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Author Topic: White House flunky lectures NASA on science
Snuckles
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posted 04 February 2006 03:02 AM      Profile for Snuckles   Author's Homepage        Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
By ANDREW C. REVKIN
Published: February 4, 2006

A week after NASA's top climate scientist complained that the space agency's public-affairs office was trying to silence his statements on global warming, the agency's administrator, Michael D. Griffin, issued a sharply worded statement yesterday calling for "scientific openness" throughout the agency.

"It is not the job of public-affairs officers," Dr. Griffin wrote in an e-mail message to the agency's 19,000 employees, "to alter, filter or adjust engineering or scientific material produced by NASA's technical staff."

The statement came six days after The New York Times quoted the scientist, James E. Hansen, as saying he was threatened with "dire consequences" if he continued to call for prompt action to limit emissions of heat-trapping gases linked to global warming. He and intermediaries in the agency's 350-member public-affairs staff said the warnings came from White House appointees in NASA headquarters.

Other National Aeronautics and Space Administration scientists and public-affairs employees came forward this week to say that beyond Dr. Hansen's case, there were several other instances in which political appointees had sought to control the flow of scientific information from the agency.

They called or e-mailed The Times and sent documents showing that news releases were delayed or altered to mesh with Bush administration policies.

In October, for example, George Deutsch, a presidential appointee in NASA headquarters, told a Web designer working for the agency to add the word "theory" after every mention of the Big Bang, according to an e-mail message from Mr. Deutsch that another NASA employee forwarded to The Times.. . .

. . .The Big Bang memo came from Mr. Deutsch, a 24-year-old presidential appointee in the press office at NASA headquarters whose résumé says he was an intern in the "war room" of the 2004 Bush-Cheney re-election campaign. A 2003 journalism graduate of Texas A&M, he was also the public-affairs officer who sought more control over Dr. Hansen's public statements.

In October 2005, Mr. Deutsch sent an e-mail message to Flint Wild, a NASA contractor working on a set of Web presentations about Einstein for middle-school students. The message said the word "theory" needed to be added after every mention of the Big Bang.

The Big Bang is "not proven fact; it is opinion," Mr. Deutsch wrote, adding, "It is not NASA's place, nor should it be to make a declaration such as this about the existence of the universe that discounts intelligent design by a creator."

It continued: "This is more than a science issue, it is a religious issue. And I would hate to think that young people would only be getting one-half of this debate from NASA. That would mean we had failed to properly educate the very people who rely on us for factual information the most."


Read it here.

(login & password here.)

[ 04 February 2006: Message edited by: Snuckles ]


From: Hell | Registered: Jun 2002  |  IP: Logged
jonomab
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posted 05 February 2006 12:55 PM      Profile for jonomab     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
the last two paragraphs worry me.

opionions like that are completely unscientific, NASA isnt a religious establishment but a scientific one. people dont turn to NASA for religious guidence on the origin of the universe, they go for science.

fair enough its the big bang "theory", but u dont have to say it over and over again


From: London | Registered: Jan 2006  |  IP: Logged
worker_drone
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posted 05 February 2006 02:30 PM      Profile for worker_drone        Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
And ironically, the big bang theory is basically an "intelligent design by a creator" theory anyways. There was nothing, and then there was light.
From: Canada | Registered: Jun 2003  |  IP: Logged
Nanuq
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posted 05 February 2006 03:25 PM      Profile for Nanuq   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
And ironically, the big bang theory is basically an "intelligent design by a creator" theory anyways. There was nothing, and then there was light.

The Big Bang theory doesn't call for intelligent design. The evidence says that it happened and the theory covers how it happened. Questions about why it happened and who made it happen can't be answered scientifically.


From: Toronto | Registered: Feb 2005  |  IP: Logged
jeff house
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posted 05 February 2006 03:38 PM      Profile for jeff house     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Of course the Big Bang theory has nothing to do with "intelligent design". It makes no reference to any intelligence, and is derivable from chaos and probability, not "design".

However, worker drone is right that the Big Bang was originally welcomed by religious figures, especially Catrholic religious figures, as a scientific confirmation of the idea that there was a "beginning". This is important to Christians because the Bible starts out with the words "In the beginning...".

The contrary view, the "steady state" model of the universe, derives ultimately from Aristotle, ((a pagan!) who claimed that the universe was eternal, without beginning or end.

Simon Schama makes these points clearly in his book, The Big Bang, which I recommend.


From: toronto | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
Contrarian
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posted 05 February 2006 07:21 PM      Profile for Contrarian     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
There is a thread here about the gag on NASA talking about global climate change; but this news about the Big Bang theory idiocy really shows a wider attempt to foist fundamentalist religious beliefs onto science of all sorts.

Here is a Nature article about it.

And here is Bad Astronomy blog with today's blog "Outrage at attacks on NASA" Based on these two links, some of the people at NASA are political appointees, as opposed to the actual scientists, etc who work there. The blog states:

quote:
...While Deutsch works for NASA, he is actually a presidential appointee who worked for President Bush and Vice President Cheney during the 2004 elections...

...I also want to make clear that I think that scientific suppression is not representative of the demeanor in general at NASA, nor of NASA’s Public Affairs Office as a whole. In fact, the NYT article makes this clear, stating "[Hansen] and intermediaries in the agency’s 350-member public-affairs staff said the warnings [of "dire consequences" if they talked about global warming] came from White House appointees in NASA headquarters" (emphasis mine; in the article Dr. Hansen clearly also strongly disagrees with policy statements by the other PAO political appointee, Dean Acosta)...



From: pretty far west | Registered: Jul 2004  |  IP: Logged
forum observer
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posted 06 February 2006 11:48 PM      Profile for forum observer   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
WestCoastGreeny,

I think at one time is was nice to have a starting point(where is this) but now this becomes a little confusing once you understand the relationship of “particle reductionism” and “cosmological considerations.”

So now there is a wider perspective(geometrical enhanced view) that encompasses the question. One would had to have known some of this before taking hold of the God given claim, that the universe began their at the big bang. That this was indeed just part of a wider cyclical perspective.


Cycle of Birth, Life, and Death-Origin, Indentity, and Destiny by Gabriele Veneziano

Gabriele Veneziano helped here. (currently the server is down at this link location so you can check in later )

[ 07 February 2006: Message edited by: forum observer ]


From: It is appropriate that plectics refers to entanglement or the lack thereof, | Registered: Dec 2004  |  IP: Logged
Cougyr
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posted 07 February 2006 12:06 AM      Profile for Cougyr     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
" . . . the warnings came from White House appointees in NASA headquarters."

Remember those movies depicting the Soviets with their political officers? So, now the bush administration has his.


From: over the mountain | Registered: Nov 2002  |  IP: Logged
forum observer
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posted 07 February 2006 12:33 AM      Profile for forum observer   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
While I do not like capitalism gone mad, which I recogize hidden in Bush's legacy as a ruling political party, the issue was based on the definition of theoretical valuation(science and the majority of the public) to that very word "theory."

So is the attachment appropriate? If you had not understood the current advances and model assumptions it would have made the general public less then certain it understood the fullscope of the big bang, as a process that is well understood? To which some help is given above in terms of Veneziano and Turok along with Steinhardt and others.

Some might recognize Veneziano's work? Some might recognize my following statement?

Which leaves, what “always existed” and why string theorists abhors infinities.


From: It is appropriate that plectics refers to entanglement or the lack thereof, | Registered: Dec 2004  |  IP: Logged
forum observer
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posted 08 February 2006 02:37 AM      Profile for forum observer   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
At this point, while I am unaware of whether Deutsch graduated from college at all, it is clear that he did not graduate from A&M, and he may have intentionally misled people to believe that he did. The idea that NASA let a 24-year-old journalism major, with no experience in science or technology, other than writing a few articles about video games, determine what scientists were able to communicate to the public was pretty bad. The fact that he was censoring scientific information on global warming and the big bang made things more interesting, especially since he was a political appointee doing this to prevent challenges to the Bush administration’s policies. But now, finding out that he did not even graduate from Texas A&M, and may not have graduated from college at all, is absolutely outrageous. George Deutsch, as I wrote before, needs to be removed from this post immediately.

So feel free to get up speed today on the reasons why the views on "climate change" had been governed by the censoring and why global climate might had been undermined? Held to policy by the Bush Administration.

To help those further in this big bang issue, you had to understand what the microsecond might of meant in the expression of the cosmos.


From: It is appropriate that plectics refers to entanglement or the lack thereof, | Registered: Dec 2004  |  IP: Logged
Snuckles
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posted 08 February 2006 04:37 AM      Profile for Snuckles   Author's Homepage        Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Well you won't have Deutsch to kick around anymore: A Young Bush Appointee Resigns His Post at NASA.

It turns out he lied on his resume, he never completed his journalism degree at Texas A&M. Well now he has time to finish it.

quote:
By ANDREW C. REVKIN
Published: February 8, 2006

George C. Deutsch, the young presidential appointee at NASA who told public affairs workers to limit reporters' access to a top climate scientist and told a Web designer to add the word "theory" at every mention of the Big Bang, resigned yesterday, agency officials said.

Mr. Deutsch's resignation came on the same day that officials at Texas A&M University confirmed that he did not graduate from there, as his résumé on file at the agency asserted.

Officials at NASA headquarters declined to discuss the reason for the resignation.

"Under NASA policy, it is inappropriate to discuss personnel matters," said Dean Acosta, the deputy assistant administrator for public affairs and Mr. Deutsch's boss.


[ 08 February 2006: Message edited by: Snuckles ]


From: Hell | Registered: Jun 2002  |  IP: Logged
beluga2
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posted 08 February 2006 04:50 AM      Profile for beluga2     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
The Big Bang is saved!
From: vancouvergrad, BCSSR | Registered: Mar 2003  |  IP: Logged
jeff house
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posted 08 February 2006 07:29 PM      Profile for jeff house     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
What kind of administration lets a 24 year old with no scientific credentials impose his ideological views on high-level scientists at a place like NASA?

They just seem to hate the "reality-based community" over at BushCo.


From: toronto | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
Contrarian
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posted 08 February 2006 07:33 PM      Profile for Contrarian     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Hey Deutschie, you're doing a heckuva job!
From: pretty far west | Registered: Jul 2004  |  IP: Logged
Contrarian
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posted 09 February 2006 02:09 AM      Profile for Contrarian     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Here's the article by Revkin that Snuckles linked to; this one has no registration wall.
quote:
..."He's only a bit player," Dr. Hansen said of Mr. Deutsch. " The problem is much broader and much deeper and it goes across agencies. That's what I'm really concerned about."

"On climate, the public has been misinformed and not informed," he said. "The foundation of a democracy is an informed public, which obviously means an honestly informed public. That's the big issue here."


And this is the blogger who found out Deutsche did not graduate where he said he had.

[ 09 February 2006: Message edited by: Contrarian ]


From: pretty far west | Registered: Jul 2004  |  IP: Logged

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