Syrian Transition is Unlikely if Assad Faces Criminal Charges

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Assad, Bashar al-Assad, International Criminal Court, international relations, politics, Syria, Syrian conflict, Syrian revolution

Bashar al-Assad President of Syria

Now that Russia is more amenable to international involvement in Syria there is increasing talk about pressuring Assad into transferring power to the rebels. Unfortunately this simply will not happen under the current conditions. Assad is in too deep now to to let go.

At the beginning of the Syria conflict it was clear that Bashar al-Assad was clinging to power for the sake of power. He was not going to give up his rule over Syria easily. But as time has pasted I believe his motives are shifting. Now Assad can’t give up power. If he relinquishes power then he will face criminal charges from the Syrian people and the International Criminal Court. Assad can’t surrender Syria without surrendering his own life. In addition, if Assad surrenders Syria then many of his supporters including family will likely face criminal charges and possibly death.

It makes no sense for Assad to allow for a transition of power to the rebels when it will result in his death and punishment or death for many of those close to him. Simply put Assad has nothing to gain by giving up and everything to loose.

This brings up a very difficult moral and pragmatic question. Should Assad be granted immunity for his crimes if he relinquishes power?

On the side of justice there is a resounding NO! Assad should not be given immunity for anything. He deserves the wrath of the people. He should be punished for the atrocities he has committed.

Pragmatically the issue is not as clear cut. If Assad and his family are offered immunity and safe passage to a friendly country then he might actually give up power. If Assad gives up power then the conflict can end sooner and with less bloodshed. That would allow rebuilding to begin sooner and allow refugees to return home.

Is allowing Assad to escape justice worth ending the conflict sooner and saving lives? Or is it better that Assad face justice even if it means the conflict will continue longer?

Morality is simple in a vacuum but in reality morality comes with consequences. Stop and think for a few minutes about morality and the circumstances it may be abridged in your view.

My Heart Goes Out to Federal Workers

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economy, employee discontent, employee satisfaction, federal employees, federal pay freeze, federal workers, government, government employees, pay freeze, pay raises, politics, state pay freeze

Federal workers say they don’t have much to celebrate these days.

Furloughs began in April, exacerbating already low morale for many government agencies as budgets have tightened. Downsizing has meant more work for those who remain, and talk of further cuts has many worried about job security. This year is also the third that federal workers haven’t received a pay increase, contributing to discontent.

- NPR

I feel for the federal workers who have faced increasing workloads and 100% stagnant pay. I am a state worker on year 4 of a pay freeze and it is very demoralizing. The first year or so isn’t too bad, it is easy to understand that the budget needs cut and that as government employees we too will have to bare some of the burden. But after a while it really starts to get to you. After 2 or 3 or 4 years without ANY pay raise you start feeling like your employer simply doesn’t care about you. Freezing pay can’t address the entire budget problem and it can’t be maintained forever. Freezing pay is only a temporary measure not a long term measure.

There are several parts of a pay freeze that really start getting you down. First is watching prices rise over time while your pay is held flat. I have continuously cut my budget at home yet I am no better off than before. I cut cable, then ADT, then food and then and then and then. At a certain point it is hard to cut anymore from your budget. But when it is all done my overall lifestyle has continually declined for 4 years. That really wears on employees because they feel like every day they functionally earn less and less due to inflation.

Second the budget cuts have come with extra work for many. I work in Medicaid forecasting for the state of TX. Our workload has increased dramatically during the recession because Medicaid is a costly program so there is a lot of focus on how to reduce the cost of Medicaid. But each proposal for that needs somebody to calculate the estimated impact for the policy alterations. So that has put tons of extra work me while my pay is stagnant. Other places have cut employees and expect the remaining employees to make up the work. That is possible for a while and in some cases some employees can be trimmed without dumping much work on the remaining employees. But the fact is that people can only do so much. Telling somebody to get more done doesn’t mean that is even possible. So many of us government employees are feeling overworked yet we don’t get the reward of a raise for our hard work.

Third, due to budget cuts many places no longer have money for employee training and improvement. Providing professional enhancement activities like outside training shows employees that they are valuable. Not only are they good enough for the job but additional training shows that they are worth investing in. At my job before the recession we were able to take software training classes and statistics classes through our work. The work paid for the classes and counted the time as work time. That makes an employee feel good about their job and their value to their employer. But when you cut training then employees feel like they aren’t worth investing in, that their employer doesn’t care enough to help them improve professionally and personally.

Fourth the drop in morale hurts morale. When I started I got raises regularly, that demonstrated how valuable I was to my employer. Because my employer was willing to invest in me then I was willing to put my all into my job. When I had extra time at work I used that time to improve my department. I automated files that had been done by hand for years which saved time and improved accuracy. I spent time examining our methodology and implementing improvements. I helped make my department more efficient and more accurate because my employer treated me well. Also I knew that if I continued to improve my department I would continue to get raises. So I was more than willing to invest the time into improving the department. But when it becomes clear that you aren’t valued by your employer then you don’t put in the extra work for them. If your employer doesn’t care about you then why should you care about them? Instead you do your required work and nothing more. There is no point in making improvement when they won’t be recognized.

Fifth pay freezes are hard on employees because it increases attrition and loss of institutional knowledge. When employees don’t feel valued then new employees are more apt to leave sooner. Employee attrition puts strain on the remaining employees. Remaining employees have to pick up the extra work. But also when a replacement is hired the remaining employees have to train the new employee. Training employees is stressful and time consuming, it take two or three times as long to train somebody to do something than just doing it yourself. So you get behind on your work to help somebody else learn their work. That is unneeded stress when morale is already low.

Sixth pay freezes can drive older employees to retire. We have an aging workforce and many of those people have spend decades doing their work. They know their job inside and out. When an old timer leaves then there is a great deal of knowledge and experience lost. If they are pushed out by pay freezes, increased workload and general lack of recognition then they are less apt to spend the time ensuring that their knowledge is passed on. Why would they want to invest all of that effort into training their replacement when they don’t feel like their employer values them? Also in government the knowledge base is esoteric and specialized. I work in Medicaid, to do my job I need to know Medicaid eligibility for TX, federal disability determinations, Medicare Medicaid interactions, current policy, past policy and the politics of the day. You can’t learn that in school, you have to go and live it. That experience is invaluable when performing your job. Yet if you feel pushed out by your employer you aren’t going to transmit much of that on. You will show people how to do the job, not how to truly understand and do the job well. There is a big loss when that happens.

Seventh, when older employees are leaving and younger employees aren’t loyal to their employer then the loss of institutional knowledge is exacerbated. Even if the older employees take the time to fully train and transmit their knowledge on it still may not remain in the department. Since the employer has shown no loyalty to younger employees then younger employees show no loyalty back. So they will take off as soon as they have a better offer or they get sick of the job. That means the institutional knowledge they were passed will not get transmitted to the future. I work with some people who have NEVER gotten a raise at this job yet have held it for almost 4 years. There is no loyalty there. Once the economy picks up many of those employees that feel undervalued are going to move on. And those employees lack loyalty to the employers so they probably won’t spend all the extra time training people to do their job. Instead they will meet the minimum requirements such as 2 weeks notice. This will really hurt government agencies in the future both in terms of institutional knowledge but also in terms of money and resources spent on training new employees.

That leaves government employees feeling undervalued, overworked, inadequately trained and stressed at home about finances. When employees don’t feel cared for then they don’t care about their employer which means they don’t put in extra work to improve their departments. Instead many just do the minimum for their job because their employers is only doing the minimum for them.

 

PS I am lucky in many ways, I happen to have one of the best direct supervisors a person could ever hope for. I would never want to put my direct supervisor in a bad position. Her loyalty to me has held me through times when I was about ready to walk out. But it can only go so far when I feel undervalued and overworked.

A Positive Step Toward Medical Billing Transparency

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Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, charge masters, CMS, free market, health care, health insurance, hospital, hospital charges, medical bills, national health care expenditures

In the past I have expounded upon general conditions necessary for consumers to drive market prices and specifically on market influences on health care. There are three basic requirements for consumers to drive a market; consumer choice, informed consumers and rational consumers. There is no means by which consumers can drive a market without choice. Though choice alone isn’t enough, consumers must be informed about the choices they make in order to influence the market. Finally no amount of information helps unless it is applied rationally to the situation. Unfortunately health care in the US lacks all 3 requirements for consumers to drive the market. People have few if any choices in health care because most people receive insurance through employment so their employer and insurance companies decide what choices the consumer is allowed. Second consumers have very little if any information about the quality of health care providers and their associated costs. Finally since consumers have little to no information there is no way that they can make rational choices about the best health care providers.

Well the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) under the guidance of the Obama administration has released data on health care costs by hospital. The data set contains the hospital’s average billing rate and average paid amount by diagnosis related group (DRG). The billing rate is their overall rate the hospital sets, though insurance companies, Medicare and Medicaid all pay amounts different than what is billed. Only those without insurance are charged the full rate. But the rate billed is the starting point for negotiations between hospitals and insurance companies to determine what should be paid so it does influence the cost of services to those with insurance. Also it is worth noting that the DRGs selected are the top 100 billed to Medicare, that means they will lean toward conditions faced by the elderly and will lack information about children specific conditions or hospitals.

Even with all of those caveats about the data this is still quite informative data. The most striking of everything is the fact that some hospitals charge several times what others charge even with in a short distance of each other. Two hospitals can be just a few miles apart but they may have a several fold disparity in the amount charged. The data overall is seemingly incoherent as there is no consistency of how much services cost. Looking through costs for my area (Austin, TX) I can see numerous procedures that cost twice as much at one place compared to another. I also see some that are as much as 3 or 4 fold the cost of other hospitals.

I recommend that everybody take some time and look at the data for themselves especially focusing on your local area so you can see which hospitals will charge you more. The easiest way I found to do that is to download the excel spreadsheet from CMS found here. The turn the whole data set into a pivot table then you can filter the data to compare the hospitals in your area easily. First highlight all of the data. On Excel 2003 and earlier go the “Data” menu and select pivot table. On Excel 2007 and newer go to the “Insert” menu and select pivot table. For the row field you want provider names, for the column field you want DRG definition. For the data / values field you want Average Covered Charges. And for the page / report filter field you want to put first Provider State and bellow that put Provider City. That will allow you to filter the data by city or state. It will show providers down the left side and the DRGs (or type of services) across the top with the cost for each filling the table. That will allow you to easily compare the hospitals in your area.

The release of this information is a positive step in the right direction for helping consumers get a grip on their own health care costs. Consumers controlling their personal health care expenditures will be a major part of our nation bringing down the cost of health care. And the first step is informing consumers about the cost of health care.

Though this data set is a step forward it could use some significant improvement. The data needs presented in a manner that average consumers can interpret. Most people don’t know what all of the DRGs cover which makes it difficult for them to make sense of the data. Also there are 100 different DRGs with prices so comparing that many is confusing. The data needs reduced to a format that individuals can use to make decisions. I think it would be wise to break apart the charges into categories based on age. People of different ages tend to utilize different services. So if you multiply the costs for each service by the proportion of people of that age using those services and combine it together we could get an idea of what each hospital costs based on patient age. That way people could look at it and determine what a 20-30 year old patient may cost at one hospital compared to another. That is something people can use to guide action. But for now we don’t have that. So please take a few minutes and look at the costs in your own area. Determine which hospital seems to be the best price for you.

PS If you need help creating a pivot table or analyzing the costs just ask and I will try to help you out.

Talking Heads

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easter island, Glenn Beck, Nancy Pelosi, political pundits, politics, Rachel Maddow, Rush Limbaugh, talking heads

Thank you to all my readers!

from Wiki Commons

It has been almost four months since I created SocioPolitical Dysfunction. I originally created this blog to put my political ideas on paper for myself. It has always been difficult to find people who wish to discuss politics in a civil and rational manner. I wasn’t sure if anybody would be interested in what I have to say. Yet to my surprise I now have 52 followers, 62 posts, 153 comments and more than 1,200 views.

I just want to thank everybody who has taken the time to read my blog. I appreciate every single reader. I have really enjoyed writing this blog and I hope you continue to enjoy reading it. I have so much more to write for y’all in the future.

Thank you readers

 

 

Syria, hindsight and foresight

Tags

Assad, humanitarian crisis, international relations, Jordan, Lebanon, middle-east, politics, refugee camps, Syria, Syrian refugees, Syrian revolution, Turkey

The Syrian civil war has been raging for more than 2 years now with no end in sight. The conflict will only end with the fall of the Assad regime since there is no foreseeable way for the regime to quell this insurrection.

In hindsight the US and international community has made some significant mistakes when dealing with the Syria civil war. Understandably nobody wanted to step into the middle of a civil war initially and nobody wanted drawn into a protracted conflict.Though the brutality of the conflict should have spurred us into action. Assad executed rebels in the hospitals when they sought treatment. Assad used snipers, tanks and attack helicopters on civilians. Assad has literally been slaughtering anybody whom he chooses. It took very little time for the Syrian conflict to become a full blown humanitarian crisis.

After about 6 months it was rather clear that the Syrian revolution was not going to be swiftly crushed by the Assad regime. Instead it began to look like it would be a long drawn out conflict. At that point the US should have began offering help to deal with the conflict. I can completely respect that the US does not want to put troops in another war zone. In fact I think that we should have come in early with non-combat supplies for the rebel forces. We could have provided them with food, water, communications equipment and medical supplies. Early assistance could have shortened the conflict, saved lives and endeared us to the anti-Assad forces. Alas we opted not to do anything.

Another option was to treat Syria like Tunisia where the international community just finished supporting the revolution through logistical support, supplies and a no-fly zone. In fact the Syrian people questioned why nobody came to support their cause when Tunisia was supported and they are both very similar situations. Unfortunately no single country wanted to act alone and the international community was blocked by Russia on the UN Security Council. Instead we just stood and watched Syrians die.

At this point it is clear that there is no way the Assad regime will ever regain control over Syria. The conflict has gone too far. So it seems it is time to act. But what should be done? Currently there is even greater concern over arming the rebels than previously due to the influx of foreign Jihadi Islamists. Nobody wants to inadvertently arm extremists. Yet the problem is the foreign warriors showing up in Syria are performing well on the battlefield which is making them friends among the Syrians. That means two things, first that any attempt to arm Syrian rebels carries a greater chance of arming Islamists than it would have 12 or 18 months ago. Second any friendship / influence that can be garnered from arming the rebels is going to be far less than it would have a year ago. Simply put we waited too long to react and our window of opportunity is closing.

On top of everything the Syrian situation is destabilizing more countries than just Syria. More than a million refugees have fled Syria mostly going to Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon. Each of those countries is currently dealing with hundreds of thousands of refugees and this is putting a strain on supplies, infrastructure and finances. If we continue to ignore Syria the refugees will continue flowing into other countries. Before long the refugees themselves will become a destabilizing force as it becomes more and more difficult to deal with the growing number of refugees.

Now we need to move forward and try to salvage the situation. We need to bring this conflict to an end. It is clear the international intervention is the best available choice. The international community should institute a no-fly zone while using aircraft to eliminate Assad’s air force, heavy ground vehicles and artillery. Additionally we need to supply the anti-Assad forces, at the very least we need to provide food, water, communications equipment and medical supplies. I understand concerns about arming the rebels since the weapons may well turn up being used against us in the future. But even providing air support and supplies could turn the conflict around far quicker than ignoring it.

Additionally we need to address the humanitarian crisis due to refugees. This is an opportunity for the US to help save lives, demonstrate commitment to the Syria people and build relations with middle-eastern countries. If we step in and provide supplies, housing and medics for the refugee camps then both the refugees and host country may be very grateful. This can be an excellent opportunity to build relations in the Middle-east. Currently we have good relationship with Turkey and Jordan so we should definitely be in there helping. They are friends and helping the refugees is simply the right thing to do. But we should really try and help Lebanon as much as possible. In fact we should see if we can work directly with them to help with the logistics of the refugee camps including construction, maintenance, medical services, food services, supplies and anything else. Lebanon has good relations with most of the middle-east and has even hosted the Arab League Summit. Also Lebanon is not considered to be a puppet of the US like Israel is so that means that Lebanon holds more influence over middle-eastern countries. Creating a strong relationship with as many middle-eastern countries as possible is in the interest of the US and this is an opportunity to do so.

The international community may have ignored the Syrian revolution far too long but we must move to salvage the situation. We must bring an end to the conflict in order to save lives and end the humanitarian crisis. We must attempt to build relations with the state which will emerge from the ashes of Syria. While at the same time we must aid countries in dealing with refugees and the strain that puts on the host countries. In doing so we can try to build and strengthen our relations with the middle-east. We may have failed to act for 2 years and nothing can turn back the harm already done. But the time has come to get involved and try to salvage the situation. Let’s move forward and help the Syrian people inside and outside of Syria.

End Gerrymandering! Implement Neutral Redistricting.

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congressional districts, election reform, electoral politics, electoral reform, gerrymandering, politics, redistricting

End the practice by both parties to create Congressional districts for political gain. Implement a neutral means of redistricting without political influence by using mathematical and statistical methods. Apply two simple standards to redistrict, 1) equalize the population in all districts as much as possible, 2) minimize the distance between constituents in each district. That removes ALL political influence on the process and creates a neutral system for determining Congressional districts.

I am calling on all of you that agree with the idea of creating neutral Congressional districts to voice your opinions by signing my petition. Let our elected officials know that We The People want an end to the games they play when creating new Congressional districts.

https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/end-gerrymandering-implement-neutral-redistricting/89pRSrrF

Plan B over-the-counter

Tags

birth control, contraception, emergency contraception, family planning, FDA, food and drug administration, health, health care, medication interactions, medicine, OTC medication, over-the-counter, pharmacy, Plan B, politics

The Food and Drug Administration has approved Plan B One Step, a brand of emergency contraceptive, to be available for women 15 and older without a prescription.

This comes almost a month after a federal judge orderedthe FDA to make Plan B available to everyone over-the-counter, which will go into effect on May 5, unless the FDA appeals the ruling.

“The Department of Justice is considering next steps in the litigation,” the FDA said in a statement. “In the meantime, the FDA took independent action to approve the pending application on Plan B One-Step for use without a prescription by women 15 years of age or older.”

- ABC News

While I am glad that Plan B has been made available to women 15 years and older I also have a concern about it too. Plan B is available without a prescription over-the-counter (OTC) but regular birth control is not available OTC. This creates a situation where teens may find Plan B preferable to regular birth control due to ease of access. Not only is Plan B easier since you only have to go to the pharmacy as opposed to seeing a doctor before going to the pharmacy. But also teens would not need to engage their parents about birth control. Thus some teens may opt to use Plan B instead of regular birth control.

The problem is that Plan B is an emergency contraceptive and is not intended for regular use whereas regular birth control is intended for regular use. Though some teens may use Plan B as regular birth control despite the side effects due to the ease of access. I do not want teens abusing Plan B.

Since the issues lies with the fact that Plan B is available OTC without a prescription but regular birth control is not. So the obvious solution is to make regular birth control available OTC without a prescriptions. Unfortunately this is where things get complicated. Birth control has risks associated with it including cardiovascular events, side-effects and medication interactions. Patients should be aware of the risks involved with birth control before starting. If birth control is available OTC then many people will not both to read the information in the package and will be unaware of the risks. Whereas if it is prescribed by a doctor then the patient will be made aware of the risks by their doctor. In addition there is a potential of an interaction between the birth control and other medications. If birth control is available OTC then nobody is checking to ensure that there will be no drug interactions. But if birth control is obtained with a prescriptions then both the doctor and pharmacist are aware of the birth control and can check for drug interactions. For these reasons I am unsure if regular birth control should be available OTC.

I am not a doctor so I can’t say whether the benefits of making birth control OTC outweigh the risks. What I can say is that having Plan B available without a prescription but requiring a prescription for regular birth control can lead some to overuse Plan B due to ease of access. The FDA should reexamine whether or not there should be some forms of regular birth control that are safe enough to offer OTC.

Politicized Science

Tags

Congress, Lamar Smith, National Science Foundation, NSF, politicized science, politics, Representative Smith, research, science, science funding

Representative Lamar Smith (R-TX)

Yesterday I wrote a piece about a bill proposed by Representative Lamar Smith (R-TX), in that I focused on the three proposed criteria for receipt of funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF) and other federally funded research. I think it is important to first examine proposed legislation as it is written. Opposition to legislation should be based on the legislation itself. But it is also important to examine the motivations behind the bill which is what I will do today.

It seems clear to me that Representative Smith is attempting to politicize science with little to no understanding of science. The biggest indication is a letter Smith sent to Dr Marrett the director of the NSF. In the letter Smith requests the peer reviews for funding five specific projects. On the surface that seems quite reasonable, he is simply asking for more information about how funding decisions are made. The problem is that Representative Smith would not understand the peer review in the least bit. He is completely scientific illiterate; he is not even aware that reproducibility is a key feature of the scientific method. So it is unlikely he selected those studies in order to receive an education in the scientific method. If he wanted even a basic understanding of science he should be going back to school. Instead he seems that he wants to criticize the funding choices made by the NSF.

The second indication is in the bill he proposed; it requires that the director of the NSF to certify that each project meets the funding criteria in the bill. Off hand many may say that isn’t a big deal, so what? But politically it is big. The director will have certified that the funding is in accordance to the law (currently proposed bill) then if Congress disagrees with any funding choice they can attack the director as not upholding her legal obligations as defined by Congress. This would give them an easy route to challenge any scientific funding decision they wish. Now it does not have any legal teeth in that there is no legal penalty written into the bill. But there would be a political penalty; Congress could pressure the director of the NSF to resign should Congress disagree with funding.

The third indication of the political nature of this bill is that it requires the director of the NSF to report back to Congress at minimum twice over the following year. Again on the surface that doesn’t sound bad. The problem is that Representative Smith is creating opportunities to require the director to report to Congress which creates opportunities for him to attack the NSF funding choices he disagrees with.

Thus Representative Smith has requested information about funding choices yet he lacks the basic knowledge necessary to judge those choices. He want the director of the NSF to personally certify every funding choice is in accordance with the criteria he lays out which is done to attach the directors name to the funding and the legal requirements. Then he has set up additional required meeting with the director which would provide opportunities to challenge NSF funding choices. This makes it clear that Representative Lamar Smith did not create this bill in order to improve the state of science in the country, instead he created it so that he can directly pressure the NSF about which projects it chooses to fund.

Science policy by those without an understanding of science

Tags

Congress, National Science Foundation, NSF, politics, research, science, science funding, scientific method

US Representative Lamar Smith (R-TX) has proposed a new bill to set funding criteria for the National Science Foundation (NSF). According to the bill any award of funding by the NSF must meet the following three criteria.

1) “… in the interests of the United States to advance the national health, prosperity, or welfare, and to secure the national defense by promoting the progress of science;

2) “… the finest quality, is groundbreaking, and answers questions or solves problems that are of utmost importance to society at large; and

3) “… not duplicative of other research projects being funded by the Foundation or other Federal science agencies.”

- ScienceInsider

Even the suggestion of these criteria demonstrates a completely lack of understanding about science methodology. Let’s start with the first criteria and work our way through all of them.

1) “… in the interests of the United States to advance the national health, prosperity, or welfare, and to secure the national defense by promoting the progress of science;

This criteria is nothing but hollow rhetoric. What constitutes advancing health, prosperity, welfare or defense? Those areas are so broad that they encompass everything. There is little out there which could not be argued to advance those interests in some manner or another. The problem is that frequently legislators and the public don’t understand what the research is doing enough to judge whether it would meet this first criteria.

2) “… the finest quality, is groundbreaking, and answers questions or solves problems that are of utmost importance to society at large; and

It would be nice to fund nothing but groundbreaking novel research but the fact is that very little of science is groundbreaking. It takes hundreds of thousand of man hours to research questions which many people would consider trivial in order to build a foundation for groundbreaking research. The truly novel discoveries depend on having a base level of knowledge about the area of interest.

Few would consider research in to number theory to be groundbreaking or of great importance. Yet John Tate’s work on number theory was used as the basis for creating internet encryption which made internet business possible.

In 1952 few would have labeled the x-ray diffraction image taken by Rosalind Franklin to be groundbreaking. But that image became the basis of our modern understanding of DNA which transformed our understanding of biology and medicine.

These are but two examples of seemingly unimportant research at the time which later completely changed our lives. There is no way to tell at the outset what research will lead to. In fact it may take decades in order to understand the importance of research. It is rather common for individuals to receive Nobel prizes decades later because their research became the foundation for new innovations. It is completely unreasonable to expect ALL research to APPEAR to be groundbreaking before even starting the research.

3) “… not duplicative of other research projects being funded by the Foundation or other Federal science agencies.”

Finally the third criteria shows that Representative Smith has a complete lack of understanding about science methodology. This criteria requires that research not duplicate any other research. Yet replication of research is absolutely necessary for scientific advancement. Each and every experiment must be designed such that any other researcher can replicate the experiment with the same results as the original. This is a requirement on ANY experimental design. Why? Because every human endeavor is error prone. There is always a possibility of error; that might be human error in execution of the study; it might be random sampling error; it might be an uncontrollable factor that can’t be accounted for. The source of error doesn’t matter, that fact is that humans are error prone. To compensate for that researchers replicate studies that have already been done in order to verify the results. A single study does not make something true in science. That study must be replicated in order to demonstrate that the original study was accurate.

If replication is not funded then how do we know that the original work is correct? The original could have found an effect which does not exist (type 1 error) or it could fail to find an effect that does exist (type 2 error). There would be no way of knowing without replication. So if no effect was found then it would be erroneously assumed that no effect exists and then no further research in that area would be funded. Whereas if an effect was found that does not exist then research could continue in that area but it would only waste money since it is based on erroneous information. Instead replication serves as the means by which science can correct itself. Replication helps to root out errors made in science so they can be corrected and so that researchers don’t continue to propagate those errors.

In conclusion Representative Lamar Smith (R-TX) has no clue about science. He has put forth nice sounding rhetoric about making science funding about advancing the health, prosperity, welfare and defense of the country. But he has no clue about the importance of replication. He also fails to understand that not all science can be groundbreaking. Groundbreaking discoveries are built on years of mundane research. Those that create policy about science should have a solid understanding and background in science. Otherwise they are creating laws about something they do not know and thus they should not be involved in.