On Sat, Aug 25, 2001 at 06:49:21PM -0700, Tim May wrote:
Washington _does_ listen to other than lawyers. The examples I gave showed this to be true in the past, and almost certainly still true. (And the SDI arguments were in many cases made by scientists, e.g., Teller, Lowell Wood, etc.)
Right, though I see that being the case less so nowadays. The reasons for this are many, and probably complicated, including the growth of the federal government, the subcommittee structure divvying up power in Congress, the rise of the permanent federal bureaucracy, and perhaps most important, the stunning growth in nonprofit/advocacy groups. Still, Congress and the agencies will invite stellar technologists and researchers and scientists to testify on occasion. A handful of congresscritters may even listen. But the rest will vote the way their parties/backers/constituents tell them to. I recall there's only one scientist out of 535 members of Congress, at least last I checked. -Declan