GFG, part 651,
Via Josh Marshall, the WaPo has the latest installment of the Republican War on Science:
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."
The memo also noted that The Associated Press Stylebook and Libel Manual specified the phrasing "Big Bang theory." Mr. Acosta, Mr. Deutsch's boss, said in an interview yesterday that for that reason, it should be used in all NASA documents.
The Deutsch memo was provided by an official at NASA headquarters who said he was upset with the effort to justify changes to descriptions of science by referring to politically charged issues like intelligent design. Senior NASA officials did not dispute the message's authenticity.
Mr. Wild declined to be interviewed; Mr. Deutsch did not respond to e-mail or phone messages. On Friday evening, repeated queries were made to the White House about how a young presidential appointee with no science background came to be supervising Web presentations on cosmology and interview requests to senior NASA scientists. (my emphasis)
You know what is really scary about this? There can't possibly be a political payoff. It's not like with climate change where the fossil fuel industry lobbyists condition their campaign contributions on GOP-NASA minimizing its information dissemination on climate change. Most of Bush's supporters who would actually read NASA reports or the Washington Post (Thomas Frank's "Mods") would find this sort of thing silly if not downright indecent. I bet half the Cornerites would openly disapprove, and more than half the Weekly Standard crew would secretly disapprove, though they wouldn't dare write anything that might even tangentially sour the Administration on someday taking their advice and bombing Iran.
Sure, a few red-state parents of middle-school children might think the Bush White House a mite bit more Godly for insisting that the Big Bang be called a "theory" in the classroom. And maybe Pat Robertson would find out and inform his flock over the radio. But as payback to culture-war voters wrestling with abortion, gay marriage and modernity itself, this is pretty thin gruel. I don't see it moving a lot of votes.
Which means they -- the Bushies -- probably believe it, that we ought to be entertaining the notion that the earth is 6000 years old. Just think about that.
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."
The memo also noted that The Associated Press Stylebook and Libel Manual specified the phrasing "Big Bang theory." Mr. Acosta, Mr. Deutsch's boss, said in an interview yesterday that for that reason, it should be used in all NASA documents.
The Deutsch memo was provided by an official at NASA headquarters who said he was upset with the effort to justify changes to descriptions of science by referring to politically charged issues like intelligent design. Senior NASA officials did not dispute the message's authenticity.
Mr. Wild declined to be interviewed; Mr. Deutsch did not respond to e-mail or phone messages. On Friday evening, repeated queries were made to the White House about how a young presidential appointee with no science background came to be supervising Web presentations on cosmology and interview requests to senior NASA scientists. (my emphasis)
You know what is really scary about this? There can't possibly be a political payoff. It's not like with climate change where the fossil fuel industry lobbyists condition their campaign contributions on GOP-NASA minimizing its information dissemination on climate change. Most of Bush's supporters who would actually read NASA reports or the Washington Post (Thomas Frank's "Mods") would find this sort of thing silly if not downright indecent. I bet half the Cornerites would openly disapprove, and more than half the Weekly Standard crew would secretly disapprove, though they wouldn't dare write anything that might even tangentially sour the Administration on someday taking their advice and bombing Iran.
Sure, a few red-state parents of middle-school children might think the Bush White House a mite bit more Godly for insisting that the Big Bang be called a "theory" in the classroom. And maybe Pat Robertson would find out and inform his flock over the radio. But as payback to culture-war voters wrestling with abortion, gay marriage and modernity itself, this is pretty thin gruel. I don't see it moving a lot of votes.
Which means they -- the Bushies -- probably believe it, that we ought to be entertaining the notion that the earth is 6000 years old. Just think about that.
2 Comments:
I have my doubts that GWB believes in anything except his own power and prerogatives, both of which he thinks should be unlimited and unquestioned. I wouldn't doubt that this is another Rovian ploy to set up the Left to be their strawmen... again. I figure the Left will point out the folly of faith-based science, to which the Right will claim the Roman Persecution is on again, see how ungodly the left is, ad nauseum. They intend to carry the fall elections as they have the last two: draw out the fundamentalists with bogus pseudo-issues, count on demonizing Dems as terra-lovers and the like, and try to depress overall turnout. (Of the potential voters who stay home, they almost always lean left, so overall low turnout works for them.) It's a sadly familiar gameplan, and it won't change until it loses.
I actually disagree - I really do think that Bush is a True Believer, all the worse for the rest of us.
He's got absolutely typical sociopathic thinking as well: what he does is mandated by God, so whatever he does to bring about that mandate is inherently right. Not only can he not see where he may be wrong in his opinion, he doesn't even understand that he COULD be wrong.
How his handlers use this has very little to do with Bush himself.
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