Science Of Cobwebs

Dems go it alone, approve a budget

State Sen. President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, pumps his fist after getting the last two votes needed to pass the state budget at the Capitol in Sacramento, Calif., Tuesday, June 28, 2011. By majority vote, lawmakers approved a compromise budget plan reached between Gov. Jerry Brown and Democratic leaders and sent it to the Brown for his signature. Steinberg was able to convince Sen. Ted Lieu, D-Torrence, left, and Alan Lowenthal, D-Long Beach, unseen, to provide the two votes needed for passage.

Republican Assemblymembers Dan Logue, of Linda, left, Shannon Grove of Bakersfield and Curt Hagman, of Chino, right, confer as the Assembly deals with a Democratic budget plan at the Capitol in Sacramento, Calif., Tuesday, June 28, 2011. The Assembly approved a spending plan reached between Gov. Jerry Brown and Democratic leaders but it stalled in the Senate where it fell two votes short of passage on the first vote.

Gov. Jerry Brown said for months that he could broker a bipartisan budget deal.

By agreeing to a majority-vote budget, passed by Democrats in the Legislature on Tuesday, he conceded he could not.

The pact laid bare Brown's limitations: Though closing California's remaining $9.6 billion budget deficit, the budget relies on $4 billion in revenue that may not materialize and could force a round of midyear cuts. It puts off at least until next year any public vote on taxes.

For a few hours Tuesday, the budget's fate was in limbo as key Senate Democrats held out for a new bill that would not eliminate redevelopment agencies. But two lawmakers ultimately relented, sending the $86 billion general-fund plan to Brown less than three hours before midnight.

Despite focusing the first six months of his administration on negotiations with Republican lawmakers, the Democratic governor could not find the two Republican votes needed in each house to put a tax measure on a ballot.

"The premise here was that one man could outmaneuver the system … that the governor, through his wiles, his skills, his experience, could change things in Sacramento," said Bill Whalen, a research fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution and former speechwriter for Gov. Pete Wilson. "That premise was a patent failure."

Before taking office in January, Brown believed he could reach a budget deal with the Legislature by March, within 60 days of releasing his budget proposal.

Uraniblog: When scientific literacy can lead to scientific idiocy

The fundamental issue here is communication. It is rare that scientists communicate directly with the public. In the Italian case, it was a government official who attempted to communicate the scientists' message to the press, and who seems to have twisted it along the way. In many instances, science is reported in the press by journalists who are not themselves scientists – and I have seen countless instances where the "science" being reported was clearly wrong, misunderstood by the reporter. However, the blame does not rest entirely upon the scientists and journalists. A substantial portion of the public does not have sufficient grounding in basic sciences to understand the scientific information that is presented. This only widens the void between scientists and the public, forcing scientists to use intermediaries such as journalists or public relations personnel. And it also forces those media personnel to simplify concepts or ideas, often to the point where they are no longer strictly accurate. Somehow, whether intentionally or accidentally, this seems to be what happened in Italy. The issue in l'Aquila is both much broader and more specific than the lay public's 'understanding' of scientific information: it's about how people relate to uncertainty. Understanding uncertainty and risk goes far beyond science, and is really an issue of basic education and life skills. It does impact on how people understand science too, of course, but that's not because it's related to knowledge of facts and concepts, which are Windh's measure of scientific literacy. Rather, it's because uncertainty, controversy and conflict are a part of science as much as they are a part of every other part of life. The better people realise that, the less likely they are to turn on scientists in situations like this. I've often said that that I think scientific facts are not really that important for understanding what science is and how it works (that's not to say they aren't interesting or worthwhile in other ways). The court case in l'Aquila actually reinforces my opinion. The facts relating to the geology and seismology of Abruzzo are really not important here, nor is whether the prosecutor knew any of them. What is far more important is that he clearly didn't really understand how science works , something Windh's model of scientific literacy would not have helped him with.

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