January 17, 2006
Someone Didn't Do His Homework

Over in paranoid narcissism world, the verdict is in: the New Horizons protest was a qualified success, but that doesn't matter because Bruce's speaking tours are the real success story, persuading legions of people to turn on NASA:

NASA is spending $700 million to fly New Horizons and untold millions dollars more to sell it to the public because their polling data says that the American people are less supportive now than ever of their space program. The public says, "Yes these pictures from space are nice but I’d rather have my tax dollars spent on health care, education, child care, or cleaning up our planet Earth."
Meanwhile, in the real world...
Public Favorable Toward NASA, Space Exploration

NASA is making news again as one of its missions comes to an end and another is set to begin. The Stardust space capsule finished a seven-year mission collecting particles from a comet, and today NASA launches the New Horizons probe that will fly to Pluto on a nine-year mission. Previous Gallup polling has shown that Americans generally view NASA favorably, and favor government spending on space exploration at current or higher levels.

Gallup last asked Americans to rate the job NASA was doing in August 2005. In that poll, 60% said NASA was doing a good job, including 16% who said "excellent." Twenty-nine percent thought NASA was doing a "fair" job, and 8% said it was doing a "poor" job.

The public has generally been positive toward NASA over the years, with a measured high of 76% positive ratings shortly after former Sen. John Glenn returned to space on a space shuttle mission.

Additionally, Americans are supportive of federal spending on space exploration. In an August 2003 CNN/USA Today/Gallup survey, three-quarters of Americans thought spending should be kept at its present level (51%) or increased (24%). Twenty-four percent thought it should be decreased (17%) or ended altogether (7%). Gallup found similar results in a slightly different question it asked in a survey conducted for the Space Foundation in the summer of 2004.

Hm. Looks like Bruce didn't read Mark this morning.

Posted by T.L. James on January 17, 2006 10:49 PM

Comments

Is this guy so stupid that he doesn't bother to fact check himself, or does he just think his readers are to stupid to catch him in a lie like that?

Speaking of fact-checking, why doesn't he ever provide links to anything to back up what he says? Where is the link to this mystery poll showing NASA losing support? He wouldn't have posted such a whopper if he had actually taken the time to look for a link to a poll supporting his argument -- he'd have known better.



Posted by: prince of leaves at January 17, 2006 10:59 PM

"Is this guy so stupid that he doesn't bother to fact check himself, or does he just think his readers are to stupid to catch him in a lie like that?"

What I think is really going on is that Bruce is not bothering to a fact check closely - not that he's lazy but because it doesn't matter.

Bruce comes from a political tradition where the facts don't matter because everything is objective. The kind of place epitomized in the saying "what you say is valid but here is my counterargument" where reasonable people would say "He just said 2+2=5 - he's full of crap"

The facts don't matter because his heart is in the right place.

And to - for years people from that part of the political world have gotten used to an environment where they push out a press release, the media run with it - maybe they do some fact checking. It's published in the paper, or reported on, people chuckle or cluck and that is that.

They're not used to a world where what they say can be sent around the world in a heartbeat, fact checked by experts in a matter of hours (or less) and the shaded truth rebutted.



Posted by: Brian at January 18, 2006 06:28 AM

Brian, I think you meant "subjective". Perhaps that's it...the facts aren't as important as emotion. Along with that, NASA may indeed be losing support within his circle of admirers and like-thinkers, and as it was for Pauline Kael, that circle circumscribes the whole of the world for him. It felt true, based on his social interactions, so no further research was required.

The problem with this is that he didn't claim it was anecdotal evidence, but that NASA's opinion polls showed declining support -- that is a *factual* claim, without any evidence offered. As Prince of Leaves says, he could simply be lying, expecting to get away with it because it will sound so good to his audience that they won't bother to do the fact checking themselves.



Posted by: T.L. James at January 18, 2006 07:36 AM

Bruce has probibly been reading certain space related blogs that are not mine or yours and have concluded that NASA is as popular as Darth Vader on that basis.



Posted by: Mark R. Whittington at January 18, 2006 01:45 PM

Yes, subjective. Of course it's perfectly valid for me to use the word objective when I mean subjective. I'm being creative in the use of my language - don't put me down because I'm redefining the language of the dominant white male patriarchy. Now for a round of 'Kumbayah'.

Anyway ..



Posted by: Brian at January 18, 2006 03:28 PM