Good riddance
There’s been a story brewing for a while now, about a politcal appointee at NASA, George Deutsch, who worked in the press room and “assisted” with the flow of scientific information to the public. First, he was implicated in trying to censor climate scientist Jim Hansen’s efforts to communicate the dangers of global warming. Then, and here we are at sciene and religion again, he ordered all NASA websites that mentioned the “Big Bang” to be changed to say “Big Bang Theory”. Yes, despite being almost universally accepted by physicists (with minor adjustments, such as the “inflationary model”, but it’s the same basic idea) the Big Bang is a theory, so perhaps you could argue that he is a scientific pedantist. Unfortunately, he seals his fate with these choice words:
It is not NASA’s place, nor should it be to make a declaration such as this about the existence of the universe that discounts intelligent design by a creator… This is more than a science issue, it is a religious issue. And I would hate to think that young people would only be getting one-half of this debate from NASA. That would mean we had failed to properly educate the very people who rely on us for factual information the most.
I’m almost apoplectic when I read that, and I can’t bear to comment. I think I’ve made my position known.
Anyway, the final upshot is that it turns out, thanks to some brilliant reporting from an environmental policy blogger, that Deutsch never received his University degree - but still put it on his resume! In light of this scandal, he finally resigned - and not a moment too soon.
Anyway, I think that’s enough of the gloom and doom posts for a while - I’m going to try and write about something lighter for a while now!