RE: paleonet It just keeps coming, in the US, Brazil, UK, Turkey,etc.

[Bill Chaisson/Deirdre Cunningham <chaisson@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Title: RE: paleonet It just keeps coming, in the US, Brazil, UK,

However, I would have to say that many, in fact, statistically most, of the evangelicals today also have a fundamentalist view of religion, hence the, albeit sloppy, interchangability of terms. 

Hmm.  I'd like to see a source on that one.  (You may well be right, but I'd feel better if you weren't.)

For many political scientists, the two are almost statistically indistinguishable in terms of their attitudes about cultural questions (i.e abortion, prayer in school, gay marriage, evolution/ID, flag-burning, etc.).  Granted, many evangelicals do not like getting lumped together with the fundamentalists, but they are all part of this, our fourth, major religious revival in the US.  The trend in most political science literature is to look at the greater evangelical movement and then to split the fundamentalists apart from that.

If political scientists and scientists were more careful about making the distinction, then they might make some stronger allies.  The lumping of evangelicals with fundamentalists implies that one doesn't give either that much thought.

As for the space race, I should probably clarify. I was referring to the push for science education that resulted from President Kennedy's 'race to the moon.'  That 'race,' while steeped in Cold War symbolism, had a profoundly positive effect on scientific education in this country.  I was merely drawing the comparison of that postive effect with the possibility of a negative one of equal measure if ID gets equal time in some states, Big Bang is not taught, and NSF continuously gets cut.  For whatever the cause of either of these actions in our K-12 educational system, the results will be felt further in time than the present political cycle.  I was just wondering if and how that might affect the US stature in the world of scientific research?  Will there be a "brain drain" from Red States to Blue States?  or from the US to other countries?  Already, we are seeing an exodus of stem cell researchers out of the US to other countries who allow better access to all stem cell lines currently available.  If biotech is supposed to be one of the future great technologies, what impact will this have?  I was just trying to understand the global and long term ramifications of this.

I used to hear stories of Maurice Ewing flying down to Washington in the 1950s and coming back to Lamont-Doherty with a satchel full of cash.  I entered the field of paleoceanography in the early 90s, just as the Cold War came to an abrupt close.  Funds dried up quite rapidly.

The money that went to basic research in oceanography was given in order to protect the third arm of the nuclear triad.  Any money that got siphoned off to do paleoceanography or any other project not directly germane to national defense was strictly incidental.

I believe that the money that went to science education was given in order to produce scientists who would contribute to the national defense effort.  Anyone who became fascinated with something irrelevant like the paleogeography of Pliocene planktonic foraminifera was ... strictly incidental, and, after the end of the Cold War, not particularly worth supporting.  At least, that has been my experience.

Right now the push in biology is toward supporting very mechanical, ahistorical aspects of the field.  E.g., molecular biology, biochemistry, biotechnology.  Any evolutionary work that can piggyback on those efforts will be supported.  Any that does not will probably have difficulty getting funds.

Am I wrong about this?

Bill

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William P. Chaisson
Adjunct Assistant Professor
Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences
University of Rochester
Rochester, NY  14627
607-387-3892