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Point of View with Barb
Sumner Burstyn - January 26 2004
Reach for the stars no more than another
land grab
Okay, so I harbour a sneaking suspicion that the whole moon landing
thing was a hoax. When I see President George W. Bush standing calmly
before the American flag announcing a new era in moon and Mars exploration,
I watch his lips move and imagine he's Captain Kirk, telling us
they will go where no man has gone before.
But assuming it was not a hoax, some of Bush's rhetoric has been
inspiring, filling us all with images of the great advances opening
for mankind, as if travel to the moon and Mars were the apex of
science and, therefore, humanity.
Certainly back when John F. Kennedy announced America's race to
the moon it was. Sure it was about beating the Soviets but it was
also about nation-building, a vast quest underpinned by the desire
to make America the leading scientific nation in the world.
But this time around you don't have to be a rocket scientist to
realise things are a little different.
The announcement that Nasa is to stop all servicing missions to
the Hubble telescope is a perfect example. Not only is the telescope
the finest in the world but it is non-profit and dedicated solely
to science - and by 2010 it will be little more than space junk.
Then there's the extensive investigation released last year on
the state of science in Bush's America. Prepared by Democratic Representative
Henry Waxman, the report, Politics and Science - Investigating the
State of Science Under the Bush Administration, charges the White
House with misusing science to advance a conservative agenda.
Identifying more than 20 scientific issues, it details numerous
instances of manipulation of the scientific process and suppression
of findings that may upset an affected industry.
The report concludes that leading scientific journals are beginning
to question the scientific integrity at federal agencies - the same
information most other Western countries rely on for the basis of
their own standards. If even half of the report is true, the world
of science that all of us rely on for information on subjects as
diverse as global warming and drinking water to missile defence
and agricultural pollution is corrupted by industry influence and
high-level manipulation.
So what happened to science? Two words: faith and commerce. "Faith-based"
is a phrase you'll be hearing more of. The most recent issue to
gain coverage is the scheme in federally funded parks, such as the
Grand Canyon, to place Christian scripture plaques in places of
natural beauty.
It might seem like the odd behaviour of a few fundamentalist park
rangers, except for the fact that a creationist science publication
denying the verifiable age of the canyon (millions of years) is
on prominent display in Park Service stores, and the service has
refused to display material debunking this anti-science.
Even sex is getting a new faith-based makeover with the news that
performance measures for "abstinence education", something the Bush
Administration finances, have been changed to make unproven abstinence-only
programmes appear effective in preventing pregnancy.
While faith-based social programmes and faith-based public education
(vouchers) are gaining acceptance how long can it be before faith-based
science gains credibility? After all, nearly half of Americans believe
the Earth was created some time in the past 10,000 years and the
push for scientific creationism to be taught in public schools is
growing.
On the business front, a report in the New York Times detailed
numerous ambitious lunar business concepts, including transforming
the moon into a giant power plant large enough to power the entire
world, and mining for platinum. There are even "space commerce experts"
who report half a dozen companies gearing up to take advantage of
the new space obsession.
It is as though faith (at least the conservative Christian version
of it) and commerce were the perfect bed partners. You might not
think this has much to do with the moon and Mars, but it does.
Where once we had an understanding that science was irrefutable,
now we are waking up to the reality that like everything else it
is a commodity, susceptible to the whims of the market and those
who own that market.
This time around the moon and Mars will be little more than an
enormous profit-driven ego trip, a landing pad for all that is warped
and wrong with American society and its seemingly insatiable desire
to impose that society on the rest of the world.
So if you are still holding that grainy 1969 image in your head
and part of you still wants to believe in the power of the science
of space exploration, it is time to give it up.
The reach for the stars is no more than another land grab, another
form of colonisation, where the same group will benefit and the
rest of world will be sold a finely tuned piece of PR, empty as
a pocket, as Paul Simon once said.
ENDS
© Barbara Sumner Burstyn, 2003
Send your comments to:
Barbara Sumner
Burstyn.
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