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Scientists Challenge U.S. on Scientific Distortions
rocketjam writes "The Union of Concerned Scientists, an independent organization which includes 20 Nobel laureates, issued a statement accusing the Bush administration of distorting scientific fact and supressing findings to fit administration policy decisions on the environment, health, biomedical research and nuclear weaponry. They also issued a 37-page report detailing the accusations. Bush's science adviser, John Marburger, called the report biased and said he was troubled that some very prestigious scientists had signed the statement. Numerous complaints from the scientific community about the administration's scientific policy-making prompted the The Union of Concerned Scientists to begin investigating the issue last summer. As an example, the group noted the panel that advises the Centers for Disease Control on lead poisoning had been prepared to recommend strengthening regulations due to new findings on lead toxicity, but had their recommendation rejected by the administration and two panel members replaced by individuals with ties to the lead industry." Other articles: Sydney Morning Herald, New York Times, The Guardian.
Actually, they've been working on the report for over a year and released it as soon as they were finished. They didn't expect it to take this long. It's in the article.
To follow knowledge like a sinking star, / Beyond the utmost bound of human thought. ("Ulysses", Tennyson)
On their website is also a form to "sign" the statement yourself if you have an advanced degree in a scientific or technical field or are a graduate student pursuing one. Please read the report, though, before signing on.
Dude
Are you serious? You really think Star Wars works? What are the "successful tests" you refer to - the ones where the missile had an attached radio beacon?
Jeesh, my guess is you are either not a scientist, or if so, work on an SDI related project.
Do you really trust "successful test results" from an admministration that showed us "conclusive evidence of Weapons of Mass Desctruction".
I think, therefore I thought.
Here's one on wired. I saw that one before the headline here. As for who to believe, I'm inclined to go with twenty Nobel laureates and 40 other scientists over one Whitehouse full of politicians. No matter what your opinion on politics, don't forget to get out and vote this year and let them know how you feel about this and other issues.
~~ Behold the flying cow with a rail gun! ~~
The scientists signing the letter do not represent the Union of Concerned Scientists. They are an independent group who are merely endorsing the UCS report. Furthermore, they include scientists who are not particularly left-wing, such as H-bomb designer Richard Garwin and physicist Norman Ramsey, both of whom served as advisers to Republican administrations. According to this news item, organizations opposing the Bush administration policy include: the National Academies of Science, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Federation of American Scientists, and the Association of American Medical Colleges. The opposition isn't coming from the left fringe; it is mainstream.
Yeah, the national institues of health also have stated to confrences of developmental scientest that any reseach showing that, single parent families of families with working mothers, are just as stable as the "normal" 2 parent 1 income house holds, will not be funded. This happened at a confrence on child development. My mother an her collegues were shocked at this announcement. I, of course, didnt care, I am only an astrophysics student, then Bush announces his Mars push and Hubble is gone and all the astronomy probes that were planed for the next ten years are in jepordy. So yes this adiministration has a very poor record of distrorting facts and ignoring scientific goals.
PS All that NSF funding has been going to projects that benefit DARPA and Homeland Security not fundamental science.
Did Glenn Beck rape and kill a girl in 1990? gb1990.com
Here is some already formatted HTML you can copy into your email client (preferably Mozilla). Remember to remove the blank spaces Slashdot puts in URLs.
U.S. government corruption: Two Stories
Killing and destroying property
N.Y. Times editorial:
"... Americans paid Ahmad Chalabi to gull them into a war that is costing them a billion a week and a precious human cost."
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/15/opinion/15DOWD.
Lying about scientific facts
"The Bush administration has deliberately and systematically distorted scientific fact in the service of policy goals..."
N.Y. Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/18/science/18CND-R
The Guardian:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,11511
Wired News:
http://www.wired.com/news/medtech/0,1286,62339,00
Union of Concerned Scientists:
http://www.ucsusa.org/global_environment/rsi/rsir
Your comment about CFC's would be laughable if your post were not modded so high. Raw chlorine does not get into the upper atmosphere and is not stable enough to do damage. CFC's are very unique. The CFC ban is one of the few absolute scientific environmental succeses of our lifetime. The scientists involved made predictions based on courses of action, the politicians followed their advice, and the ozone hole is behaving as predicted given the ban.
In conclusion, GFY.
A scientist.
Ten things you should know about Lomborg and the "Skeptical Environmentalist":o mborg_10_things.html
http://www.wri.org/press/mk_l
A summary of some of the more important points:
"the environmental issue facing society is not whether we are increasing our material wellbeing - we are - but whether we are prospering in ways that damage the natural environment. Lomborg's book equates -- and confuses -- these two fundamentally different issues."
"Lomborg claims that "marine productivity has almost doubled since 1970" -- a surprising statement given the well-documented declines of many commercial fish stocks. What Lomborg actually means appears later in the book as a figure depicting an increase in total fish catch, plus production from fish farms.[...] And what humans are taking from the oceans and what the oceans are producing are of course fundamentally different matters. "
"Although Lomborg concedes that species extinctions are likely occurring at 1,500 times natural rates[10], he takes repeated issue with an estimate by Norman Myers that as many as 40,000 species may be going extinct each year. But when annual species extinction is calculated with Lomborg's figure, using the number of living species Lomborg cites and the extinction-per-species ratios given by leading authorities in Lomborg's own footnotes, the Myers estimate is confirmed as sitting well within the range."
If you want more in-depth, there is a 64 page rebuttal
here
Being bitter is drinking poison and hoping someone else will die
I'm am member of the union of concerned scientists. I'll admit this up front as so no not be confused with a trolling "Anonymous Coward". Please consider your sources before you dare post an article from a fringe group, like the "Heartland Institute" I will not bother to go into greta detail, 5 minutes of a google search will explain better than I can. why you are wrong about 1. The Heartland institute, a Conservative thinktank with ties to just about every pollution industry. 2. You can no concept of the UCS, and what we are about. I can remember the "Liberals" attacking us for beign conservative during the Clinton years. And now the "Conservatives" are attackign us. The fact is..... the UCS deals with facts. Researchers carefully document their data, and the data is not "smoothed" it is open for skeptical analysis, because IT IS SCIENCE. OH BTW, Longborgs math is wrong. Bad Statistical analysis is my pet peeve. This guy deserved a pie in his face just on that, let alone that he has sold himslef out to the highest bidder. People, the VAST majority of scientists and Climatologists believe that global warming is a real issue. The only reason these fringe groups have a voice is that they have big money to back them up. Look around for yourselves. And here.. read the crackpots too http://www.greeningearthsociety.org/ these nuts believe climate change is a good thing!
There are two separate ideas that fall under the name "evolution." The first is the basic idea of one thing evolving into another-- there are a number of examples that we have watched happen right before our eyes. The common example is the English moth, biston betularia-- whose population was 95% soot-colored after heavy industry in the late 1800s, but was primarily light-colored in the years prior.
The second is the theory that evolution is responsible for everybody being here. This isn't provable, but it seems to be the best no-magical-stuff explanation we have right now. This is where you're right-- evolution-as-creation is a theory.
The idea that evolution happens is a solid fact. We just don't know if it's the only thing at work that could have led to people. (or other various animals and plants)
http://www.ucsusa.org/global_environment/rsi/RSI _final_fullreport.pdf
Yeah, all those "successful" SDI tests, right? Now the problem becomes convincing any potential adversaries that they need to tell us when and where they plan to attack, and, oh yes.... would they mind terribly putting a radar beacon on any incoming warheads?
First of all it was not a radar beacon, and it wasn't tracked by the interceptor, it was used to supplement the remote tracking part of the system (which was not finished yet).
In another post I linked to this article. Do some extra research if you like.
Tracking a missile is not nearly as hard as controlling an interceptor - that was the part the system did not "cheat" at.
I would suggest that you check up on the science behind these tests... I cannot believe the ignorance that is being modded up on slashdot (not that it is your fault, this was not given a lot of coverage).
Cheers,
Justin
The most likely reason we are only now seeing large numbers of melanomas is that people used to die of other things before the melanoma had a chance to appear. Our cells have natural defense mechanisms from DNA damage caused by UV rays, but these are not 100% perfect and mutations can occur. Most of these are benign. However, as we age, the mutations accumulate, and eventually you can get unlucky and have a harmful mutation.
Also, the practice of lounging half-naked in the sun for days on end in relatively new. In the olden days, people wore clothes when they worked outside, not swimsuits.
The link between UV rays and DNA damage is so well-documented that research scientists use it in the lab: they use UV light to fragment DNA or randomly introduce mutations into cells they are studying. Get any basic biochemistry or cell biology book to check my facts if you want.
Yes, we need some sunlight, but not nearly as much as most of us get. In the opinion of this fairly skeptical scientist, the link between sun exposure and melanoma is very strong. I wear my sunscreen.
HA! If only it were that HIGH... Fact is, many slashdot readers probably fit the definition...
From The Heritage Foundation:
Like fairness, "rich" is a subjective term, but the most common definition of "rich" in Washington is someone in the top 20 percent (or quintile) of income. Many Americans in this quintile hardly would qualify as rich, though, since the cutoff in 1999 for the top 20 percent of tax returns is $79,375 of household income.
Keep in mind that that is HOUSEHOLD income...
-bs
That that is is not that that is not. That that is not is not that that is.
Actually, measurements of carbon dioxide emissions taken from ice bubbles in the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets show a huge increase in the ppm from pre-Industrial Revolution to now. From the Industrial Revolution to 1958, the ppm grew from 280 ppm to 315 ppm. From 1958 until now the ppm has grown from 315 to over 350 ppm in 1987 (1). Can that increase be justified by increased natural carbon dioxide production or could it be more closely tied to human production?
In case you aren't counting, from sometime in the 1700's to 1958, carbon monoxide rose 35 ppm. It took just 29 years for the same amount of increase to take place.
(1) U. Siegenthaler and H. Oeschger, "Biospherice CO2 Emissions during the Past 200 Years Reconstructed by Deconvolution of Ice Core Data," Tellus, vol. 39B (1987): 140-154
Whether or not being a Nobel Lauriate somehow makes one immune to politics or completely unbiased (it certainly doesn't, but I doubt that it's possible to explain here why that is the case to someone that believes otherwise), the Union of Concerned Scientists is certainly a political organization. It was founded in 1969 by a group of MIT professors that wanted to protest the Vietnam war and has morphed into an environmental group with positions tha are considered progressive (in the US, at least). If you have any doubts about the claim that the UCS is political, or that it is progressive, I would suggest reading:
Unfortunately, you may have to wait a few days, first, as their site has been ./'ed
John Marburger actually isn't a politician, at least not by training. He was a physicist in the field of QEX (quantum electrodynamics - i.e. lasers, atoms, etc.). He was actually on my PhD defense committee during the brief time he returned to being a professor after serving as the president of the university for a number of years. The man is not a politician who knows nothing about science. He was actually a respected scientest before going into politics.
On the other hand, he's been in administration or politics now a long time, so acting like a politician is perhaps unavoidable. In addition, he has no choice but to toe the party line, so it's impossible to know what he really thinks.
What science are you in?
Physics is my primary field.
I came to realise that there are different kinds of science. Social scientists tend to find their own truths and fight over it. Truth in this sense is not absolute, it depends on the proponent.
Q.E.D. I'm afraid, with this caveat: I used the word truth in the colloquial sense, not the scientific sense. Thus when I said truth I meant something akin to fact. The syntax and grammer of English is not suitable for making the distinction casually unfortunately. You must choose between sounding like an verbose, overacademic pompous ass, or colloquial brevity and reasonable grammar. I try to steer a course down the middle. I often fail.
In the sense that the word "truth" might be used in a mathmatically technical sense the social sciences contain little to no truth at all, although they proudly stand on what they claim to be a mathmatically scientific foundation. That foundation is made up of mathmatical aether filled aerogel.
When you begin fighting over untestable, nonabsolute "truth," you are not discussing science at all. You are discussing religion.
Natural sciences, however, are much more focussed on the one truth which can be proved either by formal methods (which themselves are known to be correct) or by facts.
And there is even a name for this: Science.
If a nobel laureate (of the natural sciences) says that someone is twisting the truth, then it should make you think. If 20 nobel laureates do so, then even more.
Over the course of my liftime I have often been in the habit of hanging out with Nobel Laureates and nominees for periods of time, although far less so in my dottage than in my youth. Now I tend to hang out with their writings far more. I think that most of them would agree substantially with my post, and I think my post supports the point of view that the Bush administration is twisting the truth.
As did Clinton's, Big Bush's, Reagan's, Carter's, Ford's, Nixon's, LBJ's and Kennedy's.
Those are the ones with which I can claim some personal familitarty. I can rely on literature to assure me the practice is not entirely contemporary, but accelerting. Rapidly.
KFG
Here
Here are their main findings:
1.There is a well-established pattern of suppression and distortion of scientific findings by high-ranking Bush administration political appointees across numerous federal agencies. These actions have consequences for human health, public safety, and community well-being.
2. There is strong documentation of a wideranging effort to manipulate the government's scientific advisory system to prevent the appearance of advice that might run counter to the administration's political agenda.
3. There is evidence that the administration often imposes restrictions on what government scientists can say or write about "sensitive" topics.
4. There is significant evidence that the scope and scale of the manipulation, suppression, and misrepresentation of science by the Bush administration is unprecedented.
I must say that I'm *shocked* (*shocked*!) that anyone could suppose the Bush administration has ever been anything less than completely forthright about anything with the American public (cough, IRAQ, cough). I mean, they've never stretched or distorted facts to fit their preconceptions before, ever. Really!
Be careful here. Science is not set up to prove things. Science is only set to disprove things. Sure, you can make a conjecture and a prediction about how things will occur, but that is not science. A theory is a hypothesis that has been tested and never FALSIFIED. Just because it has never been falsified does not mean it WILL be.
It may seem like I'm picking nits, but this is a fundamental misunderstanding that almost everyone has about science. It does not PROVE things, it DISPROVES them. What you are left with in the end gives you a *reasonable* idea of how things are.
>Do you have any numbers to describe how much CO2
> is released into the atmosphere by humans every
> year?
Yes. Humans release 6-7 Gt of Carbon (that's gigatons) (and that means almost 30 gigatons/petagrams of CO2) every year.
>Do you have any numbers to describe how much CO2
>is released into the atmosphere by nature every >year?
What number do you want? The _NET_ ecosystem uptake of carbon is about 1 gigaton per year. The _NET_ ocean uptake of carbon is about 2 gigatons per year. 6 GtC - 1 - 2 = 3 GtC per year. The _increase_ in CO2 concentrations is therefore about 3 GtC per year, or about 1.4 ppm per year.
Other numbers: "Net primary productivity" (which doesn't include decomposition) is about 60 Gt per year. "Gross primary productivity" (which is respiration in of plants, but not respiration out) is on the order of several hundred GtC per year. But if you think about it, what goes in must come out, almost exactly. The difference is due to things like: disequilibrium (because of human emissions, more CO2 will go into the ocean from the atmosphere than vice versa), and changing conditions (higher CO2 concentrations means slightly more plant growth than usual, and it takes a few decades for decay to catch up, changing human land use).
If you want to see nice experiments, look at the Keeling carbon dioxide graph. You can see the seasonality of CO2 levels as the northern hemisphere "breathes in" in spring, and "breathes out" in fall. You can see the human effect: the curve overlaying that. (You can also measure historical CO2 levels in ice cores: 200 to 280 ppm for 400,000 years. 280 ppm to 370 ppm in the last 150 years.
http://www.2think.org/keeling_curve.shtml
>Now you have to compare the two. Which one is >larger? Is the smaller one of significant size >compared to the larger one?
So, my person opinion is that anyone who questions the FACT that increased CO2 in the atmosphere is due to human emissions is an ignorant troll (sort of like people who question evolution). People who question whether or not human emissions _can_ cause I consider to be wrong. People who question whether human-induced warming in the future will be disastrous I consider almost reasonable... (my personal belief is that there will almost certainly be measurable human induced warming, and that there is a significant likelihood that the warming will be deleterious to humans - not end of the world, but not real happy, either).
-Marcus
Random example off the top of my head: an American citizen is held without being charged with a crime, without trial or bail, for eight months. Wait, let me guess. It doesn't count, because he's a brown American.
I think that those ginormous tax cuts for the extraordinarily wealthy may have had some effect on the debt. Just maybe. That, and the $100bn+ adventure in Iraq.
*cough* Abstinence-only education *cough*. When they require teaching abstinence, and disallow teaching anything else, that makes it 'abstinence-only'. Get it?
If you're going to talk smack, can you at least talk the kind of smack that can't be refuted with five minutes of Googling?
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
0) Remember there is a difference between CO2 mass and carbon. The 6 Gtons is carbon. Much of the mass in your calculation (which is too high by a factor of 10 btw - consult e.g. a diving handbook) is in oxygen.
1) There is a difference between the GROSS carbon production by the biosphere, and the NET production. In general the biosphere "produces" something like 100 Gton carbon a year, BUT it also absorbs that same amount in growing things. The carbon emissions from fossil fuels is IN ADDITION to the normal processes; it has the effect of disturbing the equilibrium, because it doesn't get absorbed. You have to understand that if the full 100 Gton/yr of carbon went into the atmosphere and wasn't absorbed, the Earth would look like Venus very quickly.
Current, undisputed, data show that atmospheric CO2 levels have doubled in the past 100 years . Isotopic analysis of the C (i.e. C-12 vs C-14 levels) show that virtually all of this carbon comes from fossil fuels (the C-14 has decayed, so the carbon has been buried for a LONG time).
Human genome = 3 billion base pairs = 6 GBit. Windows + Office = 20 Gbit. Which is more impressive?
Thirty years of satellite observations, computer advances and improvements in theory go into current thinking that didn't figure in 1975. That said, nothing I saw in the article seems particularly alarmist or ideological.
The period of concern over "global cooling" was brief and driven by intuition. Pretty much as soon as they started doing the numbers, most of the serious physicists who were to be the founders of physical climatology agreed that greenhouse warming was probably a bigger concern. See Science, vol 193 pp 447 ff, Aug 6, 1976 , pretty much right after the Newsweek article.
mt