You’ve heard, I hope, about NASA climate scientist James Hansen, who the Bush administration tried to silence when he called for reductions in emissions of greenhouse gases. Cosmology, as it turns out, is not exempt from the radical anti-science agenda. The New York Times, via Atrios:
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.
…
The Big Bang memo came from Mr. Deutsch, a 24-year-old presidential appointee in the press office at NASA headquarters whose resume says he was an intern in the “war room” of the 2004 Bush-Cheney re-election campaign. A 2003 journalism graduate of Texas A&M, he was also the public-affairs officer who sought more control over Dr. Hansen’s public statements.
In October 2005, Mr. Deutsch sent an e-mail message to Flint Wild, a NASA contractor working on a set of Web presentations about Einstein for middle-school students. The message said the word “theory” needed to be added after every mention of the Big Bang.
The Big Bang is “not proven fact; it is opinion,” Mr. Deutsch wrote, adding, “It is not NASA’s place, nor should it be to make a declaration such as this about the existence of the universe that discounts intelligent design by a creator.”
It continued: “This is more than a science issue, it is a religious issue. And I would hate to think that young people would only be getting one-half of this debate from NASA. That would mean we had failed to properly educate the very people who rely on us for factual information the most.”
Emphasis added. Draw your own conclusions, I’m feeling a bit of outrage fatigue at the moment.
Update: Phil Plait has extensive comments at Bad Astronomy Blog. Also Pharyngula, Balloon Juice, Stranger Fruit, Gary Farber, Mark Kleiman, World O’ Crap, and Hullabaloo.
Update again, for our new visitors: Folks, of course the Big Bang model is a theory, and of course it is also correct. It has been tested beyond reasonable doubt: our current universe expanded from a hot, dense, smooth state about 14 billion years ago. The evidence is overwhelming, and we have hard data (from primordial nucleosynthesis) that the model was correct as early as one minute after the initial singularity.
Of course the initial singularity (the `Bang’ itself) is not understood, and there are plenty of other loose ends. But the basic framework — expanding from an early hot, dense, smooth state — is beyond reasonable dispute.
It’s too bad that scientific education in this country is so poor that many people don’t understand what is meant by “theory” or “model.” It doesn’t mean “just someone’s opinion.” Theories can be completely speculative, absolutely well-established, or just plain wrong; the Big Bang model is absolutely well-established.
RE: # 27
This link reminded me of your post. I have never seen such a vivid visualization of the gigantic baplow until this one.
(via metafilter)
Having just waded through 100+ graduate admissions folders, I was faced with an unfortunate side effect of ID and christian fundamentalism. We had an incredibly talented applicant from a small christian college. Not one with
a historical but now largely dormant link to religion like Notre Dame, but one where christianity was tightly coupled to the core philosophy of the college. The college was not fundamentalist (i.e. not Bob Jones University), but one where religion clearly shaped the students’ and faculty’s values. We admitted the student after very carefully vetting his applications for signs that he was not deeply troubled by the Big Bang, and did not believe the Earth was a few thousand years old. I can’t help but fear, though, that we are five or six years away from credentialling a shill for the Discovery Institute.
While not religious myself, I lack Sean’s entrenched skepticism of religion, and see it as a very positive force in many people’s lives. Thus, I hate that I am now in a point where I am forced to be distrustful of someone who is (most likely) simply devout. Fundamentalist groups that rail against anti-christian bias are helping to create it, setting up obstacles for those who have a more complex relationship between their faith and the physical world.
They are aware that the theory was proposed by a Catholic priest, right?
Lubos, where art thou?
To All: please note that the Republicans have encouraged the ‘footsoldier’ to answer and challenge on blogs like this. Its all part of the challenge the science program. They challenge studies by focusing on the variable statistic in them. Another way they challenge is by attacking the individual. They have no scientific evidence to supprt their positions but that makes no difference. They try and cause confusion. Please read ‘The Republican War on Science’ by Chris Mooney. It pretty much tells you what is going on in the Bush administration. Dont think this is an isolated incident.
druidbros,
Any supporting references? Hyperlinks are everyones best friends.
Also for Leonidas, just go to his blog and leave a comment for him. He has a post about Global Warming. What a riot!
Matt B, I will look for it. I had it at one time b4 my hard drive crashed.
I have one! One day Her/His Noodly Appendage sneezed and out come the cosmos. S/He didn’t know what to do with it so S/He decided to perhaps make some inhabitable planets. The pirates needed to live somewhere.
I agree Burrow. I believe in FSM.
Matt B, I dont remember which Republican website I found it on but I will give you just an example.
http://www.ohiogop.org/News/details.aspx?ID=4
This is just an example. Each state has their own talking point website as well as many county and local GOP websites. Go and look at your local and state websites.
Then you will be able to predict exactly what the ‘reality challenged’ will say. Amaze your friends!
You will remember they attacked NPR and PBS. It was a ratfucking campaign.
See…http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ratfucking
They talked about Bill Moyers on PBS even though he had retired 8 months earlier!
I have a vague recollection of a humanities graduate, with hands on experience in politics and journalism, dictating the course of hep-th for twenty years or more. He, of course, is a Democrat, a nice chap and a genius. Whether he has been more of a threat to the well being of physical sicence, by blurring its edges with math and related casuistries, than are those that strompo about in the muddy waters of the science/religion interface, remains to be seen
Burrow and Matt B.,
This interesting article:
http://public.lanl.gov/alp/plasma/people/alfven.html
mentions the following under “Alfven versus THE BIG BANG”:
‘ To Alfvén, the Big Bang was a myth – a myth devised to explain creation. “I was there when Abbe Georges Lemaitre first proposed this theory,” he recalled. Lemaitre was, at the time, both a member of the Catholic hierarchy and an accomplished scientist. He said in private that this theory was a way to reconcile science with St. Thomas Aquinas’ theological dictum of creatio ex nihilo or creation out of nothing. ‘
Anyway, it is typical of pseudoscientists to attack what they see as the “establishment,” regardless of what the “establishment” actually says or of the history of various ideas which the “establishment” accepts. That is,
Scientists say so -> It is wrong.
Of course, this simplifies many problems.
Sorry, I misread Matt B.’s post to refer to Burrow’s post. My mistake.
I think like anyone, a finger is being held to the pulse of the conversation in governemental agendas to make sure that it is up todate? Qui Non!
My ignornance is excuseable 🙂 but the fact remains that the theory of gravitational waves is still hotly considered as such, yet there is so much mounting evidence to say that waves do spread throughout.
But to some who have a high standards, might say all the while thinking, that science would send forth it’s highest regard for experimental validity, that to see this in a solid form, you have to have direct evdience?
While learning, I had seen the differences, where poltical agenda would send out its scientist to uphold climate perspective and its posturing. For the reasons and the actions it had decided to do, so we have reputable sicentists who speak on climate that call it bogus. Supports the current status and agenda of the science that it would like to see held as a model for consideration amongst the world population, while it continues to disregard and not sign Kyoto.
Even within sciences own backyard, these idealization of experimental validation is a signators mark of acceptance, while theoretical valuations amongst the stringy views, support for, is held to a negative connatation whilst the push to move through these theoretical spaces continue to develope, it is on the grounds that it is not acceptable?
So while I may have my own politcal views and having read that same article on the day Sean did, I am confused as to what message should be sent?
I am working the encapsualted geometrical background while venturing through this topic, so already, I am marked the fool.
The one thing I wish people could understand is that they get the Big Bang and, say, modern technology together. If the Big Bang (by which I mean, what a scientist thinks the Big Bang is) is *just a theory* so are a lot of other things we rely on everyday. Ultimately, the ideas used in any one field of physics permeate all the other ones. I have trouble imagining reasonable scenarios where we might have screwed up understanding the signatures of a hot, dense universe in the past and still understand how all of our technology works now.
I think the gulf between how scientific types think and how nonscientific types think is become much greater than I ever thought possible. Even if, in the end, this antiscience trend doesn’t take hold, apparently a great number of people in the world think in ways that are entirely alien to me. It makes me think that scientific thinking may not be as natural as I thought it was growing up. I suspect this goes beyond science vs. religion.
The condensed matter theorist’s observation that there is a chasmic gulf between scientific and other thought modes, and this has little to do with religion, illiberality or anything else along those lines, is only too true. Perhaps this is no more evident than in the wider interpretation of the word ‘theory’: something not applicable to the real world – ‘just’ a theory, in other words. (This may be a view derived from literary, social and other ‘soft’ forms of theory). I recall the hoots of laughter that greeted the news that I would be attending a theoretical barbeque (i.e. with theoretician colleagues) drew from non-scientist friends – surely I realised that, being theoretical, the BBQ could not take place. As is mentioned in an arlier comment, by reinforcing of this use of the word theory creationists etc are using science’s language to subvert the subject itself. To a scientist, a theory is a body of related concepts, derived from and testable by experiment, that has the power to both systematise and predict; to the rest of the world ‘theoretical’ is synonymous with ‘unsubstantiated bollocks’
Sean, a theory used to be a concise statement of facts. Nowadays for some reason “theory” is taken to mean speculation or nonsense. (I won’t mention “str*ng” theory as a possible cause for this problem.)
Spacetime says distance is light speed multiplied by the time in the past that the event occurred. So the recession of galaxies is varying with time, in the framework of spacetime that we can actually see and experience with measurements. A speed varying linearly with time is acceleration Hc = 10^-10 ms^-2, hence outward force of big bang is mass of universe. By the 3rd law of motion, you then get an inward force, the gauge boson exchange force, which causes the general relativity contraction and also gravity.
Should not be dismissed as a personal pet theory, just because it is widely overlooked? You have to face facts: the big bang as widely accepted ignores spacetime and quantum gravity implications.
The ironic thing, as I say here, is that conventional Big Bang is more consistent with a creator than Steady State theory or than speculative extensions of BB such as eternal inflation. This shows that Deutsch is a biblical literalist, and his use of the words “intelligent design” as the alternative should therefore be an embarassment to the ID proponents that trie to negate its creationist roots.
Facts have never influenced zealots like that Leonidas that posted earlier.
Even if you show them the facts, they simply refuse to believe them. Just a simple 1+1=2, they will not believe and that is it. No matter what you put in front of them, they will ignore it. Besides, the way they ‘believe’ makes it so much easier to accept the world. That way they don’t have to ‘know’ anything. ‘Thinking’ will be done for them.
It continues to amaze me that ID is being proposed as a science without having to live up to the standards of science. Ask an ID proponent if they followed the scientific process in coming to their conclusions and they will say it is simply self evident. By simply considering the idea that ID is the “opposing viewpoint” to evolution and Big Bang is to undermine science itself, which is exactly what they want!
A theory? A THEORY? I wish Mr. Bush would be just that, a theory.. Ack, Call it whatever you want, but everything started out somewhere, why would the universe be in constant expension then?
Kiltak
[Geeks Are Sexy]Tech. News
OK, for one… all religions must die and be wiped off this earth. There is no point to them. They were created to settle doubts about things we didn’t understand 2000 years ago, but now we do, so god and all his little disciples can go walk off a cliff and die. There comes a time when religion and the belief in a supernatural being becomes an issue that shoudl be erradicated. This is a fine example, when some religious asshat decides to make the one place, where science is respected over everything else, equal to the religious fruitbags. Religious belief in such a sense is a mental disease. This guy should be sent to prison for even THINKING we shoudl teach intelligent design in equal parts with the truth. Well, we’ll see how ****ed up Kansas will be in a few years, and them maybe people will learn something about their immaginary friend, god and jesus. If you read it in a book, written thousands of years after so and so walked the earth, you can ebt it’s fiction. How about this for an idea, clerics and nutjobs… how about we bury “Good Night Moon” for a thousand years, have someone in the future read it, and have that become the new gospil? Sound stupid and idiotic? THAT’S EXACTLY WHAT THE RELIGIONS ARE DOING TODAY!!!! ****ing it up for the rest of us, the sane part of the population. We should crate these fanatics up and ship them to the moon. At least then they can be closer to “god”
Perhaps the word theory needs some exposition- the evidence we have for the bing bang’s truth is all circumstancial. Admittedly it’s all but impossible to have court-admissable evidence for something that happened before time existed, but nonetheless no hard evidence exists. I have no better theory for why the universe seems to be so obviously expanding, but note the key word in this sentance. The best explanation, even if it is the only reasonable explanation, is not by default hard fact. Theory becomes accepted scientific fact when it is used as an assumption of truth in further theories and contributes to expected conclusions.
lol, admittedly, Mr Bush is not very intelligent (unsupported theory is that his IQ is 91, half of Clinton’s 182), but the fact that an idiot speaks a fact doesn’t make the fact false.
If you want to look to the leaders of science of the past 100 years for the stautus of intelligent design (stretching 100 years), look at some of the writings of Darwin and Hawkings. I wish I had quotes, so essentially it’s up to you to believe me, but I beleive the most quoted line of Darwin by Christians is paraphrased something like ‘to say that something as complicated as the eye developed by chance and selection is idiocy’ (I’m sure someone with a better memory can quote the bumper sticker). Hawkings, a strong proponent of the big bang theory, promotes the idea that several factors, including the exact expansion rate of the universe, the balance between strong and weak forces, the very existance of forces such as gravity, is so exact and specific that to say they came about by chance is nonsense.
It seems to me that this guy had intentions to discount the Big Bang Theory (as I often see it cased) to promote his Intelligent Design ideas; good points, but with bad intentions. There are no points, in my mind, where these two theories conflict. Intelligent Design simply tries to point out that the complexity of life, the tendancy of systems to break down and not build up, and other almost universally accepted principles point to the likelihood of an intelligence behind the universe, not that any creator directly did this or that. Even if you’d like to associate Intelligent Design with Christianity, a careful reading of Genesis points to God having a passive but direct control over the events; the explosion of the universe, the slow exact expansion of the universe, the buildup of biological systems, etc. all contribute to what the Bible says happened, not detract from it.
This doesn’t say much that Science and Cynic didn’t say a few posts back, and I’m sure that it isn’t gramatically perfect, so please roast what I said, and not how I said it.
athiest- don’t let ANYBODY tell you what to think, make sure that you’re right. Do your own research, and go with the ideas that fit what you observe best, not the theory that TV tells you is correct.