Comments on: $3 Million to Study Bear DNA, and Other Thoughts on the Obama-McCain Debate

By: online fruit

online fruit — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 09:25:28 +0000

hey excellent post, really enjoyed it. I’ve added your blog to my netvibes account – will be keeping up with your posts!

By: Rodrigo Neely

Rodrigo Neely — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 20:18:36 +0000

I would tend to agree Honor.

* What a bad-ass name you have, by the way.

By: Honor MacDonald

Honor MacDonald — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 11:45:38 +0000

I just wish a reporter or someone would ask him in “republican” terms. They like to be zingy with language? Fine… We’re smart kids. We should be able to do zingy language, too… But we never do.

“Senator, would you be willing to pay even one penny to better understand American wildlife as significant as bears? Why do you keep repeating this implication that it wasn’t worth less than a penny each to the American people?”

As you say… There -was- someone in an ideal position to point that out on Friday. Unfortunately, he’s a democrat, and we democrats just don’t -do- that. Why? Even if the last 25 years of republican rhetoric hadn’t taught us that the American people like and respond well to catchy, zingy language, the first year of Senator Obama’s own campaign should have.

By: Rodrigo Neely

Rodrigo Neely — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 12:27:25 +0000

You make a good point.

I just don’t think the best way to get rid of Islamic fundamentalism is to ignore it.

By: GF

GF — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 06:12:51 +0000

He probably didn’t have proper health care there either….so does that mean we shouldn’t have that for the country?

>How DARE you criticize McCain for not fully supporting science funding. When he was a POW i>n Vietnam, he didn’t have science or funding!

By: Robin Zhang

Robin Zhang — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 01:39:46 +0000

Putting “Islam in the Crosshairs” as you put it would simply push more people towards violent fundamentalism. Just look at Iraq; a retrograde but relatively peaceful society has turned into a sectarian mess full of suicide bombings and violent fundamentalist preachers such as Muqtada al-Sadr. The United States hasn’t exactly had its hands clean in the past either; Bin Laden’s victories in Afghanistan were courtesy of the CIA and the blowback of the CIA overthrow of President Mossadegh of Iran brought Khomeini in power 25 years later.

So I don’t see what you could hope to achieve by putting “Islam in the Crosshairs” unless the objective would be to just kill as many Muslims indiscriminately as possible, which would simply prove that we are ten times are barbaric as they are.

By: Pablo

Pablo — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 22:10:12 +0000

It’s very disappointing that nobody in the Republicrat camp questions the legitimacy of US foreign intervention anymore. If you didn’t hear anything about Islam in the debate is because the US presence in the Middle East has little to do with it. It’s 70% about securing oil supplies and 30% about protecting the interests of another nation run by religious fanatics: Israel. So there you go, both Obama and McCain are for more intervention, more troops sent to the region, more bullying of Iran, more nation building in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, etc. This is completely immoral and one of the reasons why the country is going bankrupt. Bin Laden is just the latest bogeyman to keep you guys in line.
If you still believe the fairy tale of America spreading liberty and democracy around the world, I seriously have to question your critical thinking abilities. As much as I respect Hitchens, he is dead wrong about this too.

As for the anti-science talk of McCain and the good intentions of Obama… Did you hear that the whole economy is collapsing? You’ll have far more serious problems to face in the coming years than lack of research grants if the MOTS policies of Republicans and Democrats prevail, as they will.

In summary, this debate showed once more how your real choices have been reduced to a few trivial matters. The only real difference between McCain and Obama is who will (IN THEORY) be the main beneficiary of the welfare state: big corporations or the middle class. The problem is that the welfare state lives off debt and is, for all practical purposes, broke. I’m sorry, but it’s a lose-lose situation. There’s no real change possible.

By: Rodrigo Neely

Rodrigo Neely — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 21:08:57 +0000

I don’t think they are mapping the bear genome, from me glancing at the project web site it looks like they are trying to take a census of the bear population based on fur left on fences.

I also think that cancer research will suffer if you stop funding basic research which cancer researchers rely heavily on to understand the still vastly unknown world of cellular mechanisms.

By: Rodrigo Neely

Rodrigo Neely — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 21:02:38 +0000

I need to make an adjustment
3.) Millions of dollars in some obscure academic argument about electricity in squid brains!

All of these projects that I have deliberately tried to make look like pork (which is what I accuse McCain of doing) have huge implications for neurology and medicine, but none of them directly.

When comparing electricity in squid brains to feeding the homeless, it looks like bullshit.

I know that it looks like bullshit.

All basic science looks like bullshit unless you understand that basic science for its own sake is a worthy endeavour.

McCain and Obama’s response to the science debate questions are wonderful. Its too bad that they forget them when science is not the main topic of discussion.

By: Rodrigo Neely

Rodrigo Neely — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 20:56:42 +0000

Let me list some publicly funded research projects that I am aware of:
1.)Mapping the intracellular pathway of long term depression in hippocampal neurons of rats.
2.)Trying to understand the role of immediate early genes in long term potentiation in neurons.
3.)Trying to figure out whether or not the mechanical activation of action potentials in neurons in the absence of ions disproves the Huxley-Hodgkins model.

All of these sound like pork, don’t they. Especially if I change my wording, ever so slightly to make them sound more like pork. Respectively:
1.) Millions of dollars spent in rat memories.
2.) Millions of dollars spent in the genetics of rat memories.
3.) Millions of dollars in some obscure academic argument about electricity in rat brains.

Now compare this with any other publicly funded project.

Do you get my point?

All basic science sounds like pork, when you are addressing a scientifically illiterate electorate.