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Originally posted by Moneyguy1
Gore is a politician....So is Newt, who lately has jumped on the "science" bandwagon. So, what is the problem? Can a politician be a scientist? an economist? Before they became "politicians" they were most likely something else. One label does not negate another.
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True. But a real scientific response would be to dispassionately look at the facts. For example Gore's educational background (from Wikipedia)
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Education
Gore attended the elite St. Albans School where he ranked 25th (of 51) in his senior class. In preparation for his college applications, Gore scored a 1355 on his SAT (625 in verbal and 730 in math). Al Gore's IQ scores, from tests administered at St. Albans in 1961 and 1964 (his freshman and senior years) respectively, have been recorded as 133 and 134.[11]
In 1965, Gore enrolled at Harvard College, the only university to which he applied. His roommate (in Dunster House) was actor Tommy Lee Jones. He scored in the lower fifth of the class for two years in a row [11] and, after finding himself bored with his classes in his declared English major, Gore switched majors and worked hard in his government courses and graduated from Harvard in June 1969 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in government. [11] After returning from the military he took religious studies courses at Vanderbilt University and then entered its Law School. He left Vanderbilt without a degree to run for Congress in 1976.
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OK, certainly a fine enough education, but I don't get much of a sense of any depth of training in hard science or math. So while it's not unheard of for people to make career changes, I really don't find Gore to be to compelling of a bet as a scientist. But then neither are most of us. So to me that says that I'll give Gore the benefit of the doubt on a deeply technical subject about as often as I'd give any one of us with no technical training. When it comes to statistical analysis, I'd venture that I've got more technical training in that area then Gore does, and that training suggests a number of gaps in Gore's analysis which I've mentioned earlier. Heck, I've got more degrees and had better GPA's then Gore does or did! Being a professional salesman, I can also recognize a "sales job" (aka: BS) when see one.