Chief Delphi - Congressional Robotics Caucus

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Re: Congressional Robotics Caucus

Quote:

Originally Posted by Alexa Stott

Now there's a generalization if I've ever seen one.

My own representative, Congressman Rush Holt (D-NJ), holds a PhD. in physics from NYU. He also taught for some time at Swarthmore, and was the Assistant Director of the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory. I'm willing to bet he earned much more than a C in his high school science classes. As such, he pushes strongly for more science and technology in schools, and received an award from ASME for his efforts.

Perhaps a bit of research on Dean's part would have served well in this case.

Granted, but I don't think that that was the major point of Dean's comment.

He wasn't so much expressing his distaste for the intellegence of our elected officials (though he certainly doesn't seem to hold them in high regard). Instead, Dean's frustration seems more aimed at the whole system that makes it profitable to grovel to said politician for financial or political gain. In other words, he doesn't seem to so much dislike the politicians so much as the system that they work in and maintain.

Two more cents

Re: Congressional Robotics Caucus

Quote:

Originally Posted by Alexa Stott (Post 878835)

Now there's a generalization if I've ever seen one.

It wasn't a generalization. It was the opposite of a generalization. The comment about the science grades was a direct reference to one specific politician who had made a point of mentioning it in earlier remarks to the assembled group.

The context of Dean Kamen's 2001 speech is important. You can't appreciate it properly unless you understand who was present and what had been said previously. You probably can't appreciate it completely unless you were there yourself to get the full effect.

Re: Congressional Robotics Caucus

Quote:

Originally Posted by Alexa Stott (Post 878835)

While I do not doubt that there are some brilliant politicians there are also some incredibly dumb ones. Dean was, in my opinion, merely making a statement about the one senator in the room.

I overheard a discussion a while back about a company planning on financing a couple studies to award them some prize that they could use to sell themselves. This is what these men and women were doing, they made some prize up to BUY the loyalty of a senator. Dean's generalization may have been uncalled for but he is correct, what the university presidents were doing WAS morally and ethically wrong.

Quote:

why in the world are you crawling to Washington to kiss the behind of some twit politician that never got better than a "C" in high school science? Just to beg for financial table scraps from the government?

Reread the above, he isn't saying ALL politicians are morons, just saying that this guy never got above a C in science (a fact the politician admitted) I only ask you to reread it because I misread it the first couple times as a generalization instead of merely restating a fact.

Now, as for why FIRST is different, realistically, we aren't. Graduates are a product, the industry that profits from them needs to foot the bill for producing high quality graduates. What industry profits the most from graduates? The government profits in the form of income tax. Therefore it is in their best interest to produce skilled graduates. The only difference is in who profits.

Thank you Dave for posting this.

Re: Congressional Robotics Caucus

As a follow up from the Caucus briefing, a short piece Lower Merion Robotics was published in Congressman Gerlach's eNewsletter today: http://gerlach.houseenews.net/mail/u...157861.1&gen=1