War on Science
From Mempunks, an article on the current administration's War on Science.
There is an unseen war going on in America. It's part of the war on drugs, part of the war on terror, and part of consumer safety ...America is waging war on science. While the government targets terrorists, drug makers and illegal fireworks, it's the arm chair chemists and curious youngsters that get caught in the crossfire. The government has enabled legislation that makes DIY chemistry impossible without violating laws. And in so doing, we are sowing salt into the soil of our own future.
This is not just an "emergent side effect", as the author posits: this is a direct consequence of policies that are designed to restrict every possible smudge of opposition to the government - so, chemistry sets and the knowledge to make thermite are, of course, banned.
This reminds me of the situation of coca farmers in Colombia: by and large, they are all poor peasants living in remote parts of the country, isolated, without access to markets, and without access to supplies. The government, to make it difficult for cocaine manufacturers, has placed special items on its restricted list: salt, cement, gas, you know, subversive things like those. This locks right in with the policy of totalitarian regimes against its own dissident scientists, banishing, torturing and exiling those that didn't heed the party line: Franco's Spain, the USSR, Germany.
Science not only breeds competitiveness. It also breeds critical minds, analytical insight and strict testing of hypothesis; the USA was famous for welcoming those critical thinking scientists, persecuted in their native countries for their insightful points of view and their criticism of their government. Now, the tables are reversed, and this country is persecuting its own scientists.
Where should we go now?
Technorati: science , politics