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The Politics of Bad Science

By Kevin Pitts
June 22, 2012

Regular readers of this blog know that I am often talking about the importance of science in education and in our daily lives.    In this day and age, with everybody having a smart phone and GPS in their car, you might think that the importance of science would get 100% approval by the citizens of our country.

 
Not quite.    The North Carolina Senate recently voted to outlaw the scientific method when it comes to quantifying and reporting sea level rise.    It reminds me of the 1897 bill introduced into the Indiana legislature to redefine pi to be a round number.
 
This isn’t a political blog and I’m not passing any partisan judgments.   I’m simply observing that if members of the North Carolina Senate had any appreciation or understanding of basic science and the scientific method, this bill would have never seen the light of day.   (Something tells me that these folks aren’t reading my blog…)
 
So when I talk about the importance of science education for everybody, and when I talk about the importance of a strong investment in scientific research and technology, please remember that not everybody sees it the way I do.   They should, but they don’t.   The bottom line is that science is not very popular in some circles, and it really hurts our country.
 
I doubt that there are any members in the North Carolina Senate with a science background, and that’s ok. You don’t have to be a scientist to be a politician (but it doesn’t hurt).   In the near future, I’ll blog about some of the physics courses we teach for non-scientists.   Anybody who took our Physics of Societal Issues course could tell you all that’s wrong with the NC legislation in a heartbeat!
 
Update. The North Carolina House voted the bill down and they are modifying it in conference. While I should probably take solace in the fact that they are modifying the bill, the only acceptable solution is to remove all language that attempts to legislate the scientific method.

 

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