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| National Science Foundation funds report calling health-care opponents racist |
| 2010-06-19 |
| If you think $50,000 doesn't buy what it used to, think again. For that rough sum, a professor at UCLA has agreed to draw up a report that proves opponents of the Democrats' health-care bill aren't motivated by a sense of fiscal responsibility or a general distrust of back-room deals, but by race. The kicker? Taxpayers are funding the study. According to the study's abstract, provided by the National Science Foundation, a government agency under the control of the executive branch: "This research project attempts to provide further evidence for this Obama-induced racialization by pinpointing the extent that health-care opinions are influenced by racial attitudes and determining Obama's causal role in racializing public opinion about a policy that has no manifest racial content." David Sears, a professor of psychology at UCLA, was awarded $52,034 in January 2010 to make this case for the National Science Foundation. The tautology he sets forth in his abstract is rather complicated, so let's break it down: The project will seek to provide more evidence that opponents to health care are irrational because their negative opinions of health care "are influenced by racial attitudes," even though the health-care bill has nothing to do with race. Shorter version: Opposition stems from Obama's pigmentation, not his policies. "Race is probably the most visceral issue in American public life," Sears asserted in the proposal he submitted to the NSF. "As such, increased polarization of the electorate along the lines of racial attitudes would likely make the contemporary political discourse even more vitriolic than the already rancorous atmospheres under Presidents Clinton and Bush. Such a racialized environment would potentially make it more difficult to achieve common ground on public policy in the Age of Obama." Generally, said NSF spokesperson Bobbie Mixon, all proposals go through the same rigorous selection process. "All the awards are pretty much based on the same general criteria, which is the merit of the proposal. When researchers send in their proposals, they are reviewed by a group of their peers. They compete against other awards." But Sears's award is part of NSF's RAPID program, which is intended for projects that are more immediate in nature. Because of the time-sensitive nature of RAPID projects, those being considered for RAPID grants bypass the peer review process and are hand-chosen by NSF employees. In this case, by Brian D. Humes of the Division of Social and Economic Sciences, who "looked in-house for recommendations from the staff." (Hume referred all requests for comment to Mixon's office.) "RAPID awards can be on any topic, and they can take a number of different forms. We have issued quite a few of these RAPID awards based on the Gulf Coast oil spill. There's a timeliness involved with issuing a RAPID award." Mixon also said that RAPID awards were not decided based on politics, but simply on the merit of the science. This isn't the first time that an agency under Obama has paid a professor to advocate for health care. Earlier this year, progressives took MIT's Jonathan Gruber behind the shed and gave him a sound whooping for failing to disclose that while he was acting as a source for stories and a congressional witness, he was also on the HHS' payroll, working to justify the Senate's version of the health-care bill, which had theretofore met with intense opposition from House Dems and grassroots progressives. Nor is this Sears's first foray into attacking opponents of progressive policies. In 1997, he reviewed Byron M. Roth's "Is it really racism?: The origins of white Americans' opposition to race-targeted policies," for the academic journal Political Psychology. Roth, a sociologist, argued in his piece that criticisms of entitlement programs and affirmative action were often motivated by real concerns about spending run amok and social engineering, and that sociologists often falsely labeled such objections as racist in nature. In his review of Roth's book, Sears dismissed his peer as "naive" and oblivious to the realities of racism. Sears did not return requests for comment. |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #10 Geez it's getting to be embarassing to be a professor. I wish my peers would just shut up more often. Yesterday I read something about a Literature prof at U Guelph theorizing that the fictional Anne of Green Gables (she's the main character in a 'classic' Canadian novel) must have been a 'victim' of fetal alcohol syndrome. Now this craopla from this guy... |
| Posted by: Chemist 2010-06-19 12:55 |
| #9 Shorter version: Opposition stems from Obama's pigmentation, not his policies. This is the same tired Ipso Facto argument liberal Indentity Politics has always been based on. The method is simple. The presenter will cite statistics and then intentionally confuse class, culture, and race to obtain a desired conclusion. It may go something like this. More people of color, per capita, support socialized health care then whites. More legislators of color, per capita, support socialized health care then whites legislators. There is anecdotal evidence to suggest that polar racial attitudes have slightly increased since Obama has been elected. Conclusion; opponents of socialized health care a are influenced by racial attitudes. Of course, reality suggests more people of color, per capita, are in the economic class that will reap the most benefits at the least cost for socialized health care. And therefore that demographic is more inclined to support such legislation. And, not surprising, more legislators of color represent districts that have larger populations of minorities in that economic class. Also, not surprising, those legislators would advocate on behalf of their constituents attitudes. Whereas, conservative white legislators from wealthier districts would oppose such legislation on simmilar grounds. Finally, polar racial attitudes, by definition, means opposite attitudes in both directions. It would be nice to see more blance here but as most politicians realize...you motivate by emotion. |
| Posted by: DepotGuy 2010-06-19 12:03 |
| #8 Thats funny, cuz I was about to determine all government money study participants are homophones. The real scientists, who seemingly tend to be quiet or shouted out, need to start defending themselves or else be taken over by the carpetbaggers. This logic and critical thinking branch is quite honestly under heavy assault from the superstitious peddlers and chicken littles of the world. |
| Posted by: swksvolFF 2010-06-19 12:01 |
| #7 And the NSF told us we could not make a device like we proposed to sell for less than $30,000 even though in the proposal we show one we built and successfully tested in Honduras for about $300 total. Showed the successful result too.. The same day we got the NSF rejection we got a standing ovation for our work at an international conference in Spain. As the leader of our group said.. we don't need the NSF. We have lots of science. We need a National Engineering Foundation to find practical, profitable uses for all the science we already have. |
| Posted by: 3dc 2010-06-19 11:46 |
| #6 A couple of this opportunist's current research interests: 1. Racism in politics. A number of projects continue my interest in the origins and effects of a "new,"post-civil-rights era, racism in politics, which we describe as "symbolic racism." It is the most common and most politically powerful form of racism in American politics today. We also have pursued the idea of black exceptionalism," that white Americans treat Latinos and Asian Americans more like the European immigrants of a century ago than like African Americans, who continue to face a relatively impermeable color line. 2. Southern realignment to the Republican party. A related line of research investigates the long-term continuities of racial politics in the South. In particular it examines the role of white racism, based in a long history of racial antagonism in the South, and today embedded in Christian fundamentalism, as a force that has successfully moved many white Southerners to the Republican party. |
| Posted by: KBK 2010-06-19 11:46 |
| #5 Under Obama, the media, the unions, and Hollywood are doing a excellent job of completely discrediting themselves. Looks like academia is going to participate as well. |
| Posted by: DMFD 2010-06-19 11:36 |
| #4 a professor at UCLA has agreed to draw up a report that proves opponents of the Democrats' health-care bill aren't motivated by a sense of fiscal responsibility or a general distrust of back-room deals, but by race. There's a paragon of scientific objectivity (SARC). Another glaring example of the politicization of science. And then there is the global warming fiasco, (also see sham, scam, fraud, hornswoggle, swindle, rook, diddle the taxpayer/voter, con the gullible). |
| Posted by: JohnQC 2010-06-19 10:31 |
| #3 Maybe he can get it in the Lancet too? /sarc off |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2010-06-19 08:32 |
| #2 It figures this guy would be an old hippie with an agenda. Good thing this report will be written by someone who is completely free of any and all biases, basing all of his findings in sound science, isn't it? |
| Posted by: Cornsilk Blondie 2010-06-19 08:19 |
| #1 Great. Is there any segment of society the left will not politicize to glean the last bit of power and control? Is the scientific method now just a tool of the oppressor dead white man bogeyman to be replaced by that black scum found in the toilet bowl false inquiry, scientific socialism? Say hello to my little friend Trofim Lysenko. Can you say too stupid to live? |
| Posted by: ed 2010-06-19 08:08 |