The Bush "Science Initiative"

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President George W. Bush, in his State of the Union speech, talked about the "American Competitiveness Initiative." One of the goals of this initiative was "giving our nation's children a firm grounding in math and science." Children will learn more math and science courses to make America competitive with other nations that score higher than the US in tests, which normally means nearly everyone else that takes the particular test.
What does that mean for children in the United States when it comes to more rigorous math and science courses? Let's take a look at the facts and see...

One would expect that people in NASA would have a basic grounding in sound science like astronomy, cosmology, etc. But not in the George W. Bush administration. A presidential appointee to NASA had the following background in science: NONE WHAT SO EVER. But he did have the following credentials to his name according to The New York Times:

intern in the 'war room' of the 2004 Bush-Cheney re-election campaign. A 2003 journalism graduate of Texas A&M, he was also the public-affairs officer who sought more control over Dr. Hansen's public statements.

Remember Mr. "Blame Everyone" Brown, the head of FEMA, the Federal Emergency Mismanagement Agency? No experience, but he was a good friend of the President. That's enough experience. Take a look at what he has to say about the Big Bang Model, one of the basic things learned in an astronomy course (quoted from The New York Times):

The Big Bang is "not proven fact; it is opinion," Mr. Deutsch wrote, adding, "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."
It continued: "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."

And this is what me might expect as science? American children will be competitive by learning this stuff? Last time I checked an AP Test, Intelligent Design wasn't part of it. Unless of course, the College Board decides to bow down to the wishes of the President.

President G.W. Bush is a big proponent of Intelligent Design. No big surprise. Supporters of Intelligent Design now believe that they are the intellectual heirs of Gallileo. The same Gallileo who was condemned by the Catholic Church for his support of the heliocentric universe. At this moment, what are the odds that Intelligent Design will be part of the science initiative? Then again, Gallileo, unlike the Intelligent Design proponents, had at least two things going for him. One, he was correct in his views. Two, and more importantly, he performed ACTUAL EXPERIMENTS to test his hypotheses. That included using telescopes and using actual mathematics. Oh, I remember another thing going for Gallileo. He was well-esteemed by his peers and he had a better reputation. He was not a rogue scientist to his peers, but to the Church that believed in the now shown to be wrong ideas of Aristotle. Nothing like the distortion of history to suit facts. But then again, "hard facts" never really mattered to followers of Intelligent Design.

This could be what the new science initiative could look like if President George W. Bush gets his ways. Then again, he might actually stick with actual science and not Intelligent Design or any other weird idea. Consider what's been said in this post while you read the following quote from Donald Tighe:

The only response came from Donald Tighe of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. "Science is respected and protected and highly valued by the administration," he said.

Really? I'm not too sure. That's all for now.