Individuals who have convinced sufficient Americans to vote for them to be President usually have carried adequate-to-outstanding academic credentials. President Obama is no exception, having a Bachelor’s degree, plus a Juris Doctor’s degree (from Harvard, no less). But a great many of us are wishing he had taken a few science, math or engineering courses—courses where the correct answers are not determined by ideology, opinion polls or judicial interpretation. President Obama’s technology illiteracy is not just a matter of embarrassment; the cost to all of us is unsustainable.
We humans, like a lot of other animals, learn through experience. As those experiences have been recorded for posterity, each new generation of researchers, as the saying goes, stands on the shoulders of those who came before. In ancient times, long before the seeds of modern science were planted, alchemy was accepted as a legitimate scientific pursuit. The best-known purpose of alchemy was its goal of converting base metals such as lead or tin into noble metals such as gold and silver. That goal eluded its searchers for millennia, but it was thought to be possible, awaiting only a “right stuff” thinker who could accomplish what had proved impossible for so long.
Today the average person thinks of alchemy as a play toy of the incorrigible ignorant. Although essentially true, that’s not a totally fair assessment, since alchemy was one of the seeds that lead toward modern science. One alchemy-like problem we see today is the achievement of controlled nuclear fusion, like the controlled fission used in nuclear power plants. But, unlike the efforts of those early alchemists, research that some day might lead to controlled fusion (the holy grail of energy sources) is being conducted by the world’s top scientists with supercolliders, supercomputers, and all of our modern research tools.
President Obama does not seem to understand that the alchemy of the middle ages cannot be made to work, in spite of his rhetoric and his desires. It appears that his ingrained ideology and ignorance of (or contempt for) physics, mathematics and engineering makes him an easy target for confidence men. It is painfully evident that our President believes that almost instantaneous elimination of fossil fuels is achievable via political fiat. The President is not alone in his beliefs; many in his administration have the same fuzzy beliefs and the same contempt for those “little people” of science who can’t seem to understand what is wanted of them.
So we see billions and billions of our taxpayer dollars being donated for seed money in economically questionable renewable energy initiatives. A recent winner in our energy folly lottery is the late lamented Solyndra company that filed for bankruptcy in early September. At this point there is no evidence of any wrongdoing on the part of Solyndra, aside from poor management and possible lack of due diligence.
Poor decision-making and overconfidence are seen from time to time in totally private initiatives, those with no taxpayer money at risk and no political favor rewards (see Diogenes and Technology Breakthroughs). Such examples just remind us that there is risk inherent in all business ventures. Venture capitalists understand risk management very well, but still they continue to finance new startups regularly. However, when the venture capital is taxpayer money (which belongs to no one) due diligence has, or should have, a completely different definition.
The use of tax monies to finance business startups is generally regarded as inappropriate, but there may be room for debate on that subject. However, no debate should be required about risk management where public moneys are involved. Most of us believe that investing taxpayers’ money in the finest, invisible, fabric from which to make the President’s new suit should be held up to considerably more scrutiny than its counterpart private investment.
But worse than questionable investments of our money is the President’s belief that if he can starve us of electricity from coal-fired plants, we will be forced to turn to wind or solar. Unfortunately, our President doesn’t understand or believe that there is no replacement in sight for the electricity currently derived from coal. Or perhaps he thinks we won’t mind the absence of power at night, when solar cells produce nothing and wind turbines produce little.
We voters are a little late in vetting our President’s technology awareness and competence (and also vetting his candidates for appointment to positions related to technology). Our recourse at this point is to do our best to make sure that potential future Presidents do not have significant technology blind spots or contempt for technologists. It would help if we could demand more technology familiarity from the media; technology-challenged reporters and anchors seem to be the norm.
My suggestion is to support candidates for President only if they are on a technology level of George Washington or better (or Thomas Jefferson, or Benjamin Franklin, or…).
Posted by thedrake01 
