repeat lines that he really does not believe in his gut.

    As far as I can tell, the more articulate that Bush is, the less he believes the words coming from his mouth.

  • Christ, CB, if Bush told them something like the truth they’d all have to go on Meds. If Bush was honest, he’d be saying…

    “By the time you are old enough to go to college, there will be no future for you. Our economy will have crashed, dragging down the rest of the world with us. When peak oil comes, your standard of living will irrevocably return to what it was circa 1850. You had better learn about farming and blacksmithing. But given that we have a 2006 population size, many of you will regretably starve to death because we have no plan for preserving our way of life. Those who don’t starve will be serfs who are happy to be living at all. In fact, I’m promoting policies that will make the crash, when it comes, look just like those funny people who jumped out of the world trade center back on 9/11 and fell 90 floors–kinda like water balloons! Water balloons are cool!”

  • the more articulate that Bush is, the less he believes the words coming from his mouth.

    Indeed, this is how you tell when he’s repeating things that others have told him to say.

  • I knew many scientists back in 2000 who liked Bush for his leadership approach: surround yourself by experts who understand the issues and who get to shape policy. This was interpreted by many to mean that we would finally break out of the sycophantic political hack generated solution routine and scientists would run many of these programs and policies on a more enlightened basis, considering the current state of the art and long term implications for the advancement of mankind.

    The thought leadership (that is to say scientists, educators, and others: the intelligentsia) in this country has seen through this puffery now and has begun to dissert the republican party, resulting in the so-called “education gap.” Fortunately, I predict that just as the Bush administration is about to lose its position of leadership, the thought leadership will continue to lead. Hopefully we can all look forward to the intelligentsia fighting back, awakening the general population, and a swift end to these ill-conceived policies.

    And I believe that Bush’s success at originally luring scientists, and many others, to his approach suggests it is still viable. As the CB states: “I agree with this message; I just wish the messenger knew what he was talking about.” This attutude indicates an area upon which opponents of these policies can capitalize.

  • Doesn’t Bush know the first rule about trying to convince kids something is “cool”– ADULTS SHOULD NOT PROCLAIM IT TO BE COOL.

    Also, who gives a shit if science is “cool,” talk about dumbing down and talking down to kids. What about emphasizing that science– and by extension, medicene– is about saving lives? making new discoveries? changing the world?

  • if Bush really wanted to show kids how great science is, he could…

    Or he could start a TV show where he shows kids science, like Mr. Wizard, Bill Nye Science Guy, or that other guy who used to have a science TV show a long, long time ago.

  • Instead of “Intellegent-design creationism” consider using

    21st Century Creation Science

    It Noah’s flood causing the grand canyon repackaged for a new generation.

  • it’s great to have people we call adjunct professors here. . .

    Any idea what Bush is talking about here? In the language of academia, “adjunct professor” translates to “under-paid part-time instructor whose limited-term contract is the first to be dropped when budgets get tight”. If that’s what Bush actually means, I’m not surprised, but I hope it becomes clear to everyone else. . .

  • I was just reading the other day Bush’s words about being a decider, and realizing that I can’t think of another adult who uses words like that. I think we may have all failed to appreciate just how low Bush’s intelligence actually is. I know he likes to talk about being a C student, but did he really manage Cs? What kind of tutoring did he get, what kind of classes did he take, and how often did he buy term papers? The man is so far out of his league. I wonder what kind of pills they have him on? Bet an antidepressant is among them.

  • The only period during which science was “cool” in this country was immediately after Sputnik (4 Oct 57), and then for only a few years. I remember because I was a Chemistry major starting in Sep 1957 — not because science was “cool” but because I had really liked it in grammar school and high school, in spite of the fact that most of my friends and the rest of students thought it was freaky (geeky, weird). Virtually all of my fellow citizens still do.

    There is an anti-science bias in our culture which wasn’t invented by Bush or Wm. Jennings Bryan or anyone that I can think of (according to Max Weber, the Puritans favored scientific learning as an antidote to mysticism; so did Ben Franklin and Thomas Jefferson). But it’s always been there, maybe because those building cabins and states had no time for science. At best, Americans are engineers – they can build roads and rocketships, without explaining why any of it works. Our theoretical scientists are almost all imported or (like me) “freaks of nature” – not planned for by our school system. Just to wonder what governs our universe (physical, chemical, biological, social) – for no purpose other than satisfying one’s curiosity, or to stand in awe of a pattern which few around you even know of – is thought to be of no monetary value (an ignorant thought in itself) and, therefore, not worth pursuing.

    When you say “science” to most Americans they think “brain surgery” or “going to the moon” or “atom bomb”. Those aren’t science. They’re engineering. The science behind them was performed long ago, usually by “fruitcakes”. Newton could calculate the force required to go to the moon. The Romans were good engineers; the Greeks and Egyptians were theorists. The distinction is wasted on Americans.

    Ever notice that when TV news people take time out from checking their make up and hair dos long enough to interview someone who’s just won the Nobel they usually say something like “Now, without getting into any of the math crap, tell us words we can all understand what your discovery …” Most honest Nobel winners simply turn away or laugh it off. One I heard recently astounded me by responded with a simple “You wouldn’t understand.”

    There’s no quicker way to get yourself removed from the political arena (and ridiculed by Bush, who’s a genius at this) than saying you enjoyed differential and integral calculus, analytic geometry, differential equations, advanced probabiity theory and the like, or that you spent most your junior year in high school trying your damnedest to trisect an angle by Euclidean means, or that you burned off all the hair on the front your head in an otherwise harmless explosion you created in your backyard while you were in the fourth grade.

    I think virtually all babies are natural scientists, and artists too. From the beginning they’re curious about their bodies and the world around them. They pry things apart to see “what makes them tick”. From the beginning they sing, dance, draw, sculpt, act … with creative abandon. But from the time they encounter our culture and particularly its school system, those instinctively gratifying activities being to atrophy. If they’re able to draw like Michelangelo right off the bat, or if they can memorize the names of the planets right off the bat, they’re set aside as, perhaps, “trainable” in special programs. Otherwise, … nothing. Quod severis metis — a Latin phrase which appears everywhere in Washington DC’s Dumbarton Oaks Estate: We reap what we sow.

  • “I think we may have all failed to appreciate just how low Bush’s intelligence actually is. I know he likes to talk about being a C student, but did he really manage Cs?” – Catherine

    You have to factor in the affects of years of alcohol and ‘other’ intoxicant abuse. That has atrophied much of his brain. Thus, his speach patterns are erratic (he rarely gets a sentence out), his vocabulary is inventive, and his ability at introspection non-existent. Remember Scarlett’s phrase from ‘Gone with the Wind’? “I’ll think about that tomorrow”. Bush never decides to “think about it tomorrow”. Why, because it is simply too painful for him to “think” because it requires the use of the damaged portions of his brain.

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