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

Re:Do you trust your politicians ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you trust Bush government on defining Science? Would you trust Nader?

No and Yes.

See "Toxic Sludge Is Good For You: Lies, Damn Lies and the Public Relations Industry" by John Stauber and Sheldon Rampton (http://www.commoncouragepress.com/rampton_sludge. html)

More and more it seems to me that Bush has been taken his cues from Stalin...

It was NEVER science!

[overunderunderdone]

These independent review boards were not doing peer review of other scinetists work they are little think tanks that give policy advice. They were never (if such a thing is even possible when giving policy advice) giving their advice from some pure knowledge-for-it's-own-sake scientific stance. They have always been staffed by scientists and academicians and LAWYERS who are activists or politically biased.

The only thing happening here is that a group of (who are very influential because they can set the initial terms of debate) policy advisors that agreed with the views of the last administration is being replaced by a group of policy advisors that agree with the views of the current administration.

Re:Do you trust your politicians ?

[rgmoore]

No. Research should not be political; the decisions that our government makes about research are political. There are two basic ways that research and politics should interact:

• Politicians decide how much money we should be spending on research of different types.
• Politicians listen to researchers to get advice about matters of public policy where the research is relevant.

I don't have a big problem with changes in the first one. I don't think that our leaders should let their personal religious beliefs guide what kind of research they support, but ultimately that's why we have checks and balances and elections. If one group of politicians makes a stupid choice that way, I have confidence that another group will disagree and the second group will eventually get a chance to reverse the decision. That may take a while, but it's all part of the democatic process.

What really stinks is when people try to undermine the advisory function. I want my legislators and government regulators to be making decisions based on the best scientific advice they can get. If one or a small number of people can set up the committees so that they'll give the advice that those people want rather than the advice that the latest science suggests is correct, that undermines their purpose and the democratic process. That would allow a handful of people to define the agenda and bias the decision making process, which is exactly contrary to the advisory committees intended purpose.