BewaConsensus Science

>> Much more worrisome on those grounds are what the
>> Bush administration has been doing to mess with science by
>> stacking panels with political appointees; the medical community
>> has been particularly appalled by some of the actions recently
>> taken.
>
> Very troubling indeed! Speaks to the same process I'm criticizing.
> Science will end up being just another opinion at the table.

The current set of facts and theories that we usually call 'science'
is, in fact, nothing more (or less) than the consensus of most (never
all) of the current crop of scientists. What makes the scientific
tradition so effective at finding truth is that the current set of
facts and theories can be overturned by very high quality experiment or
observation. This has happened several times, the classic example
being relativistic physics. However, as Carl Sagan said, extraordinary
claims require extraordinary evidence.

With regard to Bush: according to 'Science,' the AAAS journal, one
scientist being interviewed for a low-level scientific governmental
panel was asked who she voted for in the last election. When she said
Gore, the caller asked her why she didn't support the president. 'Nough
said.

The International Space Station's (ISS) most important legacy may be
jump-starting space tourism. Consider: the first space tourist, Dennis
Tito, was supposed to go to the Soviet era Mir space station. Under
pressure from NASA, Russia de-orbited the Mir which resulted in Mr.
Tito going to the ISS instead. Now the Mir was a terrific space
station, but by the time of Tito's trip it was also old, smelly,
crowded and probably not all that nice. The ISS was brand new, shiny,
much more roomy, etc. Mr. Tito came back to Earth with glowing accounts
of how great space is. Would his experience have been as good on Mir?

Al Globus
CSC at NASA Ames Research Center
http://www.nas.nasa.gov/~globus/home.html

Views expressed in this email are only my opinions and are not the
position of any organization I'm familiar with.