Back in the 1950’s the Atomic Energy Commission regulated itself. Wrote its own guidelines and policed them without any oversight. Congress recognized the dangers there and split off the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, making it an independent body.
Now, we seem to be going in the wrong direction. The leader of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology is a Texan who has packed his hearings with industry leaders instead of scientists. A bill introduced would pack the EPA’s advisory board with industry representatives. Substitute a political process for the scientific process? Congress used to have an independent Office of Technology Assessment. What happened?
I understand that we’ve become “tribalized.” We belong to one tribe or the other, Democrat or Republican, and we’re supposed to conform to the beliefs of our tribes. Does your tribe deny global climate change? Vaccinations? Does it supply “alternate facts?”
We’ve got to get over this division. We have problems; let’s face them and work through them. Science isn’t our problem. Politics is.
Dac Crossley
September 27, 2017
“The good thing about science is that it’s true whether or not you believe in it.” – Neil deGrasse Tyson.