Jebus

Your criticism of the governments suppression of any type of scientific inquiry is perfectly warranted, and I agree Gary Goodyear is incompetent for his role, however, the ruling party has helped fund major advances in the Sciences that were NOT directed to business only. in 2011, Canadian research in higher education (per capita) was higher than any other G7 nation (although for the US data was for 2004, I think). Like I mentioned before, they committed and are still committing millions to Genome Canada, (a non-profit organization) the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, "35 million over five years, to the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada to support excellence in climate and atmospheric research," and 100 million for neuroscience. I think the reason for this years budget being less is due to the economy. The government is under pressure to get people working. Which is why they are (for this year) mainly interested in research directly affecting business. It's hard to sell basic research to voters if they don't see a direct effect. Not all Canadians are scientifically literate and don't understand research should be funded to all areas of science, so the government is being very picky on who gets the funding.

For Astronomy, check out The Great Courses, Understanding the Universe, An Introduction to Astronomy 2nd Edition by Alex Filippenko. It's not a textbook but it is a wealth of information on DVD, it also comes with a small book for reference. It's also very expensive, but that website has deals all the time.

The last words I would ever use to describe mother teresa is, "enlightened master."

I never said that the government's decisions are pro-science. I just don't think it's fair to label them anti-science based on the most recent budget. Your right about Genome Canada, I thought it was additional funding. However, last year's budget WAS an additional 65 million to it's current (2010-11) budget. To be honest, I wished they didn't cut basic/environmental research but they have to implement some cuts to decrease the debt.

Well, has anyone here read the Budget? Not one single plane has been paid for, though billions of dollars are being added to research and development. Genomics Canada is receiving an additional 60 million for their groundbreaking research, 110 million dollars are being added per year to the NRC, 105 million for forestry environment, 500 million over 5 years for advanced research infrastructure and a whole lot more. "Since 2006, the Government has provided nearly $8 billion in new funding for initiatives to support science, technology and the growth of innovative firms." The Canadian government is not anti-science. http://www.budget.gc.ca/2012/plan/chap3-1-eng.html#a3

It's just a joke. I herd Lee Smolin say it at the 2011 Isaac Asimov debate.

*Correction, the God-Damn particle has been found.

Hello, i'm Jebus. I love science but don't know what I want to study yet!... ):