If you can see the Moon at all, you are witnessing a total lunar eclipse over the next few hours. The Full Moon is passing into and out of Earth’s conical shadow in space. This event is long and boring and resembles the Moon going through phases.
July 4, 1776: Wondering whether the USA is the only country to celebrate its independence on the anniversary of simply declaring it, rather than on the anniversary of winning it. In our case, the British surrender at Yorktown, Virginia: October 19, 1781.
Every machine in a Hospital that diagnoses your body without cutting you open is based on a principle of Physics, discovered by a Physicist who had no interest in Medicine.
If you think the world doesn’t need Basic Science, or that somehow Science has failed you, think again.
When a Government is scientifically illiterate, but doesn’t know it, then its actions (or inactions) can be a recipe for the dismantling of an informed and enlightened Democracy. #ScienceMatters
Unfamiliar with the role of science in America’s national defense, or the history of science innovation in the defense of sovereign nations? I invite you to start with, Accessory to War: The Unspoken Alliance Between Astrophysics & the Military. neildegrassetyson.com/books/2018-09-accessory-to-war/
Not that anyone asked, but during my tenure on the Pentagon’s Defense Innovation Board, under part of Obama-2 and all of Trump-1, we visited Military Bases domestically & abroad.
At no time did any member of the Armed Forces I met say to me: “America needs less science funding.”
If a foreign adversary snuck into our Federal budget and cut science research and education the way we’re cutting it ourselves — strategically undermining America’s long-term health, wealth, and security — we would likely consider it an act of war.
Cutting science budgets has not historically been a Republican thing. For example, Lincoln created the National Academy of Sciences. Eisenhower's term increased the science budget 366%. Gerald Ford, +15%; George H. W. Bush, +30%; George W. Bush, +54%.
1) Free-market capital investments in brilliant ideas… 2) enabled by Engineering Innovations… 3) based on Science Research in Universities… 4) funded by Grants from the US Government.
If Rational Arguments no longer work in US governance, it’s evidence of a deeper problem in our educational system, which favors what to know over how to think — how to critically analyze, process, & verify information.
Seems like a bad time to reduce funding for Public Education.
