Principles Of Government

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This site is designed to generate ideas for a supplementary section on think tank websites.
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(A) Articles are foundational content and (B) Articles are urgently important but may be replaced as they become dated

(A) Science, Technology and Innovation

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    • ‘Follow the Science’ Leads to Ruin a

    By Bjorn Lomborg - March 13, 2024

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    Over the past two centuries, global life quality has dramatically improved, to a large extent because of an incredible increase in energy, mostly from the harnessing of fossil fuels. That has made agriculture, industry and transportation vastly more productive. Average life spans have more than doubled, hunger has dramatically declined, and real income has increased tenfold. We risk all that progress if we just stop using fossil fuels.
    The world still gets four-fifths of its energy from fossil fuels, because renewable sources rarely provide good alternatives. Half the world’s population entirely depends on food grown with synthetic fertilizer produced almost entirely by natural gas. If we rapidly ceased using fossil fuels, four billion people would suddenly be without food. Read More

    Identity Politics Could Kill America’s Scientific Edge a

    By Sadanand Dhume - July 6, 2023

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    By Sadanand Dhume – China leads the U.S. in research on 37 of 44 critical technologies, ,,.Given this challenge, you might imagine that America would re-emphasize the principles of objectivity and merit that made it the world’s leading scientific innovator. You would be mistaken. …. Ironically, scientists in communist China need to care less about ideology than their American counterparts. In the U.S., the National Institutes of Health requires some prospective researchers to demonstrate “a strong commitment to promoting diversity and inclusive excellence” in order to receive funding”. Read More

    The ‘Hurtful’ Idea of Scientific Merit a

    By Jerry A. Coyne and Anna I. Krylov - April 27, 2023

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    By Jerry A. Coyne and Anna I. Krylov – The crux of our argument is simple: Science that doesn’t prioritize merit doesn’t work, and substituting ideological dogma for quality is a shortcut to disaster. In some ways this new species of Lysenkoism is more pernicious than the old, because it affects all science—chemistry, physics, life sciences, medicine and math—not merely biology and agriculture. The government isn’t the only entity pushing it, either. “Progressive” scientists promote it, too, along with professional societies, funding agencies like the National Institutes of Health and Energy Department, scientific journals and university administrators. When applying for openings as a university scientist today, job candidates may well be evaluated more by their record of supporting “social justice” than by their scientific achievements. Read More

    Why China Is Winning the War for High Tech a

    By Arthur Herman - October 14, 2021

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    By Arthur Herman – The story told how China’s Zuchongzhi programmable quantum computer had surpassed Google’s best quantum computer in solving the kind of complex problem that would stump even the fastest supercomputers, such as factorizing large numbers. The announcement is one more indication that China is on track to achieve what every cybersecurity expert fears, and every politician outside Beijing should fear: the creation of a large-scale quantum computer that is able to break into every public encryption system currently in existence. Read More

    Be Afraid of Nuclear War, Not Climate Change a

    By Bjorn Lomborg - March 29, 2022

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    By Bjorn Lomborg – … the global elite has an unhealthy obsession with climate change…. First, it has distracted the Western world from real geopolitical threats. …the United Nations…whose main purpose is ensuring world peace—was focused instead on “climate catastrophe,” … This at a time when nuclear weapons are posing the biggest risk of literal mutually assured destruction in half a century….Second, the narrow focus on immediate climate objectives undermines future prosperity…the best economic estimates … all show that the total impact of unmitigated climate change—would be … less than a 4% hit to global GDP by the end of the century. Read More