Sometimes William Proxmire was on target with his Golden Fleece Award, but sometimes he was well off the mark, usually because he did not understand what he was sniping at. When will McCain start winding up his rants with “Nevermind!”

If you really want information about the usefulness of the grizzly DNA study, it only takes a simple google search. The study provides information about the grizzly population in area of the northern continental divide such as number, age, sex, migration patterns, etc. that can be used to make management decisions for the 1 million acre area of Glacier Park and about 6-8 million acres of adjacent federal, state, and private lands. Tourism is rapidly becoming the number one economic engine in Montana, passing agriculture, and there are some indications that it has already done so. Millions of people spend billions of dollars in Montana every year to see and experience the (mostly) intact natural systems that exist here. If the simple existence of a few hundred of such a magnificent species isn’t enough for you, perhaps the economic impact is.

I can certainly vouch for this. Just a few days ago, I received a phone call from someone interested in one of the naturalist walks I advertise locally where I live, on the topic of weather and climate. In these walks, I try to explain how people can interpret sky conditions, and also discuss anything else that people wonder about the sciences of meteorology and climatology, especially as it pertains to our region.

It didn’t take long for the caller to start injecting all sorts of commentary about how the current climate change was entirely natural and could in no way be caused by humans. She then proceeded to portray global warming as a huge conspiracy being waged by international bankers to take away everyone’s SUVs. She also said that other ‘contradictory’ information was being suppressed by these same elite individuals. Oh, and that Planet X was also partly responsible for the current climate change too.

So yes, there is a strong strain of anti-intellectual, or anti-knowledge sentiment in this country. What is frightening to me, however, is how it perceives itself as “truth-seeking”, when in reality it is merely attempting to convince itself of its own prejudices and assumptions. That it impugns the integrity of real people doesn’t matter to them. And they have to gall to think *I’m* arrogant?

and too old to be president.

Every person I know of limited education adores TV quizzes and marvels at the “intelligence”, as they interpret it, of players who reach the later rounds or win.

They don’t make a distinction between having a head stuffed full of trivia and being able to acquire and put to good use a body of structured knowledge. The fact that smart people usually have both, so that the second tends to imply the first, reinforces this common belief that the converse also holds and the two are
synonymous.

Even easier to confuse is the distinction between intelligence (a measure of ability to make meaningful connections? - people argue endlessly about the definition, but I think that captures at least some of its meaning) versus an intellectual (a person preoccupied with mental constructs, often idealistically and to the detriment of pragmatic and moral considerations).

Intellectuals may be beneficial in abstracts sciences and maths and suchlike. But in politics, where the above mentioned considerations come to the fore, idealists and intellectuals, or worse still those who fancy themselves as such on no sound basis, can cause terrible and entirely avoidable disruption and suffering.

Why do you think the UK has had no revolution for the best part of 500 years, and even that was largely rolled back within a few years? Because we distrust political intellectuals. Always have.

Why did the French have a revolution 200 years ago, and four (or is it five?) new republics since? Because they love their political intellectuals.

Why tens of millions of people die in China, Russia, Cambodia during revolutions throughout the 20th century? Because people were swayed by self-styled intellectuals.

See what I mean? There’s a definite pattern there.

I don’t disagree that people on the left have “mis-used” science as well. In particular, I believe that the left attack some aspects of sociobiology unfairly on the basis of ideology and disregarded the science.

That said, I am not sure the abortion issue is one of those areas where the religious right, most notably the catholic church has completely disregarded any attempt at scientific discourse and declared “life begins at conception”. The simple fact is that nobody is pro-abortion. But the reasons for most abortions is sadly economic. When the Right is prepared to divert money from killing people in Iraq and create a solid economic safety net for all Americans which should decrease the number seeking abortions then we will be making progress.

As I said nobody is pro-abortion. As a white male, I cannot possibly understand the agonizing choice that women go through. As such, I believe it should be up to the woman, her doctor, her god, or whoever she chooses to involve in the process to make that determination.

e.

The leftist blogospheres irratating attempts to portray every republican as antiscience is beginning to stink of desperation.

It’s well known that the media has a very liberal bias.

The fact is that science and technology can cause all kinds of problems in stable, feudal societies based on inherited wealth and power - which is, historically speaking, why the “British aristocratic disdain for science” was so common. There you are with your coal monopolies and your giant horse stables and buggy whip factories, and along comes some technologically trained peasant with an internal combustion engine and liquid fuels. Highly disrupting.

That’s not a new phenomenon. The Roman Emperor Diocletian had all the alchemists persecuted and their texts burned c.290 AD - all because he believed they really had figured out how to make gold, and he feared such knowledge would destabilize his empire. That might have put chemistry back a thousand years.

What if, for example, every U.S. citizen had a good understanding of electricity and could read their own meter, or even set up their own rooftop solar system? That’s not too good for the established electricity utilities - who try to convince the public that electricity is “just too complicated to understand - leave it to us.”

In the worst cases, as societies drift towards authoritarian or even totalitarian structures, creative thinking and scientific innovation are replaced by rote memorization and extremely narrow training. This is because science is one of the primary threats to “authority” - one doesn’t need the sanction of the god-king to publish papers. Science, socially speaking, also doesn’t really exist without the free and open exchange of information - a notion that can be a real threat to all kinds of authoritarian structures.

Maybe we can put it this way: if scientists are the new high priests of society, then they, just like the old high priests, will jealously guard their authority and their knowledge - and the general public will snigger about the snobby and corrupt high priests. However - shouldn’t we leave the high priest function to religious and political figures? Scientists should be focusing on research and education, anyway - not providing “expert testimonials” for the public relations industry, for example…

Another thing: the most rabid anti-intellectual can suddenly change their tune once they realize that scientific and technical (for example, medical) knowledge can save them a lot of trouble. Appeal to people’s sense of enlightened self-interest, maybe?

Meanwhile, here in California a good chunk of our public teachers are currently getting pink slips… which doesn’t seem to be the case for prison guards.

It’s unfortunate that it seems well-founded in fact. During the last election cycle, at least six state GOP parties had support for intelligent design and/or other forms of creationism.

“For all sense what you say undoubtedly makes, we should also be aware that the Democratic candidates sometimes trash scientific consensus as well. A paramount example is the NAFTA issue”

That would only be relevant if one considered economics to be a science.

Not only b/c McCain is generally proscience and has very reasonable views on 80% of important science, but also b/c the corresponding democrat often has just as many bizarre views as well (Hilary’s communion with the dead, Obama’s views on ethanol subsidies) that we must never talk about.

Totally lame and transparent.

(Incidentally 3million dollars is a ridiculous price tag for this research and could be far better appropriated for far more deserving research)

On a lighter note, now these guys have finished their grizzly bear study, perhaps they should start another investigation this time into how to curb criminal behaviour by bears.

On the BBC news website today “Bear convicted for theft of honey”
[ http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7295559.stm ]

The taste of honey was just too tempting for a bear in Macedonia, which repeatedly raided a beekeeper’s hives. Now it has a criminal record after a court found it guilty of theft and criminal damage.

::

The case was brought by the exasperated beekeeper after a year of trying vainly to protect his beehives.

For a while, he kept the animal away by buying a generator, lighting up the area, and playing thumping Serbian turbo-folk music. But when the generator ran out of power and the music fell silent, the bear was back and the honey was gone once more.

::

Because the animal had no owner and belonged to a protected species, the court ordered the state to pay for the damage to the hives - around $3,500 (£1,750; 2,238 euros).

The bear, meanwhile, remains at large - somewhere in Macedonia.