<b>[Stoat] " ... the thread has already gone off track ... "</b>
Thank you Stoat. At least one of you was paying attention. Now, I realize it will be hard to stay away from a lot of the political events that are happening. They are interesting, and a case can usually be made that such events have, or can have, an impact on the scientific world. But my initial take on this is that that isn't good enough.
In general, I want us to stick to discussion of things with a direct impact.
So lets give this rule a try, and see if it works: "If you want to talk about <some particular event or group>, and you think it ties into the theme of Big Science and its relationship to Big Government, then show us that tie explicitly. Say it in words."
Most of the time, I expect that this would require several paragraphs to demonstrate the tie in for an event that can be described in one or two sentences. I will be very surprised if you can make a satisfactory post that does not have close to half of the words devoted to explicitly describing the tie in. But we shall see.
And as interesting as some of this Big Government stuff is, I believe the tie-ins to Big Science will be more interesting.
Here is a suggestion
<ul><li>compose your post in Notepad.</li>
<li>Save it</li>
<li>Read it a few hours later, and make the changes you now see it needs.</li>
<li>Repeat this process, until it stops needing chages.</li>
<li>Copy and paste it into the message window here.</li>
<li>Preview it and make changes as needed.</li>
<li>Post it.</li></ul>
IOW, do not shoot from the hip. THINK about what you are saying. Ask yourself if it really is on topic.
Then post.
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Take the global warming/polar bear habitat stuff mentioned above. We have all heard that it is imperative that we (mankind) start spending all the money that the Rich Among Us have ever hoarded, in order to avoid the loss of that last little ice cube where the VERY Last Polar Bear In Existence is clinging to life. We have also all heard that the polar bear polulation is larger today than it ever has been, and that the ice caps are not shrinking.
Let's find the science behind both claims. And let's find where the money comes from to do the science behind each claim. You may have noticed that discussions about global warming never go anywhere in the popular press. I'd like to think that we are better than that, and that we can actually figure out how to know at least a portion of the truth.
I'm an optimist, in case you have not noticed. But that doesn't mean I'm right. If we can't do this, and avoid all the shouting matches that usually go along with the discussion of the things that are on tipic here, then I'll just pull the plug.
(And apolgize to Tom.)
Good luck to us,
LB
