re: #169 buzzsawmonkey

At this point, I would settle for “average,” given the below-average types we seem stuck with.

And, sorry to say, the “specialists/professionals” do pose a threat when they are stark raving bonkers.

This is a side show.

Holdren does not set policy. The real governmental scientific positions are the directors of the DOE and the NIH

As I said before, you will not get a better scientist than Steven Chu. Raynard S. Kington is no lightweight either.

Holdren said a bunch of admittedly obnoxious stuff in the seventies that he has since distanced himself from. He has also had a very respectable career as a research scientist and is a former president of the AAAS.

However,

He does not set policy. The real governmental scientific positions are the directors of the DOE and the NIH

There is way too much hype over this.

If people want to get their panties in a bunch over science. There are real issues we could be shouting about, like how about the fact that we have, even after decades of the medical community shouting about it, and several well publicized scares, no real infrastructure to combat a major outbreak. Perhaps we could argue how AGW is not going to be fixed by cap and trade. But to do that, this side of the aisle needs to get to the point of even accepting that AGW is real. While we are at it, what about the fact that we are shrugging off research into both fundamental particles and fusion? Controlled fusion really would be a panacea for the worlds energy problems and it has none of the waste problems associated with fission. That si deeply important research and we have cut it to the bone - even to the extent of trying to back out of treaties.

What we see with the politicization of Holdren is nothing more than shouting “I hate Obama!” Ok great it is a way for right wingers to seethe together, but it does not actually address any real science policy issues. I don’t like Obama either. But all of this political masturbation is not science and it is not science policy either.