Why are people attaching all of that to the statements I am making? That's stupid, and anybody that doesn't think so is either also stupid or hasn't given it adequate thought. If it wasn't already clear I want to make it known to everybody that I am not an Obama drone. I have my own take on these issues because I use my own brain rather than letting other people do my thinking for me.
You clarified your statements by saying the government should fund some basic research.
I merely stated that in practice, our tax dollars put a lot of substandard hardware out there and made some purveyors of such and contractors rich.
I didn't mention Obama, nor his multitude of minions, nor the groupthink that has overshadowed environmental issues.
Since the topic is the failure of science, I'm just pointing out that 800 lb gorilla in the room, that science will be used/abused/and even reported fraudulently for prestige, political gain, and profit.
We need to guard against that, and against the pep-rally/consensus/up-for-a-vote mentality that seems to give credence to that which is most useful politically and which gets the most airplay, rather than scrupulously and dispassionately examine both the methods, data (unedited, thankyouverymuch!), and means of reaching conclusions before we go off half-cocked and throw the weight of the treasury behind the deployment of systems which are unnecessary and/or not fully developed.
Such corner cutting is only justifiable in times of genuine crisis, if then.
