Month: March 2018

Audience: Congress/general government/voters

Thesis: Politicians and others in authority must exhibit some competency in science in order to pass laws or talk about topics that regard science in order to avoid the adverse effects of spreading false scientific information, such as the public skepticism of proven scientific topics, the propagation of harmful or even fatal practices to both human health and the environment, as well as the perversion of science for political matters.

This topic has major significance in this time frame due to how anti-science the current government has become, especially with many significant politicians taken positions that have been debunked with many years of science. This issue becomes increasingly concerning when these politicians have a large following and easily influence people who may not have a strong background in science and the impressionable minds of children, who should be taught proven theories before they dive into the world of politicalized science. For that reason, politicians must have somewhat of a basis in science in order to pass or deny bills that focus on science. As a scientist, I constantly hear arguments about proven topics that take science and mutate it into something unrecognizable or simply use some popular, incorrect rumor to justify a scientific opinion, which ultimately comes back to how this incorrect scientific “reasoning” spreads. When looking at many of the tweets by politicians, there’s a theme where opinions debunked by significant evidence are backed by hundreds or thousands of Americans. If politicians, who are major influences within the nation, began to back their claims with evidence or did not partake in voting in bills that they could not show competence in understanding, then I think we would have more laws backed by science rather than very subjective opinions of a few within a nation of three hundred million.

1. Laws Passed/Actions Taken Concerning Science
   • Paris Agreement
     • Trump withdrew from the Paris Agreement, making the United States the only major nation to not join
     • His explanation of why the US didn’t join included repeating that it wasn’t a good deal for America several times, which completely ignored the science aspect of the issue
   • Abortions
     • Politicians voting upon these bills consist of mostly Christian males, who do not represent the feelings of the women who are impacted by the bills (research further)
     • Many radical bills supported by many politicians and based upon dubious science, which is furthered by those in the public with questionable science backgrounds (i.e. the bill that proposed a ban on abortions after twenty weeks since fetuses could apparently (not proven) feel pain by then
2. Effects of False Information Spread
   • Trust in scientists plummets
   • Public accepts incorrect, potentially harmful or fatal opinions
     • Abortions
     • Vaccines and Autism (the connection promoted by Trump)
       • Due to herd immunization and the eradication of certain diseases due to vaccines, people have begun to lighten up on vaccines since they cannot see the direct impact on them, which will backfire if more people begin to stop getting vaccinated or vaccinating their children
     • Deadly fads
       • Unbacked diets
     • GMOs
       • People still think that GMOs are unhealthy even though they’ve been eating them for years/GMOs have been produced since people moved to agriculture as their primary food source
   • Focus on social media (all those ads on Facebook that advocate losing weight in two weeks or
3. Trump’s Presidency and Its Impact on Science
   • Vowed to eliminate the EPA
   • The USDA mess
   • Promotes a view that the earth is fine as it is, people don’t need vaccines, all disproven by science

https://www.kqed.org/science/22186/why-scientists-are-seen-as-competent-but-untrustworthy-and-why-it-matters

https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/vv7xqx/what-a-trump-presidency-means-for-science

Public confidence in scientists has remained stable for decades

https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/449525268529815552?lang=en (Trump’s unsupported tweet about vaccines and autism)

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/jan/28/donald-trump-says-us-could-re-enter-paris-climate-deal-itv-interview Trump wants back in on the Paris Agreements

https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/11/syria-is-joining-the-paris-agreement-now-what/545261/

48 Senate Republicans just voted for a radical abortion ban. And so did a few Democrats.

http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0002716214555474

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/11/usda-food-stamps-school-lunch-trump-administration

During Deliberation Nation, I attended the deliberation that talked about drinking at Penn State, called, “We Are…A “Dry Campus”? A Discussion about Penn State’s Drinking Policies. Before attending, I thought it would be very difficult for me to relate to the topic due to my lack of involvement with drinking, I found that it was a very novel discussion since instead of analyzing various policies that preventing students from drinking at Penn State, the discussion was  geared more towards how to make the inevitable drinking culture safer since as many attendees mentioned, college students will drink no matter the policies in place to stop them.

Before the deliberation even began, I was surprised to see how many people showed up at the Fraser Commons. The professor had to grab more chairs so everyone could sit and even then, someone was standing in the back so I would estimate there were around twenty attendees at the deliberation, including a few “townies” as the State College residents were called. In contrast to our own deliberation, the professor also played a larger part by distributing the issue guide, telling everyone where the refreshments were, and during the break, passing said refreshments around, which was a little distracting from the deliberation.

However, the deliberation itself was very interesting. I think I would classify the topic as a type two problem since we were deliberating in order to improve the drinking policies at Penn State, which dealt heavily with the values of various people.

First and foremost, we discussed the policies in place at Penn State in Approach One, which included on and off campus policies as well as medical amnesty policies. There was a general consensus that medical amnesty laws were effective and someone mentioned that some states were expanding that policy to also protect the student in the medical emergency so the student who calls does not face backlash from that student or others for calling authorities, which most agreed was a worthwhile addition to the Amnesty laws. As mentioned before, most of the attendees agreed that students would drink off campus no matter what the Pennsylvania Laws said. On campus, they thought it would be better if the RAs were a little more lenient to students who have alcohols in their rooms if they aren’t bothering others in the hall since it is easier help students who drink and have an emergency in the dorms than those who must go off campus for a drink.

This led seamlessly to Approach Two, which regarded the enforcement of the drinking policy on campus. Many attendees shared stories about how their RAs approached drinking in the dorms, which revealed the disparity between RAs. Some only told their students to put the drinks away while others reported the students to housing. This led to a conversation about trust and most of the attendees agreed that they would trust a laid-back RA more than an uptight one for various issues they may have, such as drinking. Within this approach, we agreed that the NSO teams and other students guides should information about drinking that is objective and keeps students safe, but should not cross the line and become subjective and encourage students to go drink.

Finally, the third approach was about Penn State’s reputation as a party school and how to overcome this stigma. Most of the attendees agree that moderating social media and taking down posts that showed PSU students drinking would be too cumbersome and not very effective. Instead, emphasizing the academic, sports, and research achievements at Penn State on social media would be a better method of changing the reputation since it would show prospective students and the general public that there’s more to Penn State than just drinking

All in all, I thought the deliberation was successful in its goal to discuss various changes in policies to make drinking safer and it was also enjoyable to listen to the various stories and opinions shared by the attendees, as well as see the professor’s face in response to the stories about all the drinking mayhem that occurs at Penn State.