Politicians Need To Start Listening...

[Thrand]

Politicians need to start listening, or be made to listen to scientific data.

 

Think about it for a second, its like allowing a young man (politician) to drive a car off of a cliff killing all passengers inside, while the older adult (scientist) was powerless to stop him because the kid choose not to listen to his warnings.

 

Serriously speaking scientists understand what changes need to be done in order to secure the human race from eventual extinction. If we continue to let the politicians make the laws and not the scientists, then the human race is destined for extinction.

[Pangloss]

What scientific evidence is it that you think the politicians are failing to listen to?

[bloodhound]

i think hes referring to evidence of global warming. and the opportunities in stem cell research

[Thrand]

What scientific evidence is it that you think the politicians are failing to listen to?

 

They are failing to listen to the imperical data provided by many scientists world wide. Pollution, global warming, overpopulation, and other catastrophic consequences will take place if they are not addressed in realistic way, and the result will be human extinction.

[Pangloss]

I think you need to be careful about broad generalizations like that. I think we could come up with plenty of examples where scientists are indeed listened-to and even heeded. I also think it's important for society to put checks and balances on technology so that ethics and morality play an important role. The main thing you said that prompted me to say that is this statement:

 

If we continue to let the politicians make the laws and not the scientists, then the human race is destined for extinction.

 

Scientists shouldn't make laws, in my opinion.

[Douglas]

Politicians need to start listening, or be made to listen to scientific data.

Albert Einstein (a pacifist) wrote a personal letter to Franklin D. Roosevelt, urging him to develop the atomic bomb.

 

Ronald Reagan listened to the scientists and advisors, then started the "star wars" program......not greeted very nicely by the press.

[Thrand]

I agree with your above statement, morality needs to be in check always, otherwise we would have horrific scientific experiments etc...

 

What I was trying to convey is that scientific data all points toward world wide human extinction unless something is not done EXACTLY the way scientists have figured out to prevent it. Politicians are not educated enough to make these types of decisions, scientists are.

[Pangloss]

Well, I certainly share your concern, and I applaud your standing up and speaking out. But I think you overstate the problem. And when you say things like "politicians are not educated enough to make these types of decisions...", I have to object. A lot of politicians are quite well educated. Doctors, lawyers, businessmen with post-graduate degrees, etc. One might even argue that their education makes them more qualified than most scientists to make decisions for society as a whole.

 

I don't want scientists to make any decisions. I want politicians to make them, following a rigorous debate by society at large. Scientists should inform, not decide.

 

It's not just the ethical/morality check that we need, to stop those "horrific scientific experiments", as you put it. I wonder if you realize how frequently scientists disagree about the best course of action. And that's actually a *healthy* thing -- science is often at its best when scientists are at odds with one another. But that kind of back-and-forth doesn't lend itself well to decisions regarding the spending of money, for example. A scientist can develop a theory and then explore possibilities, just to see where they might lead. A politician doesn't have that luxury.

 

I think you'd be hard pressed to prove that all scientists agree with your assertion that "scientific data all points toward world wide human extinction". On what do you base this conclusion?

 

Just to give a counter example, we've heard it said many times that global warming is caused by human industry. But how would we know? We've only been collecting temperature data for a centurry or so. Beyond that we have nothing, because we can't collect seasonal, date-specific temperature data from archeology. But we do have general archeological evidence that suggests that ice ages come and go, and temperatures rise and fall over time. So there's reason to think that global warming is NOT caused by human industry. But it's not something we can prove either way.

[LucidDreamer]

I don't want scientists to make any decisions. I want politicians to make them' date=' following a rigorous debate by society at large. Scientists should inform, not decide.

[/quote']

I don't know Pangloss. Politicians are so corrupt. I bet if we replaced 3/5 of congress with random Doctors, scientists, engineers, managers, teachers, laborers, etc for a couple of years we could fix more than we screwed up. They could be randomly selected and called like Jury duty.

[Pangloss]

Or... just a thought... we could elect competent and intelligent people from all areas of professional and academic experience, who are interested in objective, fair representation by means of a popular vote utilized by people that pay attention to the issues and aren't fooled by spin and hypocrisy.

 

The problem isn't in who we elect, but in who is doing the electing.

[LucidDreamer]

Or... just a thought... we could elect competent and intelligent people from all areas of professional and academic experience' date=' who are interested in objective, fair representation by means of a popular vote utilized by people that pay attention to the issues and aren't fooled by spin and hypocrisy.

 

The problem isn't in who we elect, but in who is doing the electing.[/quote']

 

The way the system is set up now the only viable options are among the democratic and Republican parties. These parties only support candidates that will play the game, people willing to compromise. We need a third party to provide a real alternative and to force some reform on the other two parties. Honest men can't make it far the way the system is set up now.

[john5746]

Unfortunately, politics attracts certain types of people that often exclude engineers, scientists, etc. It would be nice to get more diversity into politics, but I think one of the greatest problems is the general population

 

For example, if John Kerry got up and said, I will abolish the Tax Cut completely, our country cannot afford it anymore. Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.

 

First of all, most people wouldn't even hear his words. They would get soundbites and jokes from various sources about it. He would lose in a landslide because people don't want to hear things like that. They want to hear lies.

[LucidDreamer]

He would lose in a landslide because people don't want to hear things like that. They want to hear lies.

Too true.

[Pangloss]

Yah, if the point here is that more scientists and other intelligent individuals from atypical professions should get involved in politics, I wholeheartedly agree. There's certainly room for new insight and ideas. I also would love to see more "temporary" politicians -- people who go into it as a kind of side trip along their career paths. We should applaud that sort of thing -- let it be seen as a high point in someone's resume or CV, rather than a low point or irrelevent side-track.

 

But in the final analysis, I believe we would be fine with our existing set of politicians if voters paid more attention to the issues and let themselves be less swayed by partisan/ideological spin.