Why does Rep. Broun want to be on the science committee?

1. Put on sheep lab costume.
2. Say Baa = mc squared.
3. Snack on tasty tasty sheepicists.

Simple.

There is a large contingent of the Republican Party (who make committee decisions) that are trying to defund anything that is against their religious beliefs in Creationism and anything to do with preventing pregnancies or research with stem cells. By being on the Committee, they can block any efforts to pay for research through the National Science Foundation or the National Institutes for Health.

@JLeslie, what does the scientific committee actually do? What are the members’ responsibilities and powers, and the committee’s purpose?

@bkcunningham (From wiki) The Committee on Science, Space and Technology is a committee of the United States House of Representatives. It has jurisdiction over non-defense federal scientific research and development. Specifically, the committee has partial or complete jurisdiction over the following federal agencies: NASA, the Department of Energy, EPA, ATSDR, NSF, FAA, NOAA, National Institute of Standards and Technology, FEMA, the U.S. Fire Administration, and United States Geological Survey.

Essentially it provides funding and organization to our nations scientific research efforts. Someone on the committee with an agenda to discredit, disregard, or ignore accepted scientific facts…. could be very problematic in that organization. It would be like having a principle or school board who doesn’t believe in multiplication tables.

As to this man, Broun, he is an idiot. If you disbelieve evolution, point blank you are a moron. Maybe he should spend his time trying to get everyone ever convicted with DNA evidence out of prison, since without evolution that evidence has no merit to stand on.

“I am just curious why someone who rejects science so much would want to participate on a science committee?”
The answer to that is so clear, that I am shocked it has to stated here:
He wants to be on the committee so he can sabotage the scientific progress of the country and replace evidentially demonstrated truth with the lies taught by his religion.

Well, @ragingloli pretty much beat me to it. If the position is about funding, he probably wants to use that position to prevent money from going to any research related to evolution or climate change. I mean, if he thinks these kinds of science are evil, he would be obligated to try to block them, no?

Since he actually has a degree in chemistry, perhaps he sincerely believes himself to be more suitable for the committee than the usual plethora of politicians with legal backgrounds.

I don’t know what this says about the value or validity of higher education. Maybe in some cases it facilitates an illusion of intellectual superiority and competence. One possibility is that the higher education institute he qualified through did not properly vet his competence and understanding of chemistry, and it was other less relevant traits which got him by.

Maybe he’s just a liar pandering to an ignorant base of voters. I personally can’t fathom how someone with a degree in chemistry, who should be intimately aware of radioactive decay and how it is used to accurately measure the age of rocks, could possibly think the Earth is 9,000 years old.

He’s either a liar or deluded. Take your pick.

”I personally can’t fathom how someone with a degree in chemistry, who should be intimately aware of radioactive decay and how it is used to accurately measure the age of rocks, could possibly think the Earth is 9,000 years old.”
There are people that are perfectly capable of doing their degree and write down everything they need to pass, while still not believing anything of what they “learned” and wrote down to get the degree.

He not only has a degree in Chemistry, he also is an MD, and practiced for many years as General Practitioner.

Fundamentalist Evangelicals though, balance their understanding of Physics and Chemistry with their view of their faith. In that, fossils and the physical evidence of the history of the planet and the universe were set in place at the time of the Creation. And reconciliation of the physical world to the belief system is meant as a Test of Faith.

I thought it’s 6000 years old if you are hanging with the ID crowd? No?

@Simone_De_Beauvoir That’s a very contentious debate between Creationists. I think they should teach both the 6,000 and the 9,000 years theory in classrooms and let the children decide. Teach the controversy.

@Kropotkin Indeed, I think the children should decide. Let’s do that.

@Kropotkin @Simone_De_Beauvoir “The planet is ice cream years old.”

@tedd Yes. I fucking love that shit. Yes.

I’m sure his interest is in derailing education in science and hushing up those scientific facts that disturb the equilibrium of his ideology-driven universe.