No this isn't the start of a joke. The New York Times has an article, The 3 Physicists in Congress Calculate Their Influence. "According to the Congressional Research Service, there are only about 30 scientists among the 535 senators and representatives in the 110th Congress, and that is counting the psychologist, the psychiatrist, a dozen other M.D.’s, three nurses, an engineer, two veterinarians, a pharmacist and an optometrist. But physics is on a roll."
There are 3 Physicists in Congress. Vernon J. Ehlers (R-MI since 1993), Rush Holt (D-NJ since 1998), Bill Foster (D-IL since March).
"There are 435 people in the House, Mr. Holt said, and “420 don’t know much about science and choose not to.” He recalled his exasperation when anthrax spores were discovered in the Capitol in 2001 and colleagues came to him and said, “You are a scientist, you must know about anthrax,” a subject ordinarily missing from the physics curriculum. 'The difference,' he said, 'is we would be perfectly happy to pick up a copy of The New England Journal of Medicine and read about the etiology of anthrax.'"
I suspect the other 420 don't even know what the word "etiology" means. (I had the right general idea but did have to look it up.)
"He cited the debates over electronic voting machines that caused problems “that would be obvious to any computer scientist but went right past some people here in Congress.” Mr. Foster mentioned the debates over electronic border fences, which he said lacked “fundamental concepts of what radar can or cannot do.”
They cite other confusions like cutting game theory funding thinking it had do with sports and not economics and cutting ATM research thinking it was about banking machines and not an asynchronous transfer mode communications protocol. Unfortunately he didn't name names. Wouldn't you want to know who the dumb ones are so you could vote them out of office? Isn't one of the most basic things to understand what the bill (or clause) you're voting on is about? Not even what it says but what the topic is!
"For example, Mr. Ehlers said, it is irksome to encounter people who ignore the scientific consensus that human activity contributes to global warming yet count on science to produce new sources of energy magically. 'They sort of reject our reasoning,” he said. “But they will come back and say, ‘Science will find a way.’'"
1 comment:
Before I moved from central NJ to NY last year, Rush Holt was my congressman. He had campaign bumperstickers that said "My Congressman IS a rocket scientist." Also, I believe he is the only Congressman that is a five-time winner on Jeopardy.
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