Al Petterson ([info]eyelessgame) wrote,
@ 2006-02-06 13:14:00
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Entry tags:astronomy, rant

First they came for the biologists...
Then they came for the astronomers.


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[info]ross_teneyck
2006-02-06 10:29 pm UTC (link)
I wish I could say that I was surprised. And I know that I should be outraged; but these days, I'm suffering from outrage fatigue.

I think we're seeing an unwholesome synergy between two tendencies in the Bush administration here. One, of course, is the fact that Bush is in the pocket of the religious right, and they naturally pressure him to push their agenda.

The other, I think, is that Bush seems to see nearly everything having to do with his administration through the filter of "loyalty." Being right or being wrong doesn't matter; but disagreeing with the President is disloyal and gets you punished. Several reporters have mentioned that this is the most controlled administration they can remember; Bush does not tolerate dissent. And he expects that conformity to go all the way down; certainly including everyone who gets a government paycheck, and -- if he can get away with it -- every citizen as well.

Viewed through that lens, a scientist at NASA who wants to say something about global warming, or the Big Bang, that does not toe the line that the administration has set down, must be doing it because they want to stab Bush in the back; and so the administration responds accordingly. The loyalty meme does not permit the notion of being objectively right to enter into the picture.

Scientists, who tend to operate from the meme that objective reality trumps all other considerations, are naturally taken aback by this response. From the objective-reality meme, the only motivation for this kind of behavior is being willfully and despicably opposed to reality, which implies being opposed to human understanding and progress and civilization.

Personally, I'm on the scientists' side, of course. But I can at least understand the administration's reaction, given how they're looking at the world.

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