[MLUG - DISCUSSION] Kerry gets support of 48 Nobel-winning scientists

[Jonathan King]

On Tue, 22 Jun 2004 10:36:45 -0500 (CDT), Mike Miller
<mbmiller at taxa.epi.umn.edu> wrote:
> 
> This is funny.  Kerry has 48 on his team.  Bush has ... zero?  Not sure on
> the latter number, but anyway, the Bush spokesman's defense is that some
> of the Nobelists appear to be Democrats.

A few points here.  

1) There are undoubtedly some number of Nobel Prize winners who would
(and now will) endorse Bush, but probably fewer than the last time
around.  So three years ago (I think), he had three or four Economics
Nobel Prize winners sign onto a letter of support for his economic
plan.  A few months ago, when there was a similar opportunity, I think
he got one.

2) Scientists *used* to be a predominantly Republican group.  And
there are a fairly large number of pretty conservative people in
science.  But there are things that drive scientists up the wall, and
the GOP has chosen to base their electoral strategy on many of these
things.

3) I'm pretty unimpressed by "eleventy-seven distinguished [fill in
the blank]" kinds of endorsements, since these are almost naked
appeals to authority rather than reason.

4) Even still, I'm just amazed that the offiical campaign response to this was:

> "Only John Kerry would declare the country to be in scientific decline on a
> day when the country's first privately funded space trip is successfully
> completed," Mr. Schmidt said in a statement, referring to the rocket plane
> SpaceShipOne's journey 62 miles from earth and back.

That this is a non-sequitur is not surprising.  But it is *exactly*
this kind of stuff (grandstanding for useless and/or tourist level
space projects) that makes scientists wonder whether Bush is serious
at all about science, research, and the future of science in the US.

jking