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  Topic: White House flunky to NASA:  'Big Bang not a fact'< Next Oldest | Next Newest >  
Jason Spaceman



Posts: 163
Joined: Nov. 2005

(Permalink) Posted: Feb. 03 2006,20:55   

From today's NY Times.

Quote
The Big Bang memo came from Mr. Deutsch, a 24-year-old presidential appointee in the press office at NASA headquarters whose résumé says he was an intern in the "war room" of the 2004 Bush-Cheney re-election campaign. A 2003 journalism graduate of Texas A&M, he was also the public-affairs officer who sought more control over Dr. Hansen's public statements.

In October 2005, Mr. Deutsch sent an e-mail message to Flint Wild, a NASA contractor working on a set of Web presentations about Einstein for middle-school students. The message said the word "theory" needed to be added after every mention of the Big Bang.

The Big Bang is "not proven fact; it is opinion," Mr. Deutsch wrote, adding, "It is not NASA's place, nor should it be to make a declaration such as this about the existence of the universe that discounts intelligent design by a creator."

It continued: "This is more than a science issue, it is a religious issue. And I would hate to think that young people would only be getting one-half of this debate from NASA. That would mean we had failed to properly educate the very people who rely on us for factual information the most."

The memo also noted that The Associated Press Stylebook and Libel Manual specified the phrasing "Big Bang theory." Mr. Acosta, Mr. Deutsch's boss, said in an interview yesterday that for that reason, it should be used in all NASA documents.

The Deutsch memo was provided by an official at NASA headquarters who said he was upset with the effort to justify changes to descriptions of science by referring to politically charged issues like intelligent design. Senior NASA officials did not dispute the message's authenticity.


Read it here.

   
Stephen Elliott



Posts: 1776
Joined: Oct. 2005

(Permalink) Posted: Feb. 03 2006,23:04   

LOL. So a journalism graduate in his early 20's is lecturing NASA on science.

That is so funny.

  
Caledonian



Posts: 48
Joined: Jan. 2006

(Permalink) Posted: Feb. 04 2006,04:21   

Well, it's not a fact.

Neither is it an opinion.  It's a scientific theory at best, and at worst a very strong hypothesis.

  
Jay Ray



Posts: 92
Joined: Feb. 2006

(Permalink) Posted: Feb. 04 2006,06:07   

Please, won't the mothership come and take me home?

  
tiredofthesos



Posts: 59
Joined: Jan. 2006

(Permalink) Posted: Feb. 04 2006,12:09   

I hear ya, Jay!  On some particularly awful days, I wander into a wheatfield and beat me down a crop circle, having evidently misplaced my Intergalactic Thumb after ending blotto at some party or other.

  
Julie Stahlhut



Posts: 46
Joined: July 2005

(Permalink) Posted: Feb. 08 2006,07:30   

Latest news:  George Deutsch has "resigned" from NASA.  Turns out that he never actually completed the bachelor's degree that he claimed on his resume.

More all over the net; just search the news for his name.

  
Mr_Christopher



Posts: 1238
Joined: Jan. 2006

(Permalink) Posted: Feb. 08 2006,07:39   

This lying Bush appointee was busted by a humble science blogger here.

There is some irony in this story somewhere.

ps: I hope the NY Times publishes his entire resume.


.

--------------
Uncommon Descent is a moral cesspool, a festering intellectual ghetto that intoxicates and degrades its inhabitants - Stephen Matheson

  
Mr_Christopher



Posts: 1238
Joined: Jan. 2006

(Permalink) Posted: Feb. 08 2006,16:35   

PT mentions This Blogger who has dug up a bunch of writing by George Deutsch,  including who killed Laci Peterson (Satanists) to the "clear" ties between  al-Qaida and Iraq.

Yet another howler from an intelligent design advocate.

And is it me or do all intelligent design advocates seem to lack any intelligence at all?

--------------
Uncommon Descent is a moral cesspool, a festering intellectual ghetto that intoxicates and degrades its inhabitants - Stephen Matheson

  
stevestory



Posts: 13407
Joined: Oct. 2005

(Permalink) Posted: Feb. 09 2006,13:10   

update: flunky claims he is right, and Hansen is biased and political.
Quote
George C. Deutsch, the young NASA press aide who resigned on Tuesday in the center of a storm over his efforts to keep the agency's top climate scientist from speaking publicly about global warming, defended himself today in his first public interviews.

Speaking to a Texas radio station and then briefly to The New York Times, Mr. Deutsch said the scientist, James E. Hansen, exaggerated the threat of warming.


NYT story

   
Neotoma



Posts: 3
Joined: Feb. 2006

(Permalink) Posted: Feb. 10 2006,07:08   

Audio of the news interview is available online at:

http://wtaw.com/news.php

It's a four part interview, beginning about 6 links down the page.

--------------
You know, the very powerful and the very stupid have one thing in common: they don't alter their views to fit the facts, they alter the facts to fit the views, which can be uncomfortable, if you happen to be one of the facts that needs altering.
     - The Fourth Doctor (The Face of Evil, 1976)

  
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