John McCain: Literally Anti-Science

"I am not a fan of John McCain. He has degenerated in recent times into a pandering tool of the far right, willing to say and do anything — including outright hypocrisy (he’s against lobbyists? Really?) — to get votes.

I have had my doubts on his support for science, but my fears have been at least in part confirmed. He was asked recently about his VP pick, Sarah Palin. She has secured vast amounts of money in earmarks for Alaska, and McCain has made quite the noise about being against earmarks. When confronted about this, what does he do? He changes the subject (which was about his abject hypocrisy), and attacks Obama. And there was some collateral damage. About Obama, he said:

“That’s nearly a million every day, every working day he’s been in Congress,” McCain said. “And when you look at some of the planetariums and other foolishness that he asked for, he shouldn’t be saying anything about Governor Palin.”

[insert cartoon rapid head shaking and flibbertygibbit sound here]

I’m sorry, did he call a planetarium "foolishness"? Did he really say that?

Yeah, he did.

Now, to be careful, we don’t know what the context is here. Maybe Obama asked for a bazillion dollars to install a movie screen in Adler planetarium (in Chicago, Illinois, Obama’s state). But somehow I doubt it. And either way, McCain made it clear he meant planetaria. I’m willing to give him the benefit of a doubt, but his recent lies and extraordinarily negative and misleading ads make me give him a lot less slack than I might have otherwise.

A planetarium is hardly foolishness. They excite tens of thousands of children about science every year. They teach science, and the wondrous joy of astronomy. They inspire the next generation of scientists, the kind of thing McCain said he would support when he answered Science Debate’s questions for him (I’ll be writing on that more later, never fear). A lot of great scientists got their first glimpse of the stars in a planetarium. And the people who work at planetaria do so because they love it. They are constantly struggling for funding, constantly battling bureaucracy, constantly dealing with issues, constantly trying to keep up with technology and new advances in astronomy… and they love it. They do it because they want to teach kids about science.
"Foolishness."

I wonder what Neil deGrasse Tyson — head of the Hayden Planetarium in NYC — will have to say about this? Or any of the planetarians in McCain’s home state of Arizona?

I know what I want to say, but this is a family-oriented blog.

And in case you forgot, the original question, which he avoided, was about McCain’s hypocrisy — saying how eliminating earmarks is one of his highest priorities, yet asking Palin to be his VP, a woman who hired a lobbyist to secure earmarks (a double whammy) for her small town.

It seems he has a lot to answer for.

Tip o’ the Zeiss to BABloggees Adolf Schaller, Jim Cruff, and Don Nelson for sending me this."

September 15th, 2008 11:17 PM by Phil Plait in Antiscience, Astronomy, Piece of mind, Politics, Science 149 comments RSS feed Trackback >

149 Responses to “John McCain: literally antiscience”

Aislinge Kellogg Says:

September 17th, 2008 at 6:38 am
How completely appalling to think that just as the light appears at the end of the Bush tunnel (and what a long tunnel of massive and outright stupidity THAT’S been), now there is the potential to have McCain and Palin, two fossils (one physically and mentally and the other merely mentally old) with an issue with science.

I love astronomy; every aspect of the world we live on, the star that warms us, the silvery satellite that brings lit beauty to the night and the glow of Jupiter in the now-Southern skies. I have my own telescope and revel in it as only a scientist at heart can do. But to take away or not advocate more large-scale, “professional” observatories? To not promote discovery and delight in finding new details about the universe that we are a tiny part but still a part of? What idiocy is this?

Why I should be surprised, however, is really the killer. I will never support McCain (who annoys both in general and in his incapability to get the fence out of his cheeks to commit to the wholly conservative mindset and narrow thinking he really stands for.

Don’t get me started on Palin. Someone who feels strongly that ONLY creationism (you know, that weirdness called “Intelligent Design”, only the biggest sham out there - a nod and thanks to carbon dating for shredding such outmoded thinking) should be taught in schools is never going to be capable of looking toward the heavens and seeing the beauty of science!

Just because YOUR mind is narrow, McCain, do not even attempt to take away astronomy. Or try to teach geocentrism!

Some other comments of Interest:

Rob Zuber Says: September 15th, 2008 at 11:23 pm

Did you catch this bit of an article in Salon?

——-“I pushed her on the earth’s creation, whether it was really less than 7,000 years old and whether dinosaurs and humans walked the earth at the same time. And she said yes, she’d seen images somewhere of dinosaur fossils with human footprints in them.”——

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2008/09/15/bess/index1.html

Robert Kimbro Says: September 15th, 2008 at 11:41 pm

The lies coming from the McCain campaign are stunning. And while I’m not a astronomer (or even a scientist; just a tech writer) I _loved_ going to the local planetarium when I was a kid, and I still do, for that matter. But the sad thing is that a lot of Americans are going to buy into McCain’s lies and gaffs without a second (or even first) thought. Love your site, always have. Keep it up!!

There are many, many comments to the original posting and I intend to read them all.

But I am OFFICIALLY throwing my hat into the Obama ring. This has been the straw to break my back. Not that there was ever a chance in hell I'd vote for McCain, but this... this makes Obama the clear choice for me. I only hope he stands behind his words of support for the sciences!