Once more, with feeling: Dawn to take a closer look at Ceres NASA's Dawn spacecraft has received another reprieve, with its mission to dwarf planet Ceres extended for another, closer, flyby. The probe has orbited Ceres since March 2015 and has already revealed a 4,000 metre high mountain that's evidence of cryovolcanism on the dwarf planet. The science is good enough – as is Dawn's …
and yet, the boffins know exactly where Dawn is at any given second, know exactly how much fuel to use to attain a given orbit or orientation, and get the data they're looking for even though it is physically impossible for any available telescope to see the spacecraft and visually check that all is well.
Mind. Blown.
On the other hand, it's very likely they're not using Excel for their orbital calculations...
People who are excellent at handling science and technology tend to be poor at handling people - machines are predictable, people aren't. You tend to get things like extreme Marxism - this is how our theory says that things work, so if the people do differently then the people are in the wrong.
So pure rule of technologists is likely to be a bad idea.
What might help is if you could somehow (though it would be bloody difficult) make the government be required to accept scientific consensus. Not just on anthropogenic climate change, but things like the current US move to impose abstinence-only sex education and rhythm method contraception when it has been solidly shown that those are not just useless but make things very much worse.
I.e. somehow impose the scientific principle that if the political theory and the real-world facts are in conflict then it is the political theory that is wrong.
I.e. somehow impose the scientific principle that if the political theory and the real-world facts are in conflict then it is the political theory that is wrong.
But that's why it's called politics. Science won't get you elected or more importantly, re-elected. Politics is the "win" for elections.
What might help is if you could somehow (though it would be bloody difficult) make the government be required to accept scientific consensus.
Maybe a separation of powers ala Parliament v. Courts. Not sure what that would look like, but if the Poli Sci muppets were cast back into the Poli Studies wilderness; life for the rest of us would get better.
Some sort of Science High court?
“Re: Hundreds of millions of km away
People who are excellent at handling science and technology tend to be poor at handling people - machines are predictable, people aren't. You tend to get things like extreme Marxism - this is how our theory says that things work, so if the people do differently then the people are in the wrong.
So pure rule of technologists is likely to be a bad idea.
What might help is if you could somehow (though it would be bloody difficult) make the government be required to accept scientific consensus. Not just on anthropogenic climate change, but things like the current US move to impose abstinence-only sex education and rhythm method contraception when it has been solidly shown that those are not just useless but make things very much worse.
I.e. somehow impose the scientific principle that if the political theory and the real-world facts are in conflict then it is the political theory that is wrong.”
That’s the whole point of ‘evidenced based policy making’. Sadly in this new political era fuelled by hate and fear, evidence based policy making has been thrown out of the window. :(
"Imagine what might be achieved if scientists and engineers ran the country instead of the current clutch of PPE wankers."
We don't have to imagine - remember we had Margaret Thatcher (chemistry).
And in the present cabinet:
David Davis has a molecular science/computer science degree from Warwick.
Liam Fox has a medical degree from Glasgow.
Karen Bradley has a mathematics degree from Imperial College.
Are you sure you want them running the country?
Wiki says she got a BSc in maths then became a tax manager at Deloitte & Touche and then KPMG.
So while she has indeed got a maths degree, it's a little unclear whether you might really want to call her a scientist or an engineer. David Davis also went immediately into business after his BSc, via a Masters in Business.
I make no comment on whether (or not) you or anyone else might want them (or anyone else) running the country.
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