Debates: Health care, stem cells and science

It's hard to believe this was a presidential debate in the 21st Century.

Tom Tancredo, Sam Brownback and Mike Huckabee all raised their hands to say they don't believe in evolution. That's simply a deal-breaker for DB.

This was all former Secretary of Health and Human Services Tommy Thompson had to say about his plan to modernize health care for America:

I would transform the health care system a lot different than the president's talking about.

Sign me up.

John McCain, who wants a $3000 tax cut for health care, was the only one firmly supporting federal funding for stem cells. There were some others of various levels of support. Mitt Romney had the most interesting answer:

Altered Nuclear Transfer creates embryo-like cells that can be used for stem cell research. In my view, that's the most promising source. I have a deep concern about curing disease. I have a wife that has a serious disease that could be affected by stem cell research and others, but I will not create new embryos through cloning or through embryo farming because that would be creating life for the purpose of destroying it.

As far as health care goes, we learned that Mitt loves his plan and hates Hillary Clinton's. What exactly is Romney's plan? Who knows?

Rudy Giuliani hates Clinton's plan, too. His solution? Fix health care with optimism.

We're a country that has the greatest health-care system in the world.

It's flawed. It needs to be fixed, but we should fix it from our strengths. We shouldn't turn it into socialized medicine. Those are the things that Ronald Reagan taught us. You lead from optimism.

UPDATE: Oh yeah, cloning is bad.

Memo to Bush: You're not science

In a follow-up to an earlier post, Memo to Bush: You're not a scientist, DB will just endorse and refer you to Josh Marshall's observations on the latest news from George Deutsch.

Kablooey

Just to be clear about one thing here, George Deutsch, the 24-year-old journalism major who, on behalf of the Bush administration, defined for NASA the parameters regarding its presentation of the Big Bang, may be a bad writer and it may be true that he didn't graduate from college.

But the important part of that paragraph above is this: On behalf of the Bush administration.

This kid may be dumber than a boot full of hammers, but the only reason that would matter is that it highlights the cronyisms and incompetence of the administration. The reason they sent him to NASA, however, is clear. They have a history of interfering with scientific research based strictly on ideology (and occasionally, greed).

We should never forget that the greatest scientific breakthroughs, particularly in cosmology and astronomy, were possible because of the independence of a handful of geniuses, who were fortunate to have benefactors behind them or were otherwise independently wealthy. It is only in the last century that governments have so widely invested in researching purely scientific questions with no seemingly immediate applications in defense or marketable technology.

The threat of ideology interfering with the progress towards the ultimate understanding of our universe is grave. Already, many of the next wave of breakthroughs appear more likely to come from another continent. America should think twice before allowing politicians and preachers to determine the legitimacy of certain scientific observations and programs.

UPDATE: Via Atrios: Deutsch resigned because he lied about having a college degree. Swell, but that won't stop the Bush administration from interfering with science. Only the electorate can do that.

Memo to Bush: You're not a scientist

DB is so profoundly disturbed by the Bush administration's attempts to inject itself and its ideology into NASA's presentation of the Big Bang in teaching materials, that this blog has awoken from a month-long slumber. Let's get a few things straight:

1. Arguably the first proponent of a cosmological theory of expansion from singularity, based upon Einstein's Relativity, was Belgian physicist Georges LeMaitre, who also happened to be a Catholic priest. After he proposed his theory, he was criticized and even ridiculed for it because there was little evidence to support it at that time. Some members of the scientific establishment pointed to LeMaitre's position with the church and accused him of trying to bring religion, in the form of creationism, into cosmology. From this, we should realize two things: Scientists can be close-minded and stubborn sometimes and, second, religious ideology has no place in science, either in driving it or in obstructing it.

2. While the probability is relatively high that someone who disagrees with the Big Bang theory is either ignorant or just plain stupid, it is possible to be highly intelligent and still take that position. Fred Hoyle, not only gave the Big Bang theory its name (actually, in an attempt to mock it), but he had one of the greatest intuitive leaps in scientific history, when he used deductive reasoning and the anthropic principle to determine that there was a particular excited state of carbon that would be necessary for heavier elements to exist in the universe. Despite exhaustive analysis of carbon, this state wasn't discovered until he directed researchers to look again, at which point its existence was confirmed. His prediction and its confirmation shored up a large hole in Big Bang (and his own Steady-State theory), but Hoyle went to his grave in 2001 still believing that Big Bang was incorrect.

3. The Big Bang theory has a mountain of evidence in its corner. Not only has the theory survived every discovery and more detailed analysis of the universe, no matter how groundbreaking or revolutionary, but all these discoveries have strengthened the basis of the theory. From Einstein's upheaval of Newtonian physics to Hubble's discovery that all galaxies outside our local cluster are receding... From our understanding of the nuclear processes in stars to the detailed mapping of the cosmic background radiation... Each piece of the puzzle has revealed a clearer picture of the processes that have been in motion since shortly after time (and space) began. People challenging the Big Bang theory better have more on their side than just faith. Otherwise, they have no real business getting into the debate.

If you're interested in reading about the theory, which has to be considered one of if not the greatest collective accomplishments of human thinking, DB recommends "Big Bang" by Simon Singh.