>I don’t think people are worried about whether the NIH [National Institutes of Health] budget will go up or down by 2% — but the basic rejection of the fundamental principles upon which science is based.
I hope this resonates deeply with the public.
Basic honesty has never been lower in politics, and it's teetering on scary levels.
Basic honesty has never been lower in politics, and it's teetering on scary levels.
A lot of us feel this, but out of interest, is there any evidence this is true, historically? We've always had lies and liars in politics, we just covered for them better.
William Randolph Hearst got the US involved in a war in Cuba through fake news reports that the Maine had been blown up by a mine. The public was lied to about Cleveland's operation, Wilson's stroke, FDR and Kennedy's health and affairs. Reagan or his administration lied about Iran-Contra. Hastert did a pretty good job of lying about himself for decades. Then there are all the small lies.
Maybe all Trump has done is brought the ugliness of politics out into the open and that makes us uncomfortable. Or is there really a reason to believe that political discourse is at a low in terms of honesty?
In regards to the article: if this means more use of actual science in politics, good! I hope this includes not only support for science but also a scientific approach for politics (which Eisen says as much) and also that science isn't used falsely as a justification for nonscientific positions. I know it's a soft science, but the Bush administration's adoption of Democratic Peace Theory as not just a theory but as policy is part of the reason we are in the mess we are now.
Be careful what you wish for. Eisen might have honest intentions, but as soon as politicians figure out you can win by supporting science, they'll invoke it as often as they do god now.
Maybe a better slant on this – there has never been a wider gulf between what is represented as fact or truth in politics and what we are capable of supporting as truth through data and science.
So, it's not so much that politics has changed, but rather, the expectations we have of it are higher because we know it can be better.
Well said. I'd complement your point by adding an analogy most of us can relate to: technical debt.
When it happens in software systems, it's generally seen as a quirk/unfortunate reality of the system itself. But as an org attempts to build systems around the original one, the tech debt becomes a glaring flaw that slows and complicates everything else. A refactoring is needed.
Our political system (US here, but broadly applicable) including all its written and unwritten rules (integrity, cooperation) has always had flaws. We've worked around them in order to get things done and move forward. It's only now that we've built up other, more engineered and integrated, systems that the technical debt is visibly holding us back. Invisible/ignored tech debt is never addressed; obvious debt is dealt with one way or another.
I think there should be a STEM party. People in our realm of expertise deal with complicated systems and rules daily; I'd like to think we have a good grasp of side effects and unintended consequences. I feel we learn to deal with systems as they are and when time permits, rearchitect more favorable solutions, hopefully using data to inform our decisions.
You could see her run regardless, just to save party contributors money if nothing else (she would likely win without having to campaign or spend).
Then, she could quit and cut a deal for who would succeed her: if she quits right after the election, Brown would appoint a two-year replacement; if she quit after the new governor is seated, s/he would make that appointment.
Were she younger, I think she'd run for Governor; if she won, she would make that replacement appointment herself.
I thought the same when Boxer announced she was retiring, and yet Harris basically walked away with it merely by announcing she was going to run. I was shocked and a bit appalled that we couldn't even have a serious race for an open senate seat in the most populous state in the nation. (Sanchez, for all her efforts, was never even a contender.)
She can pick all who she likes, but as the Tea Party has demonstrated, it's possible for small groups of people to dislodge well-funded, well-connected incumbents via the primaries.
Of the many biologists I know / am aware of, Michael Eisen is probably best suited to make such a transition. one of the founders of PLOS journals (Public Library of Science; https://www.plos.org/) - a set of open access, peer reviewed journals (some of) which now rank among the top, he comes across as a very motivated, passionate campaigner for what he believes in.
> Congress passed the Metric Conversion Act of 1975 "to coordinate and plan the increasing use of the metric system in the United States". Voluntary conversion was initiated, and the United States Metric Board (USMB) was established for planning, coordination, and public education. The public education component led to public awareness of the metric system, but the public response included resistance, apathy, and sometimes ridicule.[8] In 1981, the USMB reported to Congress that it lacked the clear Congressional mandate necessary to bring about national conversion. Because of this ineffectiveness and an effort of the Reagan administration — particularly from Lyn Nofziger's efforts[9] as a White House advisor to the Reagan administration, to reduce federal spending — the USMB was disbanded in the autumn of 1982.
Maybe the way to get the mainstream to adopt a niche system is to find a use case that widens it to us. Witness the triumph of Linux through Android, for instance. What would get laypeople to use metric? Measuring alcohol?
As an American, I'm puzzled by the persistence of SAE measurement references in everyday U.K parlance.
One striking recent example: in "Sherlock", the warning message outside Eurus' cell said to "Stay back 3 feet" (as opposed to "1 Meter"). In everyday conversation, people seem to refer to bodyweight most frequently in stone. Etc.
He's actually spent a fair amount of time on the Hill advocating for the NIH public access policy[0], which lets taxpayers access the research they've paid for.
More broadly, though, science as practiced today consists of significant amounts of synthesizing diverse data of varying qualities and advocating for projects in the face of hostile audiences. Mike has been hugely successful in a cutthroat field, all while sticking to core principles of data access that others have argued would torpedo his tenure, his grants, and the careers of his trainees (none of which have been demonstrably true). Those sound like extremely valuable skills for a public servant.
conflict statement: I did my PhD in the Eisen Lab and graduated in 2015. You can bet your butt I'll be voting for him in 2018.
Why do you think he needs qualifications or experience to serve in the Senate? Doesn't that just foster the idea of the "career politician" as opposed to the idea that our government was meant to be a government "of the people, by the people, and for the people"?
While it is probably a pleasant thought to repeat the mythical stories of yeoman farmers serving the legislative office in the distant past, these stories are nothing more than myth. A 'career politician' is someone who has dedicated themselves to a profession that you may denigrate, but which is just as complicated and demanding as any other high-profile job.
It is quite possible that a 'career academic' like Dr. Eisen could succeed at the job since the role of most PIs in a top lab is bureaucratic paperwork and academic politics, but in most cases when you throw unqualified outsiders into these sort of political positions what you end up with is a government run by the unelected senior staff of the political figureheads that people are voting for.
Regardless of what happened in the past, I consider career politicians to be bad idea in general. And in either case, I disagree with the premise that one most be an experienced politician to serve in a meaningful way in the Senate. IIRC, both Rand Paul and Elizabeth Warren joined the Senate without having held elected office before. And there have certainly been others.
Anyway, if the most recent election proved anything, it's that the people are willing to vote for "outsiders", so Eisen may just have a shot. What would happen if he's elected is, of course, hard to predict.
As a lawyer and law professor Elizabeth Warren had some idea how the legal process worked and has been reasonably effective at crafting law and regulatory policy. As an ophthalmologist who happened to have a relatively famous political father Rand Paul had no idea how to craft effective law and it shows. TBH you would have been better going with Al Franken as an 'outsider' with no effective experience who seems to be getting some things done.
By and large I don't want Senators (or House reps, etc.) who "get things done". The more they do, the worse off we are in general. I want more Ron Paul types who vote "no" on everything. It's just too bad that Rand isn't as principled as his father.
I don't know anything about this guy, but from Wikipedia I see he has founded a nonprofit and done some public advocacy work, so he has experience organizing and communicating. Those are some of the most important skills, and his interview answers make it sound like he's willing and able to delegate and seek help when he doesn't know what he's doing, which is also very important.
He's not running for an executive office, so it's more important that he be a good representative than a good leader.
I hope this resonates deeply with the public.
Basic honesty has never been lower in politics, and it's teetering on scary levels.