Government removes Evolutionary Biology from accepted fields of study

Link

Well, it's happening again. The government is trying to stear the course of science by removing evolutionary biology from the accepted fields of study that are eligable for government grants.

Evolutionary biology has vanished from the list of acceptable fields of study for recipients of a federal education grant for low-income college students.

The omission is inadvertent, said Katherine McLane, a spokeswoman for the Department of Education, which administers the grants. “There is no explanation for it being left off the list,” Ms. McLane said. “It has always been an eligible major.”

Another spokeswoman, Samara Yudof, said evolutionary biology would be restored to the list, but as of last night it was still missing.

Coincidence? We'll see.

It's amazing that Bush gets away with imposing his Christan beliefs on the nation while in office... and gets away with it!

Thats because evolutionary biology is BS

Mod Note: One Line Post – Please Review This Link.

[edit on 26-8-2006 by DontTreadOnMe]

Originally posted by zren
Thats because evolutionary biology is BS.

Hmmm.....

Have you studied the field in depth, and after years of scrutiny come to the decision that one of the possible theories on a specific creature is flawed? Or is this just a blanket statement based on what you've read on the internet?

[edit on 26-8-2006 by DontTreadOnMe]

My father is a biology professor. I had a long convo with him last night about this and he told me that a lot of the funding for programs like this are being diverted to the war effort. When they create these grant lists they first take all the proposed programs and order them by priority of social impact and then they start from the 1% and move they're way down allocating money as needed. Although its unfortunate that many people will lose funding he said the fact of the matter is that not many students are going into the fields of evolutionary biology either so it has a very low priority. He was pretty intrigued by the coicidence that it also happens to be bush's most hated topic of study. Its very sad, but not the first time this type of thing has happened. If anyone has any questions, just post them and ill take them to my dad and see if i cant get some more specific answers.

Originally posted by zren
Thats because evolutionary biology is BS..

Yea because its not in the bible

How about actually studying these fields before you say such BS?

Do you even know what evolutionary biology is?

[edit on 26-8-2006 by DontTreadOnMe]

Originally posted by bokinsmowl
My father is a biology professor. I had a long convo with him last night about this and he told me that a lot of the funding for programs like this are being diverted to the war effort. When they create these grant lists they first take all the proposed programs and order them by priority of social impact and then they start from the 1% and move they're way down allocating money as needed. Although its unfortunate that many people will lose funding he said the fact of the matter is that not many students are going into the fields of evolutionary biology either so it has a very low priority. He was pretty intrigued by the coicidence that it also happens to be bush's most hated topic of study. Its very sad, but not the first time this type of thing has happened. If anyone has any questions, just post them and ill take them to my dad and see if i cant get some more specific answers.

I agree with your dad, but he would also have to admit that this administration is cutting funds on programs based on what Bush doesn't like. Part of the human genome project that one of my friends works on got scrapped, while grants for other areas (military technology) got boosted.

Originally posted by Rev Paine
It's amazing that Bush gets away with imposing his Christan beliefs on the nation while in office... and gets away with it!

I seriously doubt that this has anything to do with Bush. In any case, they said it was a mistake, why not just believe them until it becomes an issue. When some minority gets denied a loan because they want to to take EB, make a fuss about it then. They stated it's always been an accepted major. There is no reason to assume this is changing.

Furthermore, I wonder if any of you even looked at the links offered in the OP. It contained a link to a list of eligible majors. If any of you bothered to look at this document you'd have noted that on Page 7 there is a whole list of eligible Life Science Majors including evolution:

26.13 Ecology, Evolution, Systematics and Population Biology

and as subheading under this:

26.1399 Ecology, Evolution, Systematics and Population Biology, Other

So it would appear that is just a mistake. Surely if 'Bush and The Christian Right' were trying to impose their Christian Beliefs on us. This huge category that includes evolution wouldn't have been there.

Finally, perhaps you don't know this, but the government always has steered the course of science. The gov't decides how to allocate grant funding, which steers the course of science. Ever since there have been large public funding agencies, the gov't has had some measure of control over the projects that are funded. Unless you want to abolish the NIH, NSF, DARPA, HSARPA, etc. the gov't will continue to steer the course of science.

Originally posted by Byrd
I agree with your dad, but he would also have to admit that this administration is cutting funds on programs based on what Bush doesn't like. Part of the human genome project that one of my friends works on got scrapped, while grants for other areas (military technology) got boosted.

So from this we are supposed to infer that Bush doesn't like the Human Genome Project? What evidence is there to suggest this?

If we assume this we also must assume that Bush doesn't like Earth Science (down 15.9 percent), aeronautics (down 16.2 percent). In any case, apparently Bush likes Earth Science and aeronautics less than he does Biology, as Biology and Physical Research were down only 11.8%.

A little known fact: Bush hates oil! Fossil energy R&D (down 22 percent), he dislikes it even more than other varieties of energy: (down 21 percent by FY2009), but not as much as he dislikes conservation: energy conservation (down 26 percent).

Seriously though, is there anything to suggest that Bush doesn't like the Human Genome Project? In reality it appears that Bush has stretched the Budget to its very limits with the war in Iraq, and the war on terror. The only three R&D outlets that didn't get cut were the DoD, Homeland Security, and NASA. It is noteworthy that all three of these agencies do fund significant amounts of biologcal research. I've worked under contracts and grants with both the DoD and HS. NASA pretty much funded an entire area of biology research at the school where I got my Ph.D.

Not saying that funding cuts for basid R & D are good, definitely not defending Bush, and I'm not saying that the DoD, HS, and NASA are going to pick up the slack for all the other research agencies. I am trying to point out these cuts are likely more due to bad policy in other areas than a deliberate attempt by the Bush administration to alter the course of science history.