who needs social sciences?

[ihatejazz]

This is a very sad article in Science magazine about blocking research to the social sciences research in the US. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX), chair of a panel that oversees the National Science Foundation (NSF) and a member of the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee, indicated opposition to the NSF's budget request on the grounds that: "I want NSF to be our premier agency for basic research in the sciences, mathematics, and engineering. And when we are looking at scarce resources, I think NSF should stay focused on the hard sciences." The entire article is here:

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/312/5775/829a

Yeah, that's a great rationale. Who needs to study patterns of human behaviour and political science? Sounds un-American to me.