Scientific Instruments

If a politician is writing legislation that requires a particular technology then s/he must be at least aware of the technologies' limitations.

Case in point : The movie and music companies have been heavily lobbying congress to write laws which require ISP's to filter out copyrighted material (particularly their copyrighted material). This is simply impossible with todays technology and companies which sell products purporting to do so are selling snake oil.

It would also be nice if a politician in charge of crucial decision making could open his mouth without making a fool of himself e.g. senator Ted " the internet is a series of tubes " Stevens.

I don't know whether politicians understand the basics of science or not. And probably they don't. But, surely, they understand the details of... money.

Whenever scientists propose a rather expensive experiment to their goverment asking for financing, politicians just ask: "should this lead to practical applications in industry and millitary fields???... will we get any profit out of this in any way???... or a powerfull weapon maybe???... if not we are not interested... " Maybe you know such experiments in USA (and in Europe) which were stopped (or not even begun) because of lack of financing.

I think that politicians barely understand the "big picture": what science really means for the human kind.

As for a politician understanding the big picture? It is not likely. Seldom do they understand anything beyond thier own lust for wealth and power.

Just my own cynical two pence worth.

What about the Scientistst themselves?

Scientific fraud even for Global Warming scientists -- I have worked with a lot of scientists for quite some time, including GW scientists. So people think that all Scientists (global warming included) are pure, untainted, and never have any hidden problems, issues, or agendas?

Misinterpretations of biological data:
http://www.the-scientist.com/news/20040712/03/

Plagiarism in the Scientific World:
http://www.biomedcentral.com/news/20040922/02

Scientific Misbehavior Is Common / Scientific Fraud cases:
http://www.freenewmexican.com/news/28863.html

Other articles on bad ethics and practices among Scientists:
http://caliber.ucpress.net/doi/pdfplus/10.1525/jer.2006.1.1.43

Removing scientific Peer Reviews?
http://www.freenewmexican.com/news/50084.html

http://www.the-scientist.com/news/20051017/01/

http://www.the-scientist.com/news/20050304/01/

http://www.the-scientist.com/news/20050617/01/

http://www.the-scientist.com/news/20051213/01

http://www.the-scientist.com/news/display/22927/

http://www.the-scientist.com/blog/display/22990/

http://www.the-scientist.com/article/display/15409/

http://www.the-scientist.com/2006/2/1/24/1/

http://www.the-scientist.com/news/daily/23520/

http://www.the-scientist.com/news/daily/23624/

http://www.the-scientist.com/article/daily/23568/

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060110/ap_on_sc/skorea_stem_cell_16

http://www.the-scientist.com/article/display/15409/

http://www.the-scientist.com/article/display/23061/

http://www.the-scientist.com/article/display/23073/

http://www.the-scientist.com/news/home/39805/

Los Alamos, NM, USA

Politicians are the decision makers for any field that is of general interest. They are the people who come in the forefront, about decisions related to national interest.

So, if they have only shallow or superficial knowledge about science, that can negatively affect their decisions regarding activities concerned with science, such as regulatory activities, usage of energy resources, environmental impacts etc. So, they might be accompanied by people having good technical know-how in their advisory committee.

To conclude, what results in a good decision making is, a good blend of management skills with technical knowledge.