trump released a statement yesterday. Whewwwww, I bet ya that was a monumental effort for him as opposed to twitting (my new term for a trump tweet).
Now first of all, it is obvious that trump did not write this press release. Secondly, in this short statement, whoever wrote it didn't have the procedural integrity, the rigor if you will, to proof read it. If they did they would have realized that there is no such thing as a "ddministration". They would have caught their typo. And thirdly (that's a word related to "bigly"), cut me a frikkin' break!
"Rigorous science is critical to my administration's efforts to achieve the twin goals of economic growth and environmental protection. My ddministration is committed to advancing scientific research that leads to a better understanding of our environment and of environmental risks. As we do so, we should remember that rigorous science depends not on ideology, but on a spirit of honest inquiry and robust debate."
Look, if "Rigorous science is critical to [his] administration", then why would he cut funding to agencies that depend on rigorous scientific investigation? Why would he appoint Scott Pruitt to head up the EPA? Why would he attempt to dictate to various agencies to stop communicating with the press or each other? Why would he tell the national Institutes of health to not communicate with Congress?
The second part of this statement is infuriating. "..... a better understanding of our environment and of environmental risks". What does he mean by 'better' ........ different? Is he suggesting that research will all of the sudden start to find that our current carbon based energy fuels will be found to not cause 'environmental risks'? Sure sounds that way to me, but I could be reading these statements with a bias against trump and as someone who is clear about possible bias, I will admit that that is a possibility.
The last part of his statement just pisses me off. It sure sounds like he's lecturing. The real deal is, he needs to lecture himself. A well trained scientist does not bring ideology into her or his investigations. That is unless one considers the rigor of science and the design of studies that will yield studies free of biased results. But trumpy boy wouldn't get that. Nor would Devos or Pruitt. As far as the spirit of honest inquiry; what in hell does he think 'science' is. And what in hell does he think peer review and replication of studies is? Well since he doesn't know, I'll tell him, that is robust debate. Of course that debate requires that the participants are knowledgeable enough to have that debate.
In essence, whoever it was that authored this statement did nothing more than display their own ignorance and arrogance.
By the way, a quick look at estimates of marchers in four major American cities shows:
- D.C - 40,000
- Chicago - 40,000
- New York - 20,000
- Philly - 10,000
In just four of the 500 marches in our country, that totals 110,000. If, on the average, the remaining 496 marches in in the U.S. averaged 2,000 marches, those marches would represent 992,000. So, I think it's fair to estimate that throughout our country there were over a million attendees. If I assign an average attendance of 20.000 to a few other large cities like L.A., San Francisco, Boston and Seattle, I think it is still a conservative estimate to say that at least 1.2 million marched for science, our planet and against trump and his gang of idiots. Thanks to all.
http://www.nbcnews.com/science/science-news/march-science-demonstrators-say-they-re-real-patriots-n749686
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/01/memo-freezing-nih-communications-congress-triggers-jitters
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/25/us/politics/some-agencies-told-to-halt-communications-as-trump-administration-moves-in.htm
http://resistancereport.com/news/attendance-numbers-march-science/
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