The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) was one of our jewels.

Originally shared by David Brin

The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) was one of our jewels. Normally had about 60 staffers, to help assist WH staff in creating fact-grounded policy.President Obama expanded it well past 100, bringing in loads of question-asking consultants and speakers… like yours truly (twice in 2016 alone). “The size of the office under the Obama administration reflected Mr. Obama's "strong belief in science, the growing intersection of science and technology—”

Beyond advising the President on scientific discoveries and their implications for national policy, OSTP was involved in encouraging breakthroughs in STEM education and re-igniting a generation of skilled programmers. Heading OSTP was Presidential Science Adviser, a position generally filled by some of humanity’s sharpest minds.

All of that is over. President Trump has attrited the Science Office of OSTP to zero… that’s zero staff to consult with West Wing policy makers over anything scientific or related to science. OSTP as a whole is down to a couple of dozen placeholders.

Elsewhere, I wrote about David Gelernter, who seemed a front runner for the Science Adviser post, under Trump. A bizarre and polemically-driven person, Gelernter apparently would have been far too scientific for this White House. Perhaps they sensed that he would be capable - in extremis - of saying the hated phrase: “um… that’s not exactly true.”
http://davidbrin.blogspot.com/2017/04/in-defense-of-enlightenment-science.html

That, after all, was the criminal offense of the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) which was banished by Newt Gingrich in 1995 for giving honest answers. And the fate now apparently destined for the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), for similar treasons against dogma.

It is this fevered spite agains all fact-users that makes our current civil war completely unrelated to the old-hoary-lobotomizing “left-right” political “axis.” When all outcomes and metrics of US health and yes, economics and capitalism do vastly better under democrats, fact users become Enemy #1. And that’s ALL fact-users, now including even the FBI, the Intelligence Community and the U.S. Military Officer Corps. (Look up the term “deep state” to see how the mad right is justifying attacking even them!)
http://davidbrin.blogspot.com/2017/02/revenge-of-deep-state.html

Fans of the movie “Idiocracy” - and die hard confederates - may openly avow wishing for this rise of the know-nothings. But your conservative aunt might be swayed to pull away from this madness, if you dare her to name one profession of folks who actually know stuff that is not under open attack by her crazy husband and his ilk. She knows she will need skilled people, from time to time. Even if he convinces himself that fact-people are all satanic.



http://www.cbsnews.com/news/science-division-of-white-house-office-now-empty-as-last-staffers-depart/