The Smug Baldy Speaks

Last July, I wrote in favor of bringing back the Congressional Office of Techchnology Assessment, or OTA. This was the non-partisan, scientific advisory body that was eliminated in 1995 by Newt Gingrich and other newly empowered republicans. As we now know, during the subsequent years, including the entire tenure of the Bush administration, the Republican-controlled congress got scientific advice from persons and groups with political or economic interest in the policy decisions that Congress made. This was bad for a number of reasons, as most cases of foxes guarding the henhouse tend to be.

According to the Federation of American Sciences website, the American Association for the Advancement of Science is holding a meeting about the possibility of reinstating the OTA.

The Congressional Office of Technology Assessment provided rigorous, bipartisan, scientific and technological advice to Congress for nearly two decades before being eliminated in 1995. This session will focus on how to effectively place scientific and technical information into a policy context, analyze it, and communicate it to policy makers and the public.

It’s about damn time.

Do you want Congress to keep making decisions about evolution, climate change, stem cell research, alternate energy programs - or any other scientific area without a fair and impartial assessment of the scientific issues involved? If so, then you deserve whatever crap happens to you as a result of your majestic and profound idiocy.