Politics and Science

Of course, when I heard the Dems lost their Senate majority lost one Senate seat and aren't filibuster proof anymore, my immediate thought was "okay..."

But in the larger scheme, what does this mean for science? Obviously as a pro-choice, pro-science, pro-Darwinian Evolution, pro-sanity scientist/engineer, I want as few right-wing wackos in play as possible; the worst thing for science is people who refuse to even consider it. So Brown's election is a little disappointing.

But then again, it is not like a whole lot of pro-science legislation was getting rammed through Congress in 2009, in fact a search of the Speakers' website reveals that of the dozen or so bills passed by the House and Senate, virtually zero of them contained any funding for science research outside of some Stimulus funds for science teachers in high schools.
At one point this last year, Obama funded the ARPA-E, a "DARPA for energy", but that was technically created in 2007 under Bush, though not funded until February 2009 via the Stimulus package. Obama also dropped the Bush era stem cell research restrictions, but that was done via executive order, not via Congress.

So really, Congress hasn't done much of anything with its 60 Dem majority to push science and technology in this country. My instinct tells me exactly the same amount will be done with 59 Dems.


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