Perhaps you were thinking that dunderheaded, short-term
thinking is the exclusive province of 21st century politicians.
Not so.
A Sunday New York Times Book Review item on some new
meteorology books (yes, Virginia, people write meteorology books) mentions an
1854 incident in Britain’s House of Commons that will give you a bit of
perspective.
The short story is that a couple scientists sought
Parliamentary funding for collecting data about the weather, a startling new
idea at the time. One of the scientists mentioned “weather forecasting” for the
first time, arguing that analysis of weather patterns could help in predicting
near-term weather conditions.
The book reviewer, Cynthia Barnett, says that “When a
scientifically enthusiastic member of Parliament suggested that amassing
weather observations from sea and land could someday mean ‘we might know in
this metropolis [London] the condition of the weather 24 hours beforehand,’
laughter broke out raucously enough to stop the proceeding.”
The politician’s habit of ignoring scientific reality has
been around for a long time.
Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2015 All rights reserved.
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