a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity. The prospect of domination of the nation’s scholars by federal employment, project allocations and the power of money is ever present and is gravely to be regarded.
we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.
Exactly what is going on in the climate science world now. A bunch of know-nothings simultaneously driving and riding the gravy train. There is absolutely no motivation to think, do science, or get off. Just keep the money coming and never bite the hand that feeds it.
Eisenhower had it right.
Ever since his admin government science has accomplished NOTHING. Now if some government agency had had a hand in …. say getting men to the moon, it WOULD put a chink in his statement
That was forty-one years ago.
Oh Tony Duncan, you’re so funny.
Tony,
deep inside you know that Eisenhower’s prediction is what is happening to climate science today. Hansen’s 1988 scenarios are off base and getting worse and yet there seems to be minimal “intellectual curiosity” about it.
Ike was an underrated President. Those were great times of America and he obviously was no dummy. A military man who stood up to wasteful military spending.
Andy,
i don’t know that he is underrated. Certainly he did some things that were not good. Vietnam, and military intervention in Central America. But he was smart, effective, and understood politics without being completely corrupted by it. Certainly the best republican president of the 20th (and 21st century)
I think the problem is the dumbing down of a scientific education to the extent where so many dopes who would not have a chance of honorable employment in the real world have taken sanctuary in academe. They will do anything to protect their sinecures.
Sisyphus,
yeah. that is why all Americans that can afford to avoid US colleges like the plague, and no smart kids from overseas would be caught dead at a US University
There are departments at universities which do useful things. Engineering and computer science for example. Climate “science” is dominated by superstition.