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$3 Million Overhead Projector? McCain Lie Shows No Understanding of Science or Technology
Did anyone else wonder what McCain was talking about last night when he slammed Obama over funding for a "$3 million overhead projector"? I did, and so did others. Here's a great response from someone who knows what they are talking about:
I am an Associate Professor of Astronomy at the University of Chicago (the University that today has added yet another Nobel Prize winner in the sciences for the US). I would like to comment on Sen. McCain's statement during the today's debate that Sen. Obama has earmarked "$3 million for an overhead projector at a planetarium in Chicago, Ill. My friends, do we need to spend that kind of money?"
The way Sen. McCain has phrased it suggests that Sen. Obama approved spending $3 million on an old-fashioned piece of office equipment (overhead projector).
The 3 million is actually for an upgrade of the SkyTheater - a full dome projection system, which is probably the main attraction of the Adler Planetarium and is quite sophisticated and impressive piece of equipment.
I find it appalling that Sen. McCain would call a science education tool for public (largely children) for a historic planetarium with millions of visitors a year a wasteful earmark. The planetarium's focus, as stated on their website (http://adlerplanetarium.org) is "on inspiring young people, particularly women and minorities, to pursue careers in science." Is an investment in such public facility at the time when US competitiveness in math and sciences is a constant source of alarm a waste?
"American's ability to compete in a 21st Century economy rests on our continued investments in math and science education," said Rep. Brian Baird, Chairman of the Research and Science Education Subcommittee in Congress, after the passage of The 21st Century Competitiveness Act of 2007.
Considering such investments "wasteful earmarks" today, even in the face of the financial crisis, will severely cripple US economic competitiveness in the increasingly high-tech world down the road.
— Andrey Kravtsov, Chicago, IL
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Inspiring children, women and minorities to pursue careers in the sciences? Now why would we want to spend money on something as foolish as that?
October 8, 2008 12:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
This is a pet peeve of mine.
We don't need to inspire any additional children to go into science -- there are already too many that exist in this country that can't find jobs.
What is far more important is to expose *everyone* to the scientific method and understand that method in the construct of critical thinking.
History is not about dates, science is not about equations.
Part of the problem in your statement is that many of the science community sees the value of science education as a continued pursuit of science.
October 8, 2008 1:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
"the value of science education as a continued pursuit of science."
Clearthinker, I have no idea as to what "statement" of mine you are referring to, or what you think is bad about inspiring youth to pursue careers in science. It's like you're saying that planning for the future, and making sure we're turning out qualified students 10 or 20 years from now, is somehow a foolish proposition.
I'm not seeing much clear thinking on your part.
October 8, 2008 1:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
Science doesn't pay well, and requires vast amounts of education to do (usually beyond a BS).
It is a dead-end for a smart ambitious person -- which is why it's not a popular professional choice anymore. There is no job security, there is a notion of specialization which prevents you from shifting fields easily, and already doesn't have enough funding in it to support the current community.
As a simple example: astronomy is an important subject, but the country doesn't need thousands of astronomers.
If it weren't for foreign students (since the late 70's), there wouldn't be enough students to fill up the classrooms with all the professors we are turning out.
Universities are particularly bad -- a closed system promoting their own -- without consideration of possible industrial labs and government positions -- who also have PhDs.
Finally, you have regression to the mean. The more scientists you have, the less quality work actually gets done (finite resources with more and more being given to those farther down the bell curve).
So, yes, until we can support the number of scientists we already have and until it is an attractive career choice for someone who is bright and ambitious, I would say that promoting a *career* in science is not your primary job in terms of education. I would say your job is to take the non-science students and infuse into them the critical thinking methods that science develops. That is of long term value for most people.
Otherwise, your argument is the equivalent of saying that we require students to take math in school because we want them to pursue a career in mathematics.
October 8, 2008 2:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
Aside from finding your objection to astral66 off the mark (the statement was Andrey Kravtsov's), it strikes me as somewhat attenuated by reality. A "career in science" isn't confined to the lab denizen in a white coat these days. There are plenty of industrial R&D labs that offer well paid positions to people who study a range of sciences; the medical arts also are comprised of scientists; most engineers I work with have BS and MS degrees; and yes, some people actually make a living as science teachers.
$3 million for a new projector that provides views of the night skys for people that probably will never see such objects with the naked eye due to light pollution (especially in and around Chicago) is a worthy investment since many a child's (and adult's) curiosity and interest in astronomy and other physical sciences is stimulated and sustained by a visit to the planetarium.
October 8, 2008 3:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
I should like a list of these industrial R&D labs -- most have bit the dust. It's gotten so bad that most universities today play the role of the R&D labs in the past, which is even worse as universities are now out for doing science as profit.
October 8, 2008 4:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
clearthinker, have you been getting up on the wrong side of the bed lately? You seem awfully cranky these days.
October 8, 2008 5:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
No. But there are a lot of myths out there that are exactly the reason why people are shocked when the truth comes out.
An example: Obama keeps talking about Apollo-sized program to solve our energy issues. Well, we spent $200B in 8 years, which is far larger than the $150B in 10 years he is proposing. Most people have no clue about what really got us to the moon. Or that Kennedy made damned sure we could get to the moon before issuing his challenge. Or that Kennedy didn't see the moon landing as more than a propaganda tool. (In May 1963, he told Jack Webb, head of NASA, that there would be no funding for science out of NASA, we were to go to the moon and that was it. This is documented in White House minutes. The book THE MAN WHO RAN THE MOON is an incredibly source of well-documented facts. Available on Amazon.)
And most people don't recognize that redeploying an entirely new infrastructure over the entire country is a mind-boggling complex undertaking.
Don't believe me? How much of New Orleans has been rebuilt? Some part of New Orleans haven't had electricity on since over a year after Katrina.
It's easy to talk to the talk. It's critical to get people revved up. But the problem is that no one wants to actually discuss the harder aspects of these issues.
Today, most industrial labs have bit the dust. Universities have been taking over that duty: science for profit. That means they are no longer objective. And it creates problems for taking government money, because it is dice about unfair competition practices. Most major tech universities are beefing up their legal staffs for just this reason.
And if you think the country is going to grind to a halt without credit, just imagine what happens when ideas don't flow around -- because the universities are now clamming up, because there is no research, just pre-intellectual property.
Just some points to ponder.
October 8, 2008 5:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well, I would say having careers in *ENGINEERING* and science and mathematics and other cutting edge development fields would be some good goals for minorities and women, and that there are lots of converged fields these days that involve fine arts, computer networks and design, product management, and an array of other talents.
Pure science is frequently as employable as being a Lit major. But I have a theory - know how to do one rigorous thing well, and you can be retrained (or retrain yourself) to do other useful tasks well. Sometimes that even means sports, but usually it means something where you train the mind harder. If a planetarium can inspire, fine. I'm not sure I find all those stars so great as say some idiot thought up FaceBook in his basement and kazaam! He's no longer an idiot, he's a billionaire. With lots of teenage fanclub types using his work.
I guess that means I have mixed feelings - planetariums are rather old school, kind of like libraries and orchestra concert halls and learning Latin and digging up dinosaur bones. There can be some usefulness, I suppose, but perhaps the youth of today would prefer some inspiration that isn't derived from the Middle Ages. Perhaps if there was an active space program carrying people to distant planets, but that's been dead for 35 years, so now it's more doing weightless crystal experiments in a vacuum while floating around earth. An expensive lab tech monkey so to speak. So yeah, how about a $3 million museum of cyberspace. Or a $3 million museum to Michael Milken and junk bonds. Or AdSense and ClickThroughs? Ergonomic design like the iPhone? Museum of alternate energies? Of creative waste disposal? Of transportation and urban design? Of ethics in politics? (A very tiny museum, I understand)
October 9, 2008 4:12 AM | Reply | Permalink
If somebody differs in their opinion; there opinion is a myth? It may very well be but, so may yours.
October 9, 2008 11:17 AM | Reply | Permalink
The CS field is a perfect example of this. Remember the once immutable Bell Labs? Google has hired up all of the old school private sector CS talent. They're really the last hold-out.
October 8, 2008 11:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well, Xerox used to do great stuff it never capitalized on - the network computer, network protocols, the mouse, postscript/PDF.
But Steve Jobs knows all about that, and Apple has lots of non-traditional types to work on things like ergonomics. IBM also employs quite a few. I imagine the guys at eBay have an interesting approach to things - probably can use all those stochastic probability types from BellLabs. I'm sure Monsanto has a good deal of pure science work. Then again, there are also various institutes like NCAR, NREL, Lawrence Livermore, etc. that get their core of researchers in different areas, with projects ties to industry. Honeywell is doing some majore complicated stuff with a variety of aerospace projects, and that kind of math-science is in high need.
October 9, 2008 6:59 AM | Reply | Permalink
Clearthinker, while I agree we should do more to expose everyone to scientific thinking (mandatory High School, or even elementary school, courses in logic and critical thinking would be a good place to start), I disagree with your comment about too many science majors unable to find jobs.
The reason science majors can not find work is because, under Bush, federal science funding has all but dried up. Fewer grants are available, fewer large grants are available, and competition to get grants has sky rocketed. With fewer big grants, high-profile labs are forced to gobble-up multiple small dollar grants -- the same source of funds that smaller and/or start-up labs used to pursue.
Scientific research is most emphatically NOT a free-market enterprise; forcing competition for grant monies does NOT lead to better research, better ideas, or more efficient use of dollars. Science is a collaborative effort, as such the more money available to labs - the more money funding primary research - the more the process advances. The more money available to research the more likely new discoveries will be made, old discoveries will be implemented, or new time-saving, labor-saving, or discovery-generating techniques will be developed.
I also disagree with your follow-up comment that science requires vast amounts of education to do. Who, exactly, do you think "does" science? True, there are too few professorial positions for the number of science majors, but in todays research universities and institutions, contrary to popular belief, it is not the Professors, not the Principle Investigators (PIs), who "do" the work. They direct activities and overall research goals, they write papers, they pursue grants, they find collaborators, keep abreast of the current research, and interpret results, but the PI who "humps the bench" - who spends his or her days in the lab, or in the field - is a dying breed. More and more, the persons who do the actual "science" - who collect, record, store, and process samples, who collect and record data from those sample, and who crunch the numbers for statistical analysis - are Post Docs, graduate students, undergrads, and occasionally high school or community volunteers. In large labs quite often the day-to-day operation is maintained by a Manager, not the PI, who may or many not engage in research, while a high level Technician designs the research and directs the rest of the employees. I've worked in two medium sized labs (both less than 20 people), where the Professor - the PI on 90% of the grants - never participated in sample collection/processing or statistical analysis, and often never touched the papers except to attach their seal of approval. I should also note that every lab I have worked in, and quite a few I've collaborated with, have been critically understaffed - not by choice - for the level of research being carried out, simply because funding has evaporated, particularly at the federal level.
To say science is "a dead-end for a smart ambitious person" reflects a failing of the American cultural paradigm, not a failing of scientific endeavor, in that it assumes smart, ambitious individuals should pursue money and/or power over inquiry and education. It also assumes that the best place for someone who loves science is at the top of the pyramid. That may be true for people who are both smart and ambitious, but there are plenty of just smart (but not ambitious) people out there who spend there lives in the field and in the lab and behind a telescope, who sacrifice being First Author, simply because they love their work. What draws most people to science is a love for slowly chiseling out a new fossil, extracting RNA, plating bacteria or breeding flies. There is a lot of room for those people in America's labs, and with proper funding there would be even more room.
It is for the above reasons that your argument that a planetarium gearing their program toward "entertainment" instead of pin-pointing planets, stars and constellations, is a waste of funding. People, particularly kids, are drawn to science because it is "fun". Because they like looking up at the stars, digging in the mud of a pond, mixing chemicals in their parents kitchen. Most people are drawn to science because of science's amazing history, it's great names, and it's process of discovery. They hope that one day, during that process, they too will make a great discovery. Nobody goes into science to learn the names of stars and position of constellations. A planetarium program dedicated to pinpointing the Known is an exercise in pedantry and takes, at most, a year to learn for a given location, after which it is just data, soon forgotten. A decent planetarium program - in fact any science programs - attempts to instill a sense of wonder and discovery in it's viewers, the truth that the Unknown is still out there, just waiting for hungry young (and old) minds. A love of science is a love of the process, not the results. Carl Sagan realized this many moons ago, and was ridiculed endlessly, by friend and foe alike, for his passionate appeal to the public. His greatest success and his lasting legacy is that he and opened the doors of the Ivory Towers and compelled a new generation of scientists and science educators to appreciate that true science education, at least introductory science education, is not the instilling of data into students but the distilling of a sense of wonder in potential students and, of equal importance, voters. If they appreciate it, they will fund. If they fund, they will come.
The current funding situation is creating what will eventually become a crisis if not immediately and substantially corrected. First, it is damaging America's position as the worldwide leader in science research and development. Second, it is forcing a situation where, in the not to distant future, we will see interpretation of results "bent", data padded, or, heaven forbid, outright fabricated, all in an attempt to improve the odds of future funding. Third, it will lead to the politicizing of science, a situation where research is directed by political expedient rather than free inquiry. This will hurt, perhaps even eliminate, entire avenues of inquiry and lead to "results" that are influenced by politician and lobbyist agendas.
If anyone doubts this then all we need to do is elect John McCain and wait. Eight more years ought to be enough to cripple and begin the discrediting of the American scientific enterprise. The Fundies will be ecstatic.
October 8, 2008 6:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
See my comment below:
http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/2008/10/3-million-overhead-projector-m.php#comment-3168459
October 8, 2008 6:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
Clearthinker, while I agree we should do more to expose everyone to scientific thinking (mandatory High School, or even elementary school, courses in logic and critical thinking would be a good place to start), I disagree with your comment about too many science majors unable to find jobs.
The reason science majors can not find work is because, under Bush, federal science funding has all but dried up. Fewer grants are available, fewer large grants are available, and competition to get grants has sky rocketed. With fewer big grants, high-profile labs are forced to gobble-up multiple small dollar grants -- the same source of funds that smaller and/or start-up labs used to pursue.
Scientific research is most emphatically NOT a free-market enterprise; forcing competition for grant monies does NOT lead to better research, better ideas, or more efficient use of dollars. Science is a collaborative effort, as such the more money available to labs - the more money funding primary research - the more the process advances. The more money available to research the more likely new discoveries will be made, old discoveries will be implemented, or new time-saving, labor-saving, or discovery-generating techniques will be developed.
I also disagree with your follow-up comment that science requires vast amounts of education to do. Who, exactly, do you think "does" science? True, there are too few professorial positions for the number of science majors, but in todays research universities and institutions, contrary to popular belief, it is not the Professors, not the Principle Investigators (PIs), who "do" the work. They direct activities and overall research goals, they write papers, they pursue grants, they find collaborators, keep abreast of the current research, and interpret results, but the PI who "humps the bench" - who spends his or her days in the lab, or in the field - is a dying breed. More and more, the persons who do the actual "science" - who collect, record, store, and process samples, who collect and record data from those sample, and who crunch the numbers for statistical analysis - are Post Docs, graduate students, undergrads, and occasionally high school or community volunteers. In large labs quite often the day-to-day operation is maintained by a Manager, not the PI, who may or many not engage in research, while a high level Technician designs the research and directs the rest of the employees. I've worked in two medium sized labs (both less than 20 people), where the Professor - the PI on 90% of the grants - never participated in sample collection/processing or statistical analysis, and often never touched the papers except to attach their seal of approval. I should also note that every lab I have worked in, and quite a few I've collaborated with, have been critically understaffed - not by choice - for the level of research being carried out, simply because funding has evaporated, particularly at the federal level.
To say science is "a dead-end for a smart ambitious person" reflects a failing of the American cultural paradigm, not a failing of scientific endeavor, in that it assumes smart, ambitious individuals should pursue money and/or power over inquiry and education. It also assumes that the best place for someone who loves science is at the top of the pyramid. That may be true for people who are both smart and ambitious, but there are plenty of just smart (but not ambitious) people out there who spend there lives in the field and in the lab and behind a telescope, who sacrifice being First Author, simply because they love their work. What draws most people to science is a love for slowly chiseling out a new fossil, extracting RNA, plating bacteria or breeding flies. There is a lot of room for those people in America's labs, and with proper funding there would be even more room.
It is for the above reasons that your argument that a planetarium gearing their program toward "entertainment" instead of pin-pointing planets, stars and constellations, is a waste of funding. People, particularly kids, are drawn to science because it is "fun". Because they like looking up at the stars, digging in the mud of a pond, mixing chemicals in their parents kitchen. Most people are drawn to science because of science's amazing history, it's great names, and it's process of discovery. They hope that one day, during that process, they too will make a great discovery. Nobody goes into science to learn the names of stars and position of constellations. A planetarium program dedicated to pinpointing the Known is an exercise in pedantry and takes, at most, a year to learn for a given location, after which it is just data, soon forgotten. A decent planetarium program - in fact any science programs - attempts to instill a sense of wonder and discovery in it's viewers, the truth that the Unknown is still out there, just waiting for hungry young (and old) minds. A love of science is a love of the process, not the results. Carl Sagan realized this many moons ago, and was ridiculed endlessly, by friend and foe alike, for his passionate appeal to the public. His greatest success and his lasting legacy is that he and opened the doors of the Ivory Towers and compelled a new generation of scientists and science educators to appreciate that true science education, at least introductory science education, is not the instilling of data into students but the distilling of a sense of wonder in potential students and, of equal importance, voters. If they appreciate it, they will fund. If they fund, they will come.
The current funding situation is creating what will eventually become a crisis if not immediately and substantially corrected. First, it is damaging America's position as the worldwide leader in science research and development. Second, it is forcing a situation where, in the not to distant future, we will see interpretation of results "bent", data padded, or, heaven forbid, outright fabricated, all in an attempt to improve the odds of future funding. Third, it will lead to the politicizing of science, a situation where research is directed by political expedient rather than free inquiry. This will hurt, perhaps even eliminate, entire avenues of inquiry and lead to "results" that are influenced by politician and lobbyist agendas.
If anyone doubts this then all we need to do is elect John McCain and wait. Eight more years ought to be enough to cripple and begin the discrediting of the American scientific enterprise. The Fundies will be ecstatic.
October 8, 2008 6:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
See my reply below:
http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/2008/10/3-million-overhead-projector-m.php#comment-3168459
October 8, 2008 6:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
Clearthinker, while I agree we should do more to expose everyone to scientific thinking (mandatory High School, or even elementary school, courses in logic and critical thinking would be a good place to start), I disagree with your comment about too many science majors unable to find jobs.
The reason science majors can not find work is because, under Bush, federal science funding has all but dried up. Fewer grants are available, fewer large grants are available, and competition to get grants has sky rocketed. With fewer big grants, high-profile labs are forced to gobble-up multiple small dollar grants -- the same source of funds that smaller and/or start-up labs used to pursue.
Scientific research is most emphatically NOT a free-market enterprise; forcing competition for grant monies does NOT lead to better research, better ideas, or more efficient use of dollars. Science is a collaborative effort, as such the more money available to labs - the more money funding primary research - the more the process advances. The more money available to research the more likely new discoveries will be made, old discoveries will be implemented, or new time-saving, labor-saving, or discovery-generating techniques will be developed.
I also disagree with your follow-up comment that science requires vast amounts of education to do. Who, exactly, do you think "does" science? True, there are too few professorial positions for the number of science majors, but in todays research universities and institutions, contrary to popular belief, it is not the Professors, not the Principle Investigators (PIs), who "do" the work. They direct activities and overall research goals, they write papers, they pursue grants, they find collaborators, keep abreast of the current research, and interpret results, but the PI who "humps the bench" - who spends his or her days in the lab, or in the field - is a dying breed. More and more, the persons who do the actual "science" - who collect, record, store, and process samples, who collect and record data from those sample, and who crunch the numbers for statistical analysis - are Post Docs, graduate students, undergrads, and occasionally high school or community volunteers. In large labs quite often the day-to-day operation is maintained by a Manager, not the PI, who may or many not engage in research, while a high level Technician designs the research and directs the rest of the employees. I've worked in two medium sized labs (both less than 20 people), where the Professor - the PI on 90% of the grants - never participated in sample collection/processing or statistical analysis, and often never touched the papers except to attach their seal of approval. I should also note that every lab I have worked in, and quite a few I've collaborated with, have been critically understaffed - not by choice - for the level of research being carried out, simply because funding has evaporated, particularly at the federal level.
To say science is "a dead-end for a smart ambitious person" reflects a failing of the American cultural paradigm, not a failing of scientific endeavor, in that it assumes smart, ambitious individuals should pursue money and/or power over inquiry and education. It also assumes that the best place for someone who loves science is at the top of the pyramid. That may be true for people who are both smart and ambitious, but there are plenty of just smart (but not ambitious) people out there who spend there lives in the field and in the lab and behind a telescope, who sacrifice being First Author, simply because they love their work. What draws most people to science is a love for slowly chiseling out a new fossil, extracting RNA, plating bacteria or breeding flies. There is a lot of room for those people in America's labs, and with proper funding there would be even more room.
It is for the above reasons that your argument that a planetarium gearing their program toward "entertainment" instead of pin-pointing planets, stars and constellations, is a waste of funding. People, particularly kids, are drawn to science because it is "fun". Because they like looking up at the stars, digging in the mud of a pond, mixing chemicals in their parents kitchen. Most people are drawn to science because of science's amazing history, it's great names, and it's process of discovery. They hope that one day, during that process, they too will make a great discovery. Nobody goes into science to learn the names of stars and position of constellations. A planetarium program dedicated to pinpointing the Known is an exercise in pedantry and takes, at most, a year to learn for a given location, after which it is just data, soon forgotten. A decent planetarium program - in fact any science programs - attempts to instill a sense of wonder and discovery in it's viewers, the truth that the Unknown is still out there, just waiting for hungry young (and old) minds. A love of science is a love of the process, not the results. Carl Sagan realized this many moons ago, and was ridiculed endlessly, by friend and foe alike, for his passionate appeal to the public. His greatest success and his lasting legacy is that he and opened the doors of the Ivory Towers and compelled a new generation of scientists and science educators to appreciate that true science education, at least introductory science education, is not the instilling of data into students but the distilling of a sense of wonder in potential students and, of equal importance, voters. If they appreciate it, they will fund. If they fund, they will come.
The current funding situation is creating what will eventually become a crisis if not immediately and substantially corrected. First, it is damaging America's position as the worldwide leader in science research and development. Second, it is forcing a situation where, in the not to distant future, we will see interpretation of results "bent", data padded, or, heaven forbid, outright fabricated, all in an attempt to improve the odds of future funding. Third, it will lead to the politicizing of science, a situation where research is directed by political expedient rather than free inquiry. This will hurt, perhaps even eliminate, entire avenues of inquiry and lead to "results" that are influenced by politician and lobbyist agendas.
If anyone doubts this then all we need to do is elect John McCain and wait. Eight more years ought to be enough to cripple and begin the discrediting of the American scientific enterprise. The Fundies will be ecstatic.
October 8, 2008 6:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
See my reply below:
http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/2008/10/3-million-overhead-projector-m.php#comment-3168459
October 8, 2008 6:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
Typical of McCain: distort, insinuate, and oh by the way untrue: the "ear mark" was not allocated and the "overhead projector"
has not been installed...
October 8, 2008 11:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
"I am an Associate Professor of Astronomy at the University of Chicago"
I work in the Dept of Astronomy and Physics here at UPenn and also am puzzled why McBush would chose this particular earmark for attack.
We just signed over nearly a TRILLION dollars to an elected government which has run this country into the ground financially (not to mention militarily and politically).
So McBush thinks a paltry $3 million is a more important thing to discuss? It's like suggesting that we should use a thimble to bail out Lake Michigan.
(Get it?: BAIL out Lake Michigan!! LOL)
October 9, 2008 9:01 AM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks for clearing this up. I too was wondering what this was about. An overhead projector...this is the kind simple minded thinking that is unsuitable for the presidency. Now that we know what this is exactly, McCain is looking very petty.
October 8, 2008 12:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
Why does McCain always blast earmarks related to science and education?
October 8, 2008 12:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
For the same reason he never mentions the middle class: he would like to see all three of them disappear.
October 8, 2008 1:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think I did hear him say "middle-income" in the "town hall" debate last night. Not sure that counts as the same though.
October 8, 2008 2:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
The question I have to ask is this: If it attracts millions of visitors every year and they charge admission for this (they do), why couldn't they borrow the money and pay for it from the admissions revenue?
There are hundreds (probably thousands) of earmarks like this in the federal budget that can and should be paid for by alternate means. The result is many additional billions of dollars in federal expenditures. It's a bad practice that needs to stop.
October 8, 2008 1:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
the planetarium is not for profit which means it could take a very long time before they can amortize $3million. Who would lend them that kind of money for such a long time?
October 8, 2008 2:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
Look at their website. In addition to the general admission, they charge an extra admission fee ($9-13) for the skyshow. If they have millions of visitors every year...well, you can do the math.
Sure, it's in the noise level of the federal budget and serves a worth purpose. But with literally thousands of similar earmarks every year, the amount becomes non-trivial. The proper role of government is to do those things that people can't do for themselves. This clearly does not fall in that category.
October 8, 2008 4:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
the potential profitability of some ventures just does not attract private investors due to the many competing opportunities for that same amount of investment. as a result, worth while projects get scraped because private money is just not there. so what do we do? simply wait until some investor comes around that find the planetarium project more profitable than putting in, say, venture capital or bio-tech stock?
in practice, private incentives do not always yield the optimal outcome for society as a whole. while we can argue the relative merits of an earmark as it relates to public benefit, fact of the matter is some worth while projects can only come to fruition through some type of public outlay.
October 9, 2008 1:04 AM | Reply | Permalink
mans_best_friend:
"There could possibly be hundreds or even thousands" of earmarks like these? That would mean it's 'possible' that taxpayers have invested on the order of 3 billion dollars into earmarks whose prudence is debatable (at least, folks are debating one here). That's approximately $10-$60 per capita. We spend $1300 per capita per year on INTEREST on the national debt. We just witnessed a $2300 per capita bailout. We're looking at between $3000 and $10000 per capita for the Iraq and Afghan wars. If ever there were an application of the phrase "penny wise and pound foolish", this is it.
As an engineer (with a BS and an MBA, for whatever it's worth), this strikes me as a pretty clear indication that we need more investments in math and science- if not to create an employable workforce, to ensure the electorate can keep millions, billions, and trillions in proper perspective and doesn't glaze over Rain Man style at the mere mention of large numbers. If a presidential candidate thinks he's going to solve our financial crisis by eliminating earmarks, he needs a math lesson.
October 8, 2008 4:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
I also have technical degrees, so please don't presume to lecture me on the importance of science education. The fact that larger sums are wasted on even less worthwhile causes does not make the expenditure worthwhile. If we're going to spend money on science education, there are better places to spend it than on "gee whiz" shows such as this. BTW, I have been there and seen it. Claiming that it promotes science education is rather thin.
October 8, 2008 4:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
Would you say it's similar to the description I gave for Griffith Observatory?
October 8, 2008 5:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
Not too different. Definitely more gee-whiz than science.
This is not necessarily a bad thing. This kind of exposure to science is still more than most people get. But we live in a world of finite economic resources, and I'm not sure this is something I'd spend money on when it could be funded from admission fees instead.
October 8, 2008 5:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
As someone who knows a little something about science (and science education), I can honestly say that the $3M theater system may be dubious. I would have to see the science program at the planetarium before deciding it's "value".
As an example: Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles recently did a $92M renovation. They replaced their old projector with a new one (you can see the old one in REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE).
The result? There is very little star finding, or constellation hunting in the presentation. Except for the Big Dipper and the North Star (Ursa Major and Polaris for you astronomical types), there is, in fact, nothing.
Instead, the planetarium has been turned into what amounts to an IMAX theater with a nice, white-bread, and somewhat misleading, view of the historical development of astronomy.
This was highly entertaining, but your average PBS Nova program had more content.
I was disappointed (despite being entertained). Had I seen this at Disneyland, it would have been perfect: science-lite and some cool special effects.
It's as if we've given up on science and really have reduced everything into entertainment.
So if that's the type of project the $3M was used for, McCain would have a point.
And remember, this comment is coming from someone who believes in science education.
October 8, 2008 1:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
One of my favorite examples is the celebration of Isaac Newton. He's typically lauded as a towering genius as the inventor of modern physics. If you read a bit into the historical record, you also discover that he was an egomaniac, possibly a thief and maybe a bit of a pervert. Not that he didn't also do some brilliant work, but perhaps his most brilliant moment was when he observed that his success was the result of having "stood on the shoulders of giants."
The white-washing of history is not spared on science history.
October 8, 2008 2:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Pervert" is a dangerously loaded word. Are there specifics here? Are we talking about differing cultural standards over 400 years?
Newton also did some very positive non-science things like expose counterfeiters.
On the other hand, we have the revisionism about science which is just as bad as a white-wash. How Einstein was supposedly in debt to his first wife for special relativity is the classic example.
As always, a real person is more complex than how they are portrayed. (Also applies to Obama. ;-))
October 8, 2008 3:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well, perhaps that wasn't the best choice of word. It actually wasn't even my description, but it had to with certain sexual inclinations that I personally don't really care one way or the other about. Differing cultural standards? Without a doubt, but then again there are people in American who still find oral sex to be deplorable. I don't even mean to judge him on those points, I merely meant it as an example of things that you don't hear about Newton.
All of which is to agree with your point, that being that reality is far more complex.
October 8, 2008 11:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
By the way, DF, have you visited Griffith Observatory since it's reopening?
October 8, 2008 3:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
I haven't. Would you recommend it?
October 8, 2008 11:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
Go towards dusk and grab a look through the telescope. That's always a good time. If you time it right, sometimes the local LA Astronomical club sets up a bunch of (much smaller!) telescopes on the lawn.
The planetarium show is fun -- but it's science-lite.
If you want to view through their main telescope try to avoid the weekends, the lines get so long that you can be cut out of the action.
October 9, 2008 12:18 AM | Reply | Permalink
It is the earmarks, the earmarks; it is never the trillion dollars that Bush/McCain have pissed down the Iraq hole.
Mav-Erratic/BarbieCuda 2008BC
October 8, 2008 2:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
From the horse's mouth:
http://www.adlerplanetarium.org/pressroom/pr/2008_10_08_AdlerStatement_aboutdebate.pdf
(PDF of press release from the Adler Planetarium on McCain's comments)
October 8, 2008 3:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm guessing that they are getting the same Zeiss that is at Griffith Observatory.
This is a project that shows the movie I describe above. Here is a picture of it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Universarium_in_Planetarium_Hamburg.jpg
The issue isn't the projector at any rate, it's what the project shows.
October 8, 2008 3:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
Not so sure. Methinks the positions you and Opus have put forth are both correct in a certain manner, and to some extent fallible.
Agreed that this is the primary benefit.
Here you seem to monetize the value of pursuing a career in the sciences. I can't see a way to agree with the apparent assumption that undertaking a scientific career without some minimum threshold of monetary success is without benefit. As you of all people undoubtedly know, human history holds examples of brilliant scientists who did work which ultimately served to benefit mankind on a macro scale, yet who died penniless.
Is altruism dead?
Or is knowing something for the pure intrinsic value of the knowledge a mirage?
While I can't immediately deny this proposition, I can envision the opposite - whereby for every Newton humanity begets (who as DF noted downthread 'stood on the shoulders of giants'), we lose a potential Salk or Gauss because the proper mind was never exposed to the proper giants.
To me, at least, it is worth such relatively minimal investments to spread our scientific fishing nets far and wide in hopes of catching the next great genius. A gamble with no clear odds of return, to be sure. But what opportunity cost do we pay if the gamble is never made?
October 8, 2008 3:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
This written in response to CT's post above.
October 8, 2008 3:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
Studies have shown that dollars lost when not earning income in your 20's (when you are studying for your advanced degrees) never are made up with higher salaries later on. (Remember, you have to include the effects of compounding that money in your 20s.)
But that's only part of it.
Scientists don't earn that much money. In every government lab that I know of, 1st level managers routinely earn 50% more than the people they are managing. And, if you know the Dilbert principle, these managers are there not because they were the best scientists/engineers in the group, but rather the worse.
Since the 70s, with the collapse of the government backed aerospace industry, large industrial labs (Ford, Xerox PARC, IBM, AT&T, GE, etc.), and the rudderless government labs, bright ambitious students have moved into areas where the pay is better and the jobs have more upside potential:
MBA, law, entertainment.
Today, a newly minted PhD's best job prospect is teaching in academia. And academia is very crowded. So this brings us to a zero-population growth issue again.
There are many things worth knowing. It's just that you don't need a whole infrastructure of people to research things -- as there simply isn't the support.
Much of what we take for granted today in society about scientific careers is really quite new -- it was WWII that gave us our current industrial-military complex that supports the sciences.
As a result, science is important... but having a growing science base is not. In fact, we will shortly have to contract as foreign students move to high quality institutions in their own countries.
Especially with the Internet today, you needn't worry about catching great scientists. Genius can't be denied. If you have to encourage someone to go into a field that is already too crowded, it's clearly not someone who is the right person to succeed as our system is currently set up.
October 8, 2008 4:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
25 years ago, I was a young woman with aptitude for math who thought going to MIT would be really cool. Unfortunately, I attended an all-girl high school where mathematics were simply not emphasized (the highest level course they offered was "pre-calculus" which was mostly just trigonometry). I was also surrounded by people whose attitude when I talked about such things was one of "why would you want to do that?" My brothers received science and engineering degrees, and no one once ever questioned why they'd want to do that.
It was a form of subtle discouragement, and there wasn't enough going on to override it for me. So I didn't pursue any sort of math or engineering, and now that I'm contemplating a master's, I'm struggling to keep up with the math required and feeling pretty damned bitter about not getting this earlier.
I wish there had been programs like this for me 25 years ago. I wish there had been programs that would have given me the tools to respond to all the "why would you want to do that" questions.
And getting people interested in science isn't all about generating research scientists. A planetarium might not inspire just future astronomers, but also future engineers and geologists and star-gazers who take the math they learn in astronomy and apply it to some wholly different field like saving the financial markets. It isn't about pushing certain fields. It's about expanding the realm of possibility for people who've been told their possibilities are limited.
October 8, 2008 4:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
You have it backwards. It was the smart mathematicians and physicists who were hired by the droves by Wall Street starting in the late 1980s that gave us the derivatives that collapsed the whole system.
As for your experience: the world is a lot more open now than before. For starters there are more women in college then men -- though you won't hear feminists talking about aggressively getting boys to go to college since we aren't at 50%-50%.
It's unfortunate you were discouraged, and I don't know what your job currently entails, but your notion of being able to flip around fields doesn't hold. There are so many qualified engineers/scientists out there, that every need already has lots of competition -- and so if you weren't specifically trained in an area, you are out of luck. (By the way, MIT has plenty of entering freshman who didn't have calculus in high school.)
This also doesn't even get at the issue that most of our engineer/science jobs are being outsourced to places like India/China/South America.
Those are the facts. Before we try to inspire people into taking on debt (college tuition) and wasting time (years for an advanced degree), we need to fix society to have a place for them.
Science education should be to get people to see the world rationally -- which the religious folks don't like (e.g. evolution is not one of several explanations for example).
October 8, 2008 5:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
Forgive me for interjecting only a tangentially related comment, but I too have personally witnessed what you have described only from the other side of the gender prism.
At my age, I am what you might call "on the cusp" of the generation in which women mathematicians were not only accepted but often actively sought. Not because they are women, in some attempt to fulfill a quota, but rather because they are often quite powerful thinkers.
As I progressed through my undergraduate courses at a large university, the percentage of women noticeably dropped with each successive year. Early Calculus courses - perhaps as much as one quarter to one third women. By senior year, and courses like Number Theory, Non-Euclidean Geometries, and Topology, it was not unusual to find classes with one female student or sometimes none at all.
Fast forward several years, and upon entering my Master's program fully half of the students were women. There were some that sucked, just like the men. Most were average and there were a few who were great. All, though, were there to pursue degrees as professional mathematicians, and very few in academia.
On numerous occasions, I found myself thinking how glad I was that at some point along the line these women had been encouraged, at least in some way, to pursue a career in mathematics. For just as frequently as the men, they offered valuable insights and ideas into various concepts. I was more than willing to accept the fact that I would eventually be competing against more people in the future (perhaps even too many to all find jobs in our chosen field) in exchange for an overall higher level of discourse provided by having those people.
October 8, 2008 5:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
CT, I think I'm beginning to see where you are coming from, so let's clear one thing up:
I didn't get a PhD in order to make a lot of money, I got my PhD (and BA and MA before that) because to some of us, the pursuit of knowledge is its own reward.
Got that? It's not all about the big job and big money. The reason to promote government funding of the arts and sciences...is to guarantee an educated populace. It's not a profit-oriented business model, it's what civilizations are built on.
October 8, 2008 5:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
No one does. Or no intelligent person does.
I got my PhD (and BA and MA before that) because to some of us, the pursuit of knowledge is its own reward.That's fine.
Who pays you in this endeavor? Are you good enough to be paid? What if you don't make tenure? Why should you expect tenure? You are one of the *lucky* ones. You got a job in academia and if you keep your nose clean, publish a few well-cited papers, and don't boff your students, you might, just might get to keep your job. But if you do, don't ever think it's because you are smarter than dozens of others at your level that didn't make these cuts -- you did everything you needed to do AND the gods smiled on you. (If you are one of the few geniuses per generation, I apologize in advance, I'm just playing the odds here.)
If you want a good quote, Vannar Bush commented in the 1950's that certain science projects don't necessarily aid in the defense of the country, but they make the country worth defending.
And I agree. But you, and thousands of academicians, are living off the public dole to pursue interests that are personal to you. That should give you a bit of pause before making comments about unlimited growth of students.
I say this having been part of and being *very* familiar with the academic system you are describing (no, I wasn't denied tenure anyway -- though I've seen that close-up more than a few times).
October 8, 2008 5:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
Now you are quoting me! You didn't start off here, you talked of inspiring people to pursue a career in science.
But I still don't believe that you believe this statement. If you did, the university would give you only teaching, and not research, duties. But at the end of the day, your tenure will be determined primarily on the basis of your research and not teaching at all.
The fact is that universities love science programs because it brings money into the school from the government. And when all schools do this, it dilutes the amount of money available to less than that necessary for a sustained research program at any one place.
October 8, 2008 5:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
CT, You are making so many unsubstantiated generalizations here that I'm beginning to think that you are a big dumb-ass. For the record, I haven't had an academic position for three years. Time to get off your high horse and stop talking out of the part that usually contacts the saddle.
October 8, 2008 5:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
Here it is on display:
The true Academic Sense of Entitlement.
I made no assumptions. If you have tenure (not all associate professors do), then congratulations.
Of course, you didn't answer the question of who pays your salary? (Hint: I don't believe it's from the profits of widgets you make.) Chicago has an excellent School of Economics. I suggest you talk to a few faculty members there.
October 8, 2008 5:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
By the way,
How do you square:
with
October 8, 2008 6:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
Still not sure I'm convinced.
I can't disagree with the vast majority of what you've written; particularly the notion that many of the scientific fields are over-saturated and this is the natural and understandable cause of movement to other, more lucrative fields. On an aside, this would seem to undermine the argument that an Internet account is sufficient to spawning scientific genius. After all, which is it, do people tend to follow the money or not? Surely the I-Net isn't the sole domain of a bunch of science geeks - almost every page I visit seems to offer an advertisement telling me I can make up to $10,000 per month working from home! ;D
But to the point, please allow me to clarify. I do not propose espousing scientific careers at the expense of others. Nor am I claiming that our scientific base necessarily needs to be expanded. Merely that encouragement to pursue a scientific career, even if only in a tangential, demonstrative sort of way, does in fact hold value and is important if one believes the furthering of human scientific knowledge is a worthy goal.
We don't usually encourage children to become strippers, yet some do. Nor do we usually encourage them to be panhandlers, yet some are. If we don't encourage them to become scientific geniuses, I am certain some surely will (pursuant to your 'genius can't be denied' point).
Conversely, I also agree that if we do choose to encourage scientific geniuses, some will fail and simply serve to 'bloat the market', if you will.
I suppose at a fundamental level I would prefer to have too many mediocre scientists if it means I could potentially reap more geniuses than to have just the right amount of scientists at the cost of potentially missing out on a few gems. This obviously flies in the face of your very correct observation that we risk wasting finite resources that could possibly be better spent, but it jives perfectly with your equally correct point that genius can't be denied. I do believe that genius can be under-stimulated, or under-recognized, and hence would rather look for it far and wide.
Am I being too naive here in hoping to have my cake and eat it too by wanting both geniuses and lots of them?
October 8, 2008 5:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
Scientific fields are NOT over saturated. All projections I've seen show a severe shortage of trained technical workers over the next 20 years.
October 8, 2008 5:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
That's what they always say. Where exactly are we hurting? We are shipping science/engineering jobs overseas at an accelerated rate.
Even at their paltry salaries (compared to the managers), US engineers are still too expensive in this global economy.
October 8, 2008 5:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
It depends on what field you're talking about. Biotech firms are still having a hard time finding enough people. Ditto materials science and some (not all) engineering fields. Graduates (unless you're at the bottom of the class) are receiving multiple job offers. The reason work is being shipped overseas is because there aren't enough people here to do the work.
October 8, 2008 5:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
Patently not true. Shipping the jobs overseas allows for cheaper labor. Most Venture guys will tell you that when you design your project, your engineers will be gone and you will use this place in (Brazil, India, pick a country).
Look at the number of factories that Intel and AMD have built overseas.
It's all about bucks. I've heard more than one industrialist exclaim (with glee): I can hire an Indian for $20K a year with 5 years experience who went to a top school. Why would I spend $60K on a kid who just left school?
October 8, 2008 5:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
You surely see the logical contradiction in your argument. If technical people are in such oversupply, how is it that they are so expensive? Most companies can't find enough trained people for the jobs they have here. Where I work we have a number of openings that we're having a hard time filling, and I know that we're not unique. I can assure you that the unemployment rate for most engineering fields is near zero.
When AMD or Intel opens a factory overseas, the low labor costs that attracts them is not the cost of technically trained people, but unskilled labor.
October 8, 2008 6:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
Markets aren't efficient. No one goes into a profession expecting a salary and then when he graduates takes a poverty level salary.
Instead of assurances, care to show some actual data?
Here's an example:
Are you going to hire (say) a PhD in aerospace engineer with 15 years experience to fill a biotech job or chemical engineering job or coding job? Of course not. You want special specific skills -- not an aptitude for techology.
Moreover, your one position seems like a gaping hole to you, but is nothing in the grand scheme of the economy. Can you absorb a mere few dozen tech people for any one job?
10 years ago, there was a "massive shortage" of programmers -- because of the Internet revolution. Massive amounts of people jumped in -- where are those jobs now?
The basic problem is that in today's world, high-tech is becoming like a high paid vocational school. And because the training typically takes longer than the business cycle it's a losing proposition (never mind the costs of reeducation).
Believe me, if engineering was such a good job, our grad schools would be filled with Americans, rather than foreigners. The Americans have gone on to a more secure future: business, law, entertainment.
That can change, but would require a massive societal shift.
October 8, 2008 7:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
Have you been involved in fab? The people running the line (including the technicians) are anything but unskilled labor.
October 8, 2008 7:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
My advisor once remarked:
My advisor used to write a single sheet proposal and be granted a 3 year program extendable to 6 years if good work was produced.I was once able to write a 15 page proposal and be granted a 2 year program that would end and require me to find another source of funding.
My students write 50 page books for proposals and can't get funded.
In addition, mediocre researchers
a) clogs up the scientific press
b) creates mediocre reviewers of papers
c) provides people who label themselves as scientists and then go on FNC refuting entire communities (all in the interest of "fair and balanced"...)
d) simply makes it more difficult to decent and important work to be seen
Slightly off topic: If you haven't read it yet
GENIUS by James Gleick
http://www.amazon.com/Genius-Life-Science-Richard-Feynman/dp/0679747044
has a nice side discussion of "where have all our giants gone"? It's also a good read in it's own right.
October 8, 2008 5:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
Many thanks! Will check it out. Funny too - I have one that I was wanting to recommend to you as well, but as a direct indicator that my memory fails me rapidly with age, I can not remember the author off the top of my head. Will look it up for you later this evening and post a follow up, though I would not be at all surprised if you've already read it.
Back to the point at hand, I suppose what we really need is a "genius detector"? One that can properly identify whom the geniuses will be so that we can dedicate all funding to those who will maximize our returns and eliminate the riff-raff.
October 8, 2008 5:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
That would be the motivation behind the IQ. And you saw how well that works out.
October 8, 2008 5:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
Precisely. Unless you or I prove to be the genius who can devise the "genius detector", I submit we are at a loss for readily knowing from whence genius will come.
Hence the inherent value, on a macro scale of bettering humanity via scientific discovery, for encouraging all to pursue a degree in the sciences (note: this does not imply at the expense of encouraging other career paths).
Obviously not all will follow said encouragement. And obviously I cannot deny there will be those who do though by most measures they should not have. However, if we can agree that the ultimate goal is to obtain significant scientific advancement, I respectfully submit that the trading space between encouraging youth to pursue a career in research versus somehow hoarding admittedly finite resources for pre-defined 'worthwhile' researchers does not yield a zero sum endeavor. Does an overabundance of scientific mediocrity carry a painful cost? Yes, to be sure. I am simply of the opinion that is ultimately outweighed by the potentially far greater cost of losing the next Einstein. As I'm sure you know, he developed the fundamental components of his work on spec. rel. while employed at this Swiss patent office, and I cannot help but wonder what he would have become had his father not given him that compass.
October 8, 2008 6:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
Poor example. Einstein did his work in obscurity and the community found him. He was in the patent office because he couldn't find a university position.
October 8, 2008 7:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
Mm-mm. No. It serves to illustrate my point perfectly (perhaps I am simply not expressing my point very well).
At the danger of missing the forest for the trees, let's examine Einstein (briefly!).
As you indicate, he tried and failed to find a position in academia and was forced to accept work at the patent office. Also as you have indicated, this is presumably due to finite scientific resources expended on academia, which at whatever threshold they were at the time, deemed him sufficiently mediocre to bypass. This is the carrying cost for an overabundance of scientific researchers, which again I agree with you does exist.
Now, freeze right there. Had that been the end of our story, we might not today have spec. rel.
Fortunately for our modern society, Einstein's father had made the small investment in a compass for the young man. His interest was sparked, and he was 'encouraged'.
At least in this case, the small encouragement of a child resulted in incredible research - whereas the admittedly limited academic expenditure, presumably funding less talented scientists, had almost no impact whatsoever.
October 8, 2008 8:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
I am not so certain that McCain's reference to the "Overhead Project at the Planetarium" did him any good. He explained the earmark enough for people get it - Yeah, that's a good investment of public money.
I have to say the same thing about the ad he released this morning - "We all know the truth." He includes a clip of Obama declaring an accusation against him to be a lie. Obama doesn't look small, weak or defensive in any manner. Again, I think the ad may play better for Obama then McCain.
October 8, 2008 3:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
McCain's running mate is the Queen of Earmarks.
She has requested more per person than any other state in the union.
She even gets earmarks to study the sex lives of fish. I think she wants to teach them sexual abstinence, so they can have shotgun marriages, the Palin family way.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2008154532_webpalin02m.html
October 8, 2008 3:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
Sarah Palin's two million earmark to study the mating habits of crabs, and I guess, to make sure that they do not get abortions.
http://enclave-nashville.blogspot.com/2008/09/sarah-palins-2-million-earmark-for.html
October 8, 2008 3:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
$3M? who cares? that is such a small amount of money; i don't know why mccain even brought that up. most tax payers i know wouldn't mind if some of their money was spent on equipment meant for educational purposes at the oldest planetarium in the country. i guess if you're old, white and republican you'd rather that money go into the pockets of ceos who don't need that money in the first place.
October 8, 2008 3:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think it is correct to observe that a Planetarium charges non-trivial money and it gets sufficient revenue to buy the projecting system etc.
This is a typical harmless earmark. One would wish that problems addressed by such earmarks were adresed more systematically, but the amount of money is trivial and, yes, more good than harm.
October 8, 2008 3:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
The danger of such studies is that students will learn that the earth is not flat. Then you get to a earth that is billions of years old, and then finally they are learning about evolution. That is the real danger.
Hmmm. An astro prof at Chicago? Quite a varied group TPM has here. Small world---I was a student of John Carlstrom (for a short time) before he came to Chicago.
October 8, 2008 4:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
We should've given the planetarium a $5000 credit to go out and buy a new projector on the free market.
October 8, 2008 5:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
I couldn't have said it better:
- Jules Siegel "The Adler Planetarium and McCain's Fake War on Earmarks."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jules-siegel/the-adler-planetarium-and_b_133024.html
October 8, 2008 5:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
Normal senatorial effort for his state.
Adler Planetarium is not the most wisely run institution, (and I benefit from its commerce). New York's Hayden Planetarium has the world's best Zeiss projector, ($5 mil in 1998) and didn't need an earmark. And that one shows stars, not movies. Then again, Hayden's movies are amazing, too.
But it's a real strain to complain about a museum item as pork, and so small. Shocking to think that I contributed about one penny to the pleasure of Chicago's museum-goers. Surely some wonk will add up the pork McCain and Domenici have delivered to Arizona.
October 8, 2008 5:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
I agree with you. There are other critical earmarks as I argued on Genghis' blog last week, some of which are related to national defense and the like. Recall that a goodly number of people said that all earmarks were bad, and I was on the "other side". ;-)
Again, I remind everyone that it were the Dems that promoted this issue in 2006 and the GOP was able to put it to good effect in 2008. The Dems never learn how to control the conversation!
October 8, 2008 5:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
Of course McCain attacked a $3 million expenditure for science education. After all, this is the guy who picked as his VP running mate a woman who believes in the literal truth of "The Flintstones."
October 8, 2008 5:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
The Adler Planetarium issues its own statement:
October 8, 2008 5:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Sen. Dick Durbin and six Chicago-area Congressman, three of whom are Republicans, also agreed to sponsor the unsuccessful $3 million earmark.
Planetariums in New York and Los Angeles recently replaced their Zeiss projection systems with federal funding, the Tribune reports."
October 8, 2008 5:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
I assumed wrong about NY. I understood their revamp was private money.
October 8, 2008 7:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
Nice to imagine but just not true.
Let's take the NSF budget:
http://www.nsf.gov/about/budget/
FY98: $3.270B
FY07: $5.910B
FY08: $6.065B
Just for reference, adjusting for inflation we would expect a budget of $4.14B in FY07 if the budget was flat.
So we see that under Bush, the NSF budget grew faster than inflation.
Let's go back to 1990: then the NSF Budget was $2.08B -- or in 2007 inflation adjusted dollars, $3.26B.
Get the picture? Science funding in the US is slowly growing linearly while we have an explosion of graduates constantly dividing down that piece of the pie.
What you meant to say is that NSF funding didn't grow like the DOD under Bush. But that's true for many other administrations, including Democratic ones.
October 8, 2008 6:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
A reminder that guys with telescopes are useful, the predictions for an approaching rock were exactly correct, in that the size, mass, and velocity were characterized as posing no threat, but a likely bang as the meteort vaporized. It came in right on schedule at the predicted location, above Sudan overnight.
http://space.newscientist.com/article/dn14897-space-rock-collides-with-earth-right-on-time.html?DCMP=ILC-hmts&nsref=news4_head_dn14897
Astronomy has always been a national-security issue, from the old days of navigation, when the nation that could get its ships to a distant port without searching around for it would win a battle, to the modern era where missiles and satellites dominate defense.
So it's funny that McCain would belittle it, even if the item in question was for the general public. The Navy still teaches celestial navigation, even to pilots. But that was probably one of the many courses he ignored.
October 8, 2008 8:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
Having been involved in NEAR, let's be honest: at the present time, the odds about being able to do anything when a scary sized rock approaches Earth are zero. (This includes extended ablation, nukes, etc. to veer the rock off course.)
In fact, many of the discussions revolved around *not* telling the public because (a) it would incite panic and (b) there was nothing to be done.
Also, we didn't need deep space astronomy for earth orbital satellites. Again, a tenuous connection.
The notion of using science as a means to promote economics is tenuous at best. At the Griffith Observatory presentation, the narrator actually compared dark matter (which we know essentially nothing about -- assuming it even exists) as a source of energy comparable to electricity.
That's just irresponsible.
Vannavar Bush's line that it makes the country worth defending is the best one. And it doesn't set up expectations which only get people cynical about funding science in the future.
October 8, 2008 8:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
If the point is knowing where you are, either on the surface, or in orbit, then deep space, if that means non-solar-system, is essential. It is the reference for everything else.
October 8, 2008 9:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
I find it strange no one has mentioned that most doctors, pharmacists, dentists, NPs, and PAs have undergraduate degrees in science. And with healthcare making up nearly $2 trillion of our $14 trillion economy, none of us have dead-end jobs, though we do tend to be quite ambitious.
My own childhood love for science led to an undergraduate degree in biology. Only later did that degree open up a door to the healthcare field. Save the planetariums!!
October 8, 2008 8:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
It's really not about the understanding of science or whether or not one thinks the planetarium projector is worth $3M of federal money. That's up to the congress to vote on (the request was rejected, but it did get the support of 3 Republicans, among others).
The true matter here are McCain's PROFOUND DISTORTIONS. Calling this an "overhead projector" to mislead people into thinking that Obama would spend $3M on something that you can buy for a couple hundred bucks... That's is like, I don't know, like calling NASA "a toy factory". Or like calling McCain's imprisonment in Vietnam "a vacation"...
And this is just one of many such distortions. Other notable cases are:
1. Saying that "Obama voted for tax increases 94 times", when, according to the same logic (voting for a non-binding resolution), McCain has "voted for tax increases" more than 400 times in his career!
2. Saying that "Obama voted against funding troops" when McCain himself also "voted against funding troops" when he didn't agree with the rest of the bill (i.e. the timetable).
3. Saying that "Obama wants to attack Pakistan" when in fact Obama would only attack Al Qaeda in Pakistan, IF he knew of their whereabouts, and ONLY IF the Pakistani government is unable or unwilling to do that.
4. Saying that "Obama will raise your taxes" when in fact Obama will lower taxes for 95% of the people, and for the low to middle class people he would lower them a lot more than McCain would.
5. Saying that Obama wants to have "sex education in kindergartens" when it's in fact about teaching children to protect themselves against sexual predators.
6. Saying that "Sarah Palin has foreign policy experience" because it's possible to see the island of Big Diomede (Russia) from the island of Little Diomede (Alaska), where by the way Palin has never even been to.
I don't know, but it just seems like everything McCain ever says in this campaign is either false or completely distorted, and that's what matters.
October 8, 2008 10:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thank you for bringing the thread back to the original point: John McCain is a liar and can't be trusted with anything.
October 8, 2008 10:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
Back a few years ago, NASA had a big press release about tech transfer of the Mars Soujorner Rover.
The technology transfered? They licensed the scaled dimensions of the rover to Mattel to create a little action toy.
October 8, 2008 11:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
I would imagine that there would be some security issues involved in publishing the designs of the rover.
October 9, 2008 10:59 AM | Reply | Permalink
McCain acknowledged Obama won on second debate! Watch here: http://tinyurl.com/that-one-won ))))
October 9, 2008 3:17 AM | Reply | Permalink
Cindy McCain calls Obama's the "dirtiest campain in history".
Obama may have bought a $3 million projector.
But McCain is married to a $100 million projector.
Now...
Let us reflect on the gift that Sarah Palin has given us all:
http://thetruthburns.wordpress.com/2008/10/09/maybe-i-aint-no-genius-but-is-sure-is-smartern-her/
October 9, 2008 6:11 AM | Reply | Permalink
Why are we supporting wasteful science programs for minorities when we could be supplying $700 billion worth of golden parachutes for Wall Street?
It makes me hopping mad. We need to return the traditional role of government. Feed the fatcats. Starve the poor. Payday on Friday.
October 9, 2008 7:03 AM | Reply | Permalink
Astral 666 says "I am an Associate Professor of Astronomy at the University of Chicago" and then he says - "The 3 million earmark is actually for an upgrade of the SkyTheater - a full dome projection system, which is probably the main attraction of the Adler Planetarium and is quite sophisticated and impressive piece of equipment."
Wonderful, Oilbama, who voted FOR the Bush Cheney Energy Bill, gives a 3 million earmark for some SkyTheater Toy for Asshole 666 to play with, while doing nothing for the poor folks living in his best F*cking friend convicted Felon Tony "the SLumlord" Rezco's slum buildings in his district in Chicago. They did not get heat last Winter but Oilbama does not care because he moved to the suburbs on Rezco's dime.
October 9, 2008 8:55 AM | Reply | Permalink
Oy, what a jerk.
October 9, 2008 9:45 AM | Reply | Permalink
dubmbilical, Are you a complete illiterate? This is a statement from an astronomy professor that I posted. Read the first line, dumb-ass.
October 9, 2008 11:00 AM | Reply | Permalink