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Once again, our glorious president shows where he stands on helping the U.S.A. be the leading center of scientific and medical research in the world:

In a cave, dressed in sackcloth, his fingers firmly in ears, (we can only hope he washed them when he removed them from other orifices), eyes shut, continuously screaming "IF THE BIBLE SAYS IT, IT MUST BE SO!!!"

Yet we have all the money in the world for his "Faith-based" bullshit...and we wonder why our kids view science and math education as punishment.

I'm going to go read "A Brief History of Time" again, and see if I can find DVD's of old Carl Sagan shows. They always make the dumb go away.

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TEH STOOPUD, Science is worth the money, The Deciderer pooches it again

Comments

The bill, H.R.3043, also sought to bolster the budgets of the departments of Labor and Education, and carried a request for a total of $150.7 billion. Since its introduction in July, Bush has said he would veto the bill because it overshot his own budget recommendations. (From The Scientist, complaining about the veto.)

I see no reason to believe that the President vetoed this bill because of something related to the Bible - or even because of the NIH funding at all.

(For that matter, Federal education funding doesn't make state curriculums and education any better. You can blame the sorry state of science teaching on teachers [who are not trained in science and don't love it] and school boards.

That and kids have for the most part always viewed learning math as punishment. Most people aren't inclined to view abstract mathematical manipulation as pleasant.

Despite that, of course, Federal education spending is vastly up since 2000. The President has been typically approving of spending on Education like a drunken sailor, to no great effect. Oddly, this spending had no provisions for special "faith based" education or hostility to science or math education, that I'm aware of.

I must snarkily suggest that your assumption that the President's every action is based on religion or hostility to science is itself "faith based".)

Posted by: Sigivald | November 15, 2007 5:12 PM

Sig,

Take a moment to review the attitude of this administration towards science as a whole...He supports the teaching of ID on an equal level with evolution, in spite of the the utter lack of proper science and peer review. His inane attitude towards stem cell research, which is based entirely on his religious views.

He complains about the budget being too large, yet, oddly, I don't see him putting any of his faith-based pork on the chopping block.

They've been caught out removing parts of scientific papers they don't like.

(Federal funding for schools is not even a part of this post, so nice strawman there, by the way. However, I'll bet you a dollar that if 100% of that increase was for school vouchers and religious private schools, he'd praise that to high heaven. Funny how mr. "we can't spend like a drunken sailor" didn't discover his veto pen until his party lost power, even though the republican budgets went up on a regular basis too.)

Perhaps if this country started naming streets, buildings and the like after scientists instead of people who play games really well, and if our national leaders viewed science as something worthwhile, that would, you know, "trickle down".

But please...this is one of the most anti-science administrations on record with really one notable pseudo-exception: Bush backs sending us to Mars.

He didn't really budget for it, so we'll try to do it on the cheap. Thanks a pantload George.

But Bush has spent millions and millions on increasing the influence of religion, and fundamentalist christianity in particular, over our irreligiously designed government, and every time he bitches about "fat" in the budget, he's never talking about that.

I also have yet to see him say, about any form of scientific research funding, from theoretical to medical: "These items are critical to our future as a nation, and as a people, and we cannot afford to cut spending on the very things that allow us to find ways to cure disease and advance human knowledge."

Yet, he's quite passionate in defending every fucking dime he spends keeping his pet fundies happy.

So the above, along with his nigh-continuous voicing of his faith in "The Magic Man in the Sky" is rather nice evidence of his hostility towards anything that might contradict what the magic man's book says.

We won't even get into the republican congress's attitude toward's science. That was even worse.

Posted by: John C. Welch | November 15, 2007 11:58 PM