Category Archives: Politics

Put This in the Form of a Question

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FLOTUS: Elevating the social status of nerds everywhere

Making her 13th visit to a federal agency, Obama joined Energy Secretary Steven Chu on Thursday in a tightly packed, 200-person basement DOE auditorium for a mock quiz of 10 middle schoolers who would compete next year in the National Science Bowl, an outreach effort run by DOE.

I heartily applaud this kind of effort.

But (you knew there would be a “but”) this made me wince:

Chu seemed to take pleasure when the budding scientists nailed a question, but winced when one team incorrectly guessed that nuclear power comprises only 5% of the US energy budget. The other team quickly got the answer right: 20%. “Correct,” said Chu with a wry smile.

How is that a science question? What concept should those students who missed it go back and study? The format of a quiz-bowl makes it tough to ask conceptual questions, so you’re limited right out of the gate, but really — statistics about nuclear power? Is our children learning that in science class?

This Could Get Ugly

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Global warming views ‘are philosophical belief’ for UK law

“A belief in man-made climate change, and the alleged resulting moral imperatives, is capable if genuinely held, of being a philosophical belief for the purpose of the 2003 Religion and Belief Regulations,” ruled Justice Michael Burton (Guardian, Independent). “If a person can establish that he holds a philosophical belief which is based on science as opposed, for example, to religion, then there is no reason to disqualify it from protection”

It is true, I suppose, that a view can be philosophical even if science addresses it — one can accept gravity without ever having taken a physics class, meaning that one believes in gravity in a dogmatic sense. I think this is easier to see if one’s belief were to contradict science: one could sincerely believe that they can defy gravity and fly, though if that were ever put to the test they would have a hard time reconciling their belief with the fact that they did not fly so much as plummet. (Then again, having witnessed a lot of discussions involving cdesign proponentsists, I’ve seen fervent belief allow for some pretty wicked mental contortions). Certainly there are people out there that zealously believe that they can build a perpetual motion device, or that relativity is wrong. And it just boils down to this: if facts will not dissuade you, then your belief is religious.

But we have words to describe those who tenaciously hold to beliefs that have been empirically tested, and found to be wanting: cranks, crackpots, woomeisters, kooks, loons, quackademics, wackjob, etc. You now appear to have the problem of not being able to fire an engineer or a scientist for believing in perpetual motion, simply because they hold that belief religiously. On the other hand, if the boss is a free-energy believer, how do you protect the science-minded employee from being dismissed for mentioning the second law of thermodynamics in front of the boss? Citing facts/truth has to be what’s protected, not fanatically held lies or untruths. Between this and the libel laws in England, it’s kind of a wacky place for the intersection of science and speech (Can I say that?)

Update: some commentary on the situation, which cautions us that by reducing science to belief, we lose something: beliefs are created equal, and it’s far easier to dismiss a belief or an opinion — all you have to do is disagree.

Religions have beliefs. Science is not a belief system but the best process we have for establishing the truth, piece by independently replicated piece. Nicholson should be appalled by the ruling he has won.

H1B to be Square

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In the past we’ve been told that there is a shortage of tech workers (or rather , there isn’t because we can import them), and businesses have demanded more visas or suggested other solutions to the problem.

Now they’re saying we have enough, they just are leaving the field for richer professions:

The supply has actually remained steady over the past 30 years, the researchers conclude from an analysis of six longitudinal surveys conducted by the U.S. government from 1972 to 2005. However, the highest-performing students in the pipeline are opting out of science and engineering in greater numbers than in the past, suggesting that the threat to American economic competitiveness comes not from inadequate science training in school and college but from a lack incentives that would make science and technology careers attractive.

In addition, the current economy has temporarily eased the problem (if it is a problem)— applications are down because fewer companies are hiring.

I’m beginning to see a more consistent picture here, if it is indeed the case that potential sci/tech workers simply choose other, more lucrative fields. Recipients of H-1B visas only have to be paid the higher of the prevailing wage for the region, or the employer’s actual average wage, but if that average wage is for an average employee, and your visa recipient is more capable than that, you can drive the salaries down, much like evaporative cooling lowers temperatures. Employers are not forced to pay higher wages for highly skilled US workers, so they diffuse to different fields. The average salary can drop, but the skill level increases, and average skill levels must accept lower wages as long as there is a supply via the visa program. Whether this is actually what’s happening, I don’t know. I don’t think the “we’re not capturing their interest” model is discounted, and it’s likely that multiple factors come into play in figuring out why there aren’t more science students entering the workforce.

I disagree with the proposal that we need fewer science students. There’s a mistaken notion that if you don’t directly use your degree in your adult life that the system has somehow failed, and I’d hate for the result to be less emphasis on science. The utility of learning science isn’t that everyone will become a scientist by profession; we want students to learn English literature and philosophy and some even major in these subjects, but do we expect philosophy majors to all become professional philosophers? The utility of science is that it helps teach us critical thinking, and the ability to separate truth from fraudulent mumbo-jumbo helps protect us from those charlatans who would try and peddle perpetual motion machines, or tell you the earth is 6000 years old, or convince you that vaccines cause autism. I agree with Zapperz on this

As far as I’m concerned, my interest in physics education is more towards having student be literate in physics and how it is done, rather than trying to gear them towards specializing or majoring in physics. I don’t care if they end up as physicist or not, but they shouldn’t be ignorant of what physics is, and how we gather our knowledge.

The Voices in my Head

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Make them go away.

It’s election time again, and Virginia has a gubernatorial election, so I get to go elect a guber. The mudslinging TV ads have been rampant (I hope the irony of a campaign spot accusing the other candidate of negative-campaigning was not lost on too many in my viewing area), but it also mean incessant phone calls from autodialers and recorded messages. I’ll only have to make it through a few more hours this afternoon/evening until the polls close and they will all STFU until the next big election.

Part of the Problem

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STUDY: U.S. subsidises fossil fuels 2.5 times more than renewables

Fossil fuels were given about $72 billion during the seven years, while renewable fuels got just $29 billion. The money the U.S. spends on renewables isn’t all that great, either. Of the $29 billion, $16.8 billion went to producing corn-based ethanol. Just two tax credits – the Foreign Tax Credit and the Credit for Production of Nonconventional Fuels – account for about $30 billion.

To be fair, normalized to the amount of energy, renewables probably win, but this still seems backwards. Weaning ourselves from foreign oil and reducing CO2 emissions isn’t going to be painless. I think it’s time that we recognize that, stop being like children afraid of getting a shot at the doctor’s office, and suck it up a little bit.

Red Tape

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If you work in a large organization you will undoubtedly be exposed to some level of bureaucracy; the only variable is the degree to which we are mired in it. I work for the federal government, so I’m exposed to it more than some. Every so often a directive is issued that makes absolutely no sense — the action simply will not address the problem that it was meant to tackle. When I was younger and less experienced with how the system works (or doesn’t work), I’d start making a list of reasons why the directive was stupid and a waste of time and effort, and offer these up in an attempt to save myself (and others) from these drains on our productivity. Sometimes I succeeded, but usually I failed.

The key is knowing where the decision-making power lies. When arguing with someone who doesn’t have the authority to make a decision (or is too dim to understand the issues), logic and facts are dull weapons. It’s like a Nerf vibrator; it has the vague appearance of something effective, but when push comes to shove (as it were) it’s not going to get the job done. So it happened again recently — work that needs to be completed, because someone high up in the food chain decided “we need to do something, and this is something.” Everyone who agrees it’s pointless is someone not able to make a decision.