Don't let them gut science

Wherever the Democrats in power have proposed increased funding for science, the Republicans have demanded that funding for science be cut ten-fold. This is worrisome.

Thankfully, Aron McCart has composed a positively beautiful letter (must have facebook to read) to Claire McCaskill (whose contact information can be found here) about the subject. I encourage everybody to read Aron's letter - it is well-informed and not only hits the nail on the head, it brings down the ten-ton hammer and crushes it to smithereens.

Here is my letter, which reaches nowhere near as far as Aron's.

Dear Senator McCaskill,

I am writing you to encourage you to support the funding in Obama's stimulus plan for scientific research.

The only consistent method of revealing the nature of the universe, a knowledge from which we derive every modern technology, has been through our scientific research. The answer to quite literally every problem we face today is not to continue throwing the same amount of money at tackling it using merely our current understanding, but to forge new discoveries that make our investments more efficient - at times to the point of removing the need for them.

This is what must be done to ensure the future of our dreams, and to solve the problems of the present. The acquisition of new knowledge has been the driving force of human development, and it continues to be.

Here are the proposed cuts that have the scientific community and the scientifically informed portion of our populace worried:

NSF 100% cut ($1,402,000,000)
NASA exploration 50% cut ($750,000,000)
NOAA 34.94% cut ($427,000,000)
NIST 37.91% cut ($218,000,000)
DOE energy efficiency & renewable energy 38% cut ($1,000,000,000)
DOE office of science 100% cut ($100,000,000)

Thank for your time.

JT Eberhard