Don't mess with scientists, McCain!

[catgirl]

Don't mess with scientists
Thu Oct 9, 2:55 PM ET

If there's one rule in election-year politics, it's this: Don't mess with the science crowd. OK, labor unions and the NRA matter too, but John McCain may want to brush up on his stars and planets after Tuesday night's debate.

In the debate, McCain portrayed Barack Obama as an excessive spender, and he punctuated his attack (twice) with this example:

" voted for nearly a billion dollars in pork barrel earmark projects, including, by the way, $3 million for an overhead projector at a planetarium in Chicago, Illinois. My friends, do we need to spend that kind of money?"

Turns out, a lot of people think we do. This is no ordinary overhead projector from your 5th grade classroom. The blog Cosmic Variance sums it up:

"If you've ever had the pleasure of visiting the Adler Planetarium, you'd probably guess that the 'overhead projector' he's talking about is the spectacular 'Sky Theater' -- one of the most engrossing, gorgeous venues for displaying visuals about space."

The science community is notoriously tight-knit, especially when rallying to a cause, and boy are they are rallying to this one. Alan Boyle's Cosmic Log has a great summary of the uproar:

Read the various statements from the science world:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ynews/ynews_pl78

[chaplainM]

1. If the Sky Theater is an overhead projector...

...then Fermilab is a go-Kart track.

[Muttocracy]

2. :-D

[damonm]

9. And SLAC

(Stanford Linear Accelerator) is a dragstrip...

[wryter2000]

13. And

The Hubble telescope is a magnifying glass.

[Stuart G]

14. A description of the Sky Theater and the "Projector"

The Star Show is a large circular room with about 500 seats designed for viewing a completely dark sky, the kind that you would view in an area where there are no city lights. Generally, the seats are very comfortable and enable easy viewing of the sky, especially for those with back problems.

.The projector, a huge devise mounted in the center of the theater, is able to recreate the sky from any point on earth, and with a number of views from that point. So, you could view a sunrise, and sunset as it would appear in Tokyo, from the Adler Planetarium in Chicago. Or, you could view the star formations in the sky around the North Pole, from San Diego where they also have such a theater.

The projector is also able to recreate any kind of sky phenomenon that has occurred recently, or in the past..distant or close.
Most Planetariums recreate the Sky at the time of the birth of Christ around Christmas time to see what the Star of Bethlehem was like. So many other special types of occurrences can be recreated that if I listed them all, it would take the rest of the day. More important, they are a joy to watch and enjoy. Lastly, the sound in these theaters is usually total surround sound for a fuller experience to actually hear not only the educational explanation but other special sound effects that go with the show.


..Please, if you have never seen one of these shows, go to a Planetarium to see one. Your entire family will enjoy the show and want to go again.

.......thanks for reading this..

[Muttocracy]

3. And I'd say physical scientists are some of the most politically conservative scientists

so those could truly be votes McCain is LOSING.

[RoccoR5955]

5. Here's one physical scientist who is a staunch Liberal.

And I can tell you that there are plenty of us where I come from in the Northeast!

[Muttocracy]

8. It's all relative...

I hang out with a lot of enviromental scientists ;)

[Teaser]

4. Dr. Venkman says...

[pokerfan]

6. My biggest problem with this

isn't merely that he voted against it. We can have honest disagreements on how best to spend federal money.

My problem is that he thinks it's this:



Instead of this:



http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2008/09/15/john-mccain-literally-antiscience/">John McCain: literally antiscience.

For those keeping score, just one day of the Iraq War could purchase 95 such planetarium projectors:

[catgirl]

10. Thanks for the link

I didn't realize McCain called it "foolishness".

[dbmk]

7. I thought it was a funny target for him too, when he said it

I didn't see attacking science as a smart move. Amd any idiot would be able to tell that at 3 mio it was not an overhead projector.

And even worse he attacked a planetarium. Something that most people, I think, associate with positive experiences.

[RoccoR5955]

11. Don't go attacking MY religion!

Some people say that my "religion" is science, because I want real proof that there is a Supreme Being. None of this mythology and faith garbage. Well, be that as it may, McCain criticized a religious icon of the Scientific community, the all-sacred planetarium. How many believers in science visited some sort of planetarium in their youth? How many, as adults still visit these sacred places, and bring their children there, so that they can learn about astronomy? I dunno about you, but I call McCain's attack on MY religion, a slap in the face to me, and all the other followers of science in the world, and will not rest until he is not elected in November.


But I rant.

[stuntcat]

12. right

The retardicans would have a war on Science.
Science.. a beautiful thing, as close to "God" as THEY could ever get. It's not on their side though, except for the warm feeling they get out of the weapons it helps make.

[pokerfan]

15. There is great beauty in science

Pi:

The Pythagorean Theorem:

Euler's identity:

Newton's Principia:

Maxwell's equations:

Yet Palin believes the universe is 6000 years old and that humans walked with the dinosaurs. McCain/Palin: Destroying Western Civilization one planetarium at a time.