h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I've just read an interesting article on the dark ages
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=585&e=3&u=/nm/20040709/sc_nm/bush_science_dc

" Robert Paine, an ecologist at the University of Washington who chaired an advisory panel on endangered salmon and trout, said his team was warned by the government to remove facts that undermined policy.



"We were told to strip out specific scientific recommendations or see our report end up in a drawer," Paine said.

The report includes accusations of administration interference on strip mining, drug approvals and protection of endangered species. "

Or should that be a perspective on 1984?

Sounds just the Bushies we know and don't love, to me, all right!

Even the soviets encouraged science. That last passage reminds me of the TV in 1984 with the camera built in. I really should get around to finishing that book.

It's a good book. The rats on the face are justly famous!

No I think its safer to say the Soviets pushed for progress in areas that would make them more powerful. They would only sanction research in areas they deemed important.

It is like this alleged censorship case but the soviets sought to control what was looked into rather than supressing the findings. Ultimately the different means to the same end.

one love

The rats on the face? call me sleepy but that wizzed past.
Last night there was a news item about the administration wanting to postpone elections. Something that was suggested during WWII and the civil war but never done...

Just passing through, and I decided I like your politics!

Anyway, I feel like I need to add something to the remark about the Soviets. They basically embraced whatever science Stalin liked. I remember reading about a book called the Valivov Affair in Carl Sagan's "Demon Haunted World." Stalin had his pet geneticist, who advocated a completely wrong interpretation without any basis in reality, while those scientists who accepted Mendeleevian genetics were either killed, sent to gulags, or driven out of the country. And even after the end of the Cold War, Russia is still far behind other countries in genetics.

Hmmm... pet theories with no basis in reality... sound familiar?

Dubya is said to have asked what the law would require for him to be able to postpone (or cancel) the election... If John Ashcroft or Tom Ridge was to announce that he had "credible intelligence" of an attack, there wouldn't even have to *be* one, for the election to be put on (indefinite?) hold.

okay the soviet system was not great but it was just a comparason.