Bush Pushes Math and Science? Oh, Please…
The president may be urging algebra and chemistry on high-schoolers, but his administration can't run away from the chilling effect it has had on scientific inquiry For example, a young presidential appointee at NASA ordered Web designers to append the word "theory" after every mention of the Big Bang (scroll half-way down the article)Wanna know what it takes to become a NASA spokesman? Well, it doesn't hurt to write columns linking Saddam to Al Qaeda, or insisting that Rumsfeld had nothing to do with the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandals.New York Times
: DALLAS, Feb. 3 — President Bush told the nation’s students on Friday that if they studied math and science they would not be joining the “nerd patrol” but helping their own futures and the economic health of the United States.
“You know, a lot of people probably think math and science isn’t meant for me — it kind of seems a little hard, algebra,” Mr. Bush said at a panel discussion, organized by the White House, outside Albuquerque at the Intel Corporation’s largest chip-making plant. “I can understand that, frankly.” | story
New York Times: … In October, for example, George Deutsch, a presidential appointee in NASA headquarters, told a Web designer working for the agency to add the word “theory” after every mention of the Big Bang, according to an e-mail message from Mr. Deutsch that another NASA employee forwarded to The Times.
And in December 2004, a scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory complained to the agency that he had been pressured to say in a news release that his oceanic research would help advance the administration’s goal of space exploration. | story
World O’Crap: Via Atrios (I can’t get the item link to work, but it’s the entry titled “Sciencey”) I learned about George Deutsch, the 24-year-old presidential appointee NASA press officer who taught NASA scientists what science really is.
Anyway, it made me wonder how a recent college graduate in journalism got appointed to be a spokesman for NASA (which job seems to involve telling rocket scientists how rockets works, and the like). So, I Googled some of George’s columns at the Texas A&M Battalion, and I think I have a few ideas about some of the qualities which the White House was looking for in public affairs officer. | blog
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