退出吧,德克萨斯州 — 更多北卡罗来纳州的科学疯狂事迹

好吧,你们知道今天谁高兴吗?是北卡罗来纳州的人民和德克萨斯州的人民,考虑到我们全国范围内的立法疯狂事态,他们的立法反科学疯狂事迹似乎并没有特别出格。

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本文发表于《大众科学》的前博客网络,反映了作者的观点,不一定反映《大众科学》的观点


好吧,你们知道今天谁高兴吗?是北卡罗来纳州的人民和德克萨斯州的人民,考虑到我们全国范围内的立法疯狂事态,他们的立法反科学疯狂事迹似乎并没有特别出格。

但是——我很不愿意对德克萨斯人这样说——北卡罗来纳州的反科学疯狂事迹从不停止。

你们都熟悉卡罗来纳州的疯狂品牌,它主要集中在忽视科学甚至取缔科学 (此处为方便的摘要)。在另一篇《大众科学》博客中,你最近看到了我们自己的 反科学先锋约翰·德罗兹 的可爱肖像。


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但今天的“情书”关注的是水力压裂法。 如您所知,北卡罗来纳州正 急于开始水力压裂,以便在我们完全清楚 水力压裂 对所有人有多么糟糕之前,我们可以开始从据称巨大的财富中获利。 不可思议的是,我们设法躲过了这一劫,但乐趣永不停息。

上周,北卡罗来纳州 实际上拒绝了联邦政府的资金,因为这笔钱将被用于研究水力压裂是否安全。“研究”? “安全”? 不不不! 在北卡罗来纳州不行,你们这些所谓的“科学家”不行。

你看,美国环保署提供的 50 多万美元的资金将用于对溪流和湿地进行基线研究——这似乎正是你在开始水力压裂之前想要做的事情。 但是,北卡罗来纳州环境与自然资源部负责人 约翰·斯克瓦拉给编辑的信中

美国环保署的拨款本应在 2014 年初开始取样——如果你想在水力压裂之前建立基线,那就太早了。 它本应或多或少随机地对湿地和溪流进行取样——但通过等到租赁单元确定后,我们可以将样本锁定在水力压裂将要发生的地点附近。 它本应只对地表水进行取样——我们需要地表水和地下水取样,以准确告诉我们钻探是否正在危害供水。

没错:你最不需要的就是在新工艺开始很久之前采集的通用基线数据。 这怎么能让你了解在工艺开始之前的情况呢? 斯克瓦拉还提出了一个普遍性的论点,即某种程度上,通过拒绝无附加条件的联邦研究资金,他正在为州政府省钱,但我就不深究这一点了。 为了解释这一点,我只想提一下,北卡罗来纳州也 拒绝了医疗补助扩张带来的大约 10 亿美元。 拒绝的后果是毫无疑问的积极影响,例如 医院倒闭和失业

这又让我们回到了我认为的忽视证据和糟糕的科学,这正是我们今天开始的地方。 所以:这是北卡罗来纳州在反科学疯狂竞赛中领先的最低限度的通行证。 加油,德克萨斯州。 让我们看看你能拿出什么。

Scott Huler was born in 1959 in Cleveland and raised in that city's eastern suburbs. He graduated from Washington University in 1981; he was made a member of Phi Beta Kappa because of the breadth of his studies, and that breadth has been a signature of his writing work. He has written on everything from the death penalty to bikini waxing, from NASCAR racing to the stealth bomber, for such newspapers as the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Philadelphia Inquirer, and the Los Angeles Times and such magazines as ESPN, Backpacker, and Fortune. His award-winning radio work has been heard on "All Things Considered" and "Day to Day" on National Public Radio and on "Marketplace" and "Splendid Table" on American Public Media. He has been a staff writer for the Philadelphia Daily News and the Raleigh News & Observer and a staff reporter and producer for Nashville Public Radio. He was the founding and managing editor of the Nashville City Paper. He has taught at such colleges as Berry College and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

His books include Defining the Wind, about the Beaufort Scale of wind force, and No-Man's Lands, about retracing the journey of Odysseus.

His most recent book, On the Grid, was his sixth. His work has been included in such compilations as Appalachian Adventure and in such anthologies as Literary Trails of the North Carolina Piedmont, The Appalachian Trail Reader and Speed: Stories of Survival from Behind the Wheel.

For 2014-2015 Scott is a Knight Science Journalism Fellow at MIT, which is funding his work on the Lawson Trek, an effort to retrace the journey of explorer John Lawson through the Carolinas in 1700-1701.

He lives in Raleigh, North Carolina, with his wife, the writer June Spence, and their two sons.

More by Scott Huler
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