Bellyaching about the GOP attack on science
Flip Side: A gastronomic scientist in Seattle deplores the decline of proper research in his field. Here's how you can help fund his breakthrough research in Paris restaurants.
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As China and Korea increase funding for scientific research by 10 percent a year, federal funding for science is declining as a share of the U.S. GDP. I fear further cutbacks in funding as House Republicans try to cut the deficit without raising taxes.
This myopic approach threatens America's future. Iconic scientific institutions can no longer perform the fundamental research that fuels our knowledge-based industries and economy. We are losing the science race — particularly the race in gastronomic science. But with your help, we can win that race.
Last year NIH was unable to fund any of the basic research proposals submitted by The Institute for Gastronomic Research. I happen to be the Executive Director of this legendary institution, serving for absurdly low pay. I don't want to boast, but I am usually cited as the leading gastronomic scientist, if not in the entire Madison Park neighborhood, certainly on the 400 block of 39th Ave. E. My scientific work has often been compared, unfavorably, with Pasteur's.
I had hoped that private foundations might step up to finance basic gastronomic research, but they seem to prefer trendy causes and soft science. Foundations will give grants to study "sociological interventions to increase self-esteem in pre-adolescent dorks and wimps afflicted with ADHD." But if you pursue basic science, ask the big questions, and value scientific knowledge for its own sake, you get nothing.
At the Institute we have been forced to abandon a planned staff expansion. Unable to hire my wife in a part-time position, I will remain the Institute's sole employee. This is not crippling since the Institute has always favored breakthrough research by a single individual, rather than dispersing resources on inconclusive group studies. Nonetheless, the Institute's overarching mission — cutting-edge research at the frontier of gastronomic science, provided that someone else picks up the check — is threatened.
In 2012 we hope to answer the question that has puzzled scientists and philosophers for four centuries: What is the best restaurant in Paris? By rigorously applying the scientific method I am prepared, once and for all, to settle this question definitely. Over a six-week period I will dine four times at each of Paris's 21 two- and three-star restaurants.
Using a sophisticated covariance matrix, I have already selected the menu items that will provide the most useful scientific data at the least cost (most bang for the buck). To illustrate, at L'Astrance I plan a light lunch comprising:
Amuse Bouche: les Tartelettes — Mousseline de betterave et vinaigre balsamique; et mousseline de poire avec carotte jaune et praliné de noisette.
Escalopines de bar à l'émincé d'artichaut, caviar oscietre gold.
Coquilles Saint-Jacques d'Erquy à l'unilatérale; chou et thé vert "Ashikubo Sencha."
Arlettes caramelisées fromage blanc, citron et pamplemousse confits.
I am currently working on wine pairings. Further plans will be developed before ordering dinner at Le Meurice.
I have a very modest budget: $65,000. I am personally willing to finance up to $500 and will double this amount if my brother pays me what he owes. However, since he claims I owe him money I cannot bank on this amount.
Therefore I turn to you, faithful readers. Help us pursue basic science. Help us expand the frontiers of human knowledge. This is your chance to defeat the Republicans in their war against science. Please contribute at gastronomicscience.org.
As a special bonus, if you contribute today, we will send three follow up letters asking for more money.
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Comments:
Posted Tue, Apr 17, 6:28 a.m. Inappropriate
"Bellyaching about the Democrat attack on Science" No, that doesn't work either. No matter how you try to package it as a poltical slam, the article simply isn't funny.
"As a special bonus, if you contribute today, we will send three follow up letters asking for more money." Perhaps the more important question is how much would you have to contribute to get a real humourist to write here.
Posted Tue, Apr 17, 10:27 a.m. Inappropriate
The funny stuff is coming out of Tenn., Texass, Dakotas, and to a state near you. And the candidates' (or former candidates') mouths. But, humor is a tough line to draw in an age of dour and brain dead America so tuned into iPods, Smart Phones, junk entertainment.
Check out K. Stewart's piece in the Guardian:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2012/feb/12/new-anti-science-assault-us-schools
There are six bills aimed at undermining the teaching of evolution before state legislatures this year: two each in New Hampshire and Missouri, one each in Indiana and Oklahoma. And it’s only April.
Most of these bills aren’t likely to get anywhere. The Indiana bill, which specifically proposes the teaching of “creation science”, so obviously falls foul of the supreme court’s 1987 ruling that it’s hard to imagine it getting out of committee. The same could be said for the Missouri bill, which calls for the “equal treatment” of “biological evolution and biological intelligent design”.
Still, it’s worth asking: why is this happening now? Well, in part, it’s just that anti-evolution bills are an indicator of the theological temperature in state houses, and there is no question that the temperature has been rising. New Hampshire, Indiana, Oklahoma, and Missouri turned deeper shades of red in the 2010 elections, as did the US Congress.
But there are a couple of new twists that make this same-old story more interesting than usual. One has to do with the temperature in a less metaphorical sense. The Oklahoma bill isn’t properly speaking just an “anti-evolution” bill; it is just as opposed to the “theory” of “global warming”. A bill pending in Tennessee likewise targets “global warming” alongside “biological evolution”. These and other bills aim their rhetoric at “scientific controversies” in plural, and one of the New Hampshire bills does not even bother to specify which controversies it has in mind.
The convergence here is, to some degree, cultural. It just so happens that the people who don’t like evolution are often the same ones who don’t want to hear about climate change. It is also the case that the rhetoric of the two struggles is remarkably similar – everything is a “theory”, and we should “teach the controversy”. But we also cannot overlook the fact is that there is a lot more money at stake in the climate science debate than in the evolution wars. Match those resources with the passions aroused by evolution, and we may have a new force to be reckoned with in the classroom.
But, someone like a senator from Maine has some hope left:
Former Maine Senator George Mitchell “called upon President Barack Obama — and everyone else who backs stiff environmental protection laws and the science behind climate change — to be bold and persistent in the face of opponents.”
In a keynote address to the Natural Resources Council of Maine, Mitchell said, ““We’ve all seen environmental protection used as a scapegoat for whatever society’s problems are, but it will not last… I believe this anti-science movement will fade away over time. Remember, it took a long time for people to realize the world is not flat.”
Judging from the recent Republican presidential “debates”, Miami and South Florida may be under water before the flat earthers give up their grasp of the conservative right.
Not sure if Crosscut writers are up to the task of writing humor!
Posted Tue, Apr 17, 2:27 p.m. Inappropriate
I'm very tempted by your organization's generous offer of sending donors follow-up letters, but unless sont les deux consommables et delicieuse, they'll be fed to the recycling bin. (As a Burmese house guest once observed to me and my husband, "I see that much of your rubbish is delivered by your postal service.")
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