Politicizing Science

An anonymous reader writes: "The Washington Post has a story about the government's efforts to remove independent scientific review boards and replace them with officials that match the views of administration. This includes careless elimination of life-saving safety regulations in gene-therapy to help specific business interests and hiring based on political views such as stem cell research and cloning. Is this wrong? Or do those with power get to do whatever they want?"

Comments

History is the best teacher

[male]

This is pretty scary. Perhaps the illustrious President Bush should do a little reading about one Mr. Vannevar Bush. His dream of a government with a commitment to basic and practical sciences has slowly, with many fluctuations, become closer to a reality. More actions like this to destroy government research would put us back 30 years.

Riding the wave of unprecedented collaboration between academia and the government during World War II, Vannevar Bush released a well-known (but not well read) report, Science: The Endless Frontier, outlining a new role for the federal government in research. He foresaw the need to replace the minimal government science policy with one that would supply the US with human resources for science, a research infrastructure between Government and universities, and a balance between fundamental research and national goals.

Vannevar helped set science policy in the US that has lasted for 60 years, and this administration's actions flies right in the face of that policy. Maybe Gdub should go do some reading:
http://www.nsf.gov/od/lpa/nsf50/vbush194 5.htm

Careless writing

[return 42]

This includes careless elimination of life-saving safety regulations in gene-therapy...

Um, the article actually talks about regulation of genetic tests...

Guardian Interview with Christopher Reeve

[alistair]

Interestly enough, there is a Guardian inteview with Christoper Reeve in todays issue in which he makes a number of passionate and obviously, very personal, points about stem cell research and the need for separation between Church and State. The interview can be read here

http://www.guardian.co.uk/genes/article/0,2763,793 585,00.html

One of many excellent quotes is,

"We've had a severe violation of the separation of church and state in the handling of what to do about this emerging technology. Imagine if developing a polio vaccine had been a controversial issue," he says. "There are religious groups - the Jehovah's Witnesses, I believe - who think it's a sin to have a blood transfusion. What if the president for some reason decided to listen to them, instead of to the Catholics, which is the group he really listens to in making his decisions about embryonic stem cell research? Where would we be with blood transfusions?"

It's an interesting read, not only for his political comments but also to see his determination to fight back when many would have given up.

Oligarchy

[Anonymous Coward]

When referring to governments, the classical definition of oligarchy, as given for example by Aristotle, is of government by a few, usually the rich, for their own advantage. It is compared with both aristocracy, which is defined as government by a few chosen for their virtue and ruling for the general good, and various forms of democracy, or rule by the people. In practice, however, almost all governments, whatever their form, are run by a small minority of members. From this perspective, the major distinction between oligarchy and democracy is that in the latter, the elites compete with each other, gaining power by winning public support. The extent and type of barriers impeding those who attempt to join this ruling group is also significant...

Quot erat demostratum.

Re:Oligarchy

[GMontag451]

You actually have that backwards. It is an aristocracy (rule by the aristocrats) that is the government of the few for their own good, usually the rich, but in older countries can include the "noble", or relatives and friends of the royal.

An oligarchy is the government of a few chosen for their virtue, usually based on their age. Oligarchys have been very rare in Western governments, but were more common in Native American tribes, where it was usually implemented as rule by a council of elders.

The "democracy" you speak of is in fact a representative democracy, which in practice usually develops into a republic. The difference between a representative democracy and a republic is that in a representative democracy, the elected officials are supposed to have opinions that are representative of the majority of the citizens that official represents. In a republic, all that matters is popularity, and popularity among the upper class being more important (but not all important) than the middle and lower classes. There is no true nobility in a republic because the influence of the lower classes still exists, although there may be a minority slave class that has no influence.

The difference between a republic and a aristocracy (which is the comparison you were trying to make between an oligarchy and a democracy) is that in a republic there is that gradient of influence, and the majority of people have at least some, but not necessarily an equal, say in the government of the country. In an aristocracy, the majority of the people have no say in the government.

It just goes downhill from here, folks.

[perfessor multigeek]

Whoops! Contradicting yourself there ol' son.
EITHER the truth is just not clear OR scientists can reasonably be chosen based on your already knowing what conclusion they'll reach.
Can't have both.
Let's face it folks, this administration is fundamentally oposed to public review of *any* issue.
Bottom line, we leave them there long enough and they'll start going after /.
Don't believe me? Look at what happened to the SPIE (Society of PhotoInstrumentation Engineers) under Reagan. They started being threatened with arrest on treason charges if they released research that contradicted SDI (The "Star Wars" program).
As somebody who worked on a few SDI proposals and was doing fiber optics work at the time (mostly for defense applications) I don't intend to be quiet this time.
So, are you ready to "hang separately"?
Rustin H. Wright
Founder, Reed and Wright
F.O. patent 4,808,204 (drawings done on a Mac Plus!)

Re:Sure they do!

[alkali]

If you are referring to the Harvard Six Cities Study (Dockery et al., 1993), you may be unaware that a recent reanalysis of that data by the Health Effects Institute, an organization funded by the EPA and industry, has reaffirmed the correctness of that study.

The Harvard Six Cities Study showed increased mortality -- i.e., early death -- associated with particulate air pollution. Industry spent millions to smear that study as junk science. Interested persons are invited to Google and read what they find; just remember that web pages for organizations called "Citizens Against Junk Science" are industry-backed and evaluate with due care.

Re:Political Agendas In Science Nothing New

[then, it was nigh]

Published on April 23, 2002, The Washington Times
Biologists' roles in lynx-hair fraud under review

Sorry, already been debunked. Try again.

Eliminate the FDA, don't expand it

[Anonymous Coward]

The FDA's death toll from too-expensive, delayed or never-developed drugs far exceeds the lives it saves via regulations and enforcement.

E.g., everyone who has died within the last 50 years of a smoking-related illness has died from the FDA's control of alternative means (lollipops, inhalers) of delivering nicotine. Nicotine itself kills few people, rather the tar and carbon monoxide from smoking. Nicotine has great benefits, much like ritalin.

The FDA's own studies have reached this conclusion for 30+ years.

This result is inevitable: You can't program for an open system; You can't optimize huge systems without equations, initial conditions and vast-beyond-belief processor power; you can't prescribe for futures you cannot predict, and you can't predict chaotic systems.

www.FDAReview.org if you want to know more about this.

Lew

precedents

[brre]

"The research presented in the jumbo JAMA issue, which was partially funded by a $600,000 National Cancer Institute grant, also caught the eye of Rep. John Porter
(R-Ill.), a tobacco industry defender. At his behest, Glantz's NCI funding became the
first National Institutes of Health grant ever targeted for cutoff by a congressional
committee." ref

There is no dirtier example than tobacco
industry pressure to shut down science it
doesn't like. It's a precedent for just
how ugly this could get.