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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.
Which has nothing to do with the accusations the scientists are making. I wonder what sort of mindset the administration has when its science advisor can't even read the letter he's responding to.
There are a lot more voting bible-belters than there are scientists.
This administration has made it abundantly clear that they are only concerned with getting reelected. To hell with anything that stands in their way and alienates their voting base.
The US Presidency, much like US Corporations, is afflicted with serious shortsightedness.
I think a 10 year term is much better than a 4 year term because it would give the office holder at least 5 - 7 years before they would have to worry about reelection right after they enter office. And perhaps they'd think about doing things for the good of the nation rather than themselves.
-- You see, there would be these conclusions that you could jump to
Bush's science adviser, John Marburger, called the report biased and said he was troubled that some very prestigious scientists had signed the statement.
Yes it's biased. Biased towards scientific truth instead of political motives (though by creating the document in the frist place, the scientists are expressing some political motives).
And yes he should be troubled. Being a science adviser and having 20 highly acclaimed scientists say you are wrong makes you look like bad.
that being said, time to go RTFA and see where i'm wrong.
who thinks creationism is a valid science rather then a religious doctering.
They are luddites plain and simple.
They came out against the a health study a couple of weeks ago. The study said that americans or too fat and should eat less fat and more veggies. Real contravercial stuff..
I'm amazed in seeing how far John Marburger has gone. I first knew him when he was the president of SUNY at Stony Brook when I was a student. He then went to Brookhaven National Labs and now he's the President's Science Advisor. I'll be real interested in how this whole event carries out. Personally I found Marburger to be a really upfront and a likeable person. I hope these high level politcs hasn't changed him.
They (seemingly) manipulate intelligence reports to paint an incredibly grim picture of Iraqi's WMD program in order to justify an attack on a sovereign nation
The view the same job market and economy reports we do, and yet see 250 million new jobs being created this year, and that the economy is doing just fine, thank you.
Their interpretation of the Constitution allows attempt to circumvent the separation of church and state by giving your tax dollars to faith-based programs.
Why not circumvent the scientific process if it will appease the American Taliban (read the very left-wing christian fundamentalists, not your every day christian) and keep the $$$ rolling in from big corporations?
The short-sightedness of this administration is staggering. Yes, everyone knows other administrations have been corrupt as well, but Christ! They didnt' have the chutzpah this one does.
They scare me.
Sorry if the subject sounds like a flame, but it's true. Bush got into Harvard and Yale through connections. He was exposed to people infinitely smarter than him, and this seems to have vastly shaken his self confidence. This happens to a lot of us, but we grow out of it. Bush hasn't. All professors or researchers are now 'elites.' Science is subjective. All that matters is faith.
I find it troubling how much of a disconnect there is in the American public (and beyond) such that political opinion overshadows scientific fact and mathematical logic. Yet another sign our education system is in crisis.
Even sadder is that people generally don't care to understand the difference between 1 million and 1 billion and 1 trillion. It's all just some big number to them, but a few extra zeros really matter!
As always, I blame the news media (present company excluded, of course). They could really help bridge the gaps but they don't. I believe a law should be passed that every number ever stated in the news should be followed by an analogous per capita statstic. Like, $87 Billion more for the War on Iraq? That'll be $300 each per American. Funny.. Isn't that exactly what Bush gave us in the first tax year after he was elected?
Oops. Too much coffee. Back to work..
- Lebofsky
I've seemed to notice that many /.-ers have this opinion of "nothing new". Yes, this is nothing new (especially if you're a skeptic of the Bush administration) but to me this means something big.
The reason is is that much of our bias, one way or another, has come from the media. Yes, much of it can be based on facts, but I think we'd all be lying to ourselves considering the amount of biased media out there. While scientists could have their own political agenda, the fact that this report was signed off by 20 Nobel Laureates gives it real legitimacy.
Nobel Laureates don't come a dime a dozen and they can't be bought out or created like special think tank groups out there. So, therefore, this sort of report gives our concerns about the Bush administration, in my opinion, real legitimacy. No longer can people say that our skepticism is the result of "liberal media".
"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." - Martin Luther King, Jr.
The entire exectuive branch is the responsiblity of the president. Only the prez and VP are elected offices, everything else is an appointed position. Therefore, the only effective way to force the replacement of a disliked member of the executive branch is to replace the entire administration from the president on down, there's just no middle step.
This report doesnt'accuse anybody of abusing their power, but simply using bad science when trying to justify their decisions. They could have made such decisions with no reasoning at all, but then the public would likely assume the worst possible self-serving reason is the true one. Well, if the scitific reasoning as wrong, either the person is stupid or acting on those self-serving reasons...
(As quoted from www.activistcash.com )
Unbiased? "Rigorus" scientific processes? Yea right.
Cruc
You need some sunlight to produce vitamin D; therefore, therefore, sunlight cannot cause cancer.
Sure, whatever you say.
And we're back to "terrorists". I hate to tell you this but spray-painting a car is vandalism, not terrorism. I disagree with their tactics, but in today's society I understand their futility in playing in a system where Bush has $120 Million already in campaign funds and they want what's right.
Follow the money and you'll find the root of all the problems in politics.
Agendas, like the full inculsion of scientific evidence as a basis for making policy decisions?
I mean, who really _cares_ what lead exposure does to kids when determining what the exposure guidelines should be. Or how many degrees an additional 50 million metric tons of CO2 makes the air emperature rise by. Yeah, those pesky Nobel and National Science Medal winning scientists, just trying to promote their agendas for personal gain.
This space for rent. Call 1-800-STEAK4U
So a very nasty fellow. But focussing on the history of nastyness by Saddam would have prompted question as why nothing was done about it before. Who was supporting him while he was doing it and how the hell he got into power in the first place.
All questions america rather would not answer.
So WMD it was. As a reasonably intelligent person I can see what the real reason was. Saddam was like the guard dog that had snapped and had to be put down. Nasty and perhaps better care should have been given but this is the real world not some pacifists lala land.
For me and apparently you the reasons that saddam was a loose cannon with same very nasty habbits was enough. For many others it wasn't.
How does this relate to the hiding or falsyfing scientific evidence? Very closely. Instead of just saying, well yes lead is bad but so is making thousands of people jobless and we need the lead, they instead make up fancy reports saying lead ain't bad at all. It insults people like you and me but the people who elected him swallow it hook line and sinker.
Oh he was elected by a majority of americans. To remain silent implies consent and the majority of voters remained silent therefore consenting to bush. Still no option, "none of the above", I guess.
Poster should have spellchecked but poster is a lazy bastard
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
"Your reasoning - the scientists are releasing a scientific paper. Their conclusions have political ramifications. Therefore they are making a political statement"
That's not at all what he said. What he said was that it was released as a report on "The Bush Administration" rather than on the activities of the agencies that have outlasted and will outlast the Bush Administration like the DoD, the CDC, etc. This was a political statement aimed squarely at a particular administration.
That doesn't make it wrong, but it certainly does turn on my bias-detection filters...
I find it amusing that the example you choose happens to be one where the answer is, in fact, not known.
You could have picked a whole lot of issues where science provides a solid truth. Instead you picked anthropogenic global warming, which is still a matter of dispute among specialists (most agree with the theory but there are large gaps in information, low quality data, and an inadequately long time series).
Had you picked something else - say that inheritance is via DNA - you would at least have an example that every responsible scientist agrees with.
Furthermore, the assertions against the administration are not scientific assertions, but rather social assertions. That they are made by scientists does not make them scientific.
For example, did the UCS report go through independent peer review?
Finally, the UCS is not an "independent" organization. It is an organization with a long history of supporting the side of a debate held by the left. In other words, it is a political organization, with a political agenda, that a number of scientists agree with. In 1984 UCS openly supported Walter Mondale, with a 15 city tour of their members. It is part of the group that persecuted Bjorn Lomborg.
The idea that because scientific work involves discovering facts of nature, scientists are arbiters of truth, is laughable. Scientists are usually very narrow specialists, with deep knowledge in one area. Within that area, if it is worthy of research, there are almost always disagreements, until definitive experiments are done and replicated (try doing that with anthropogenic global warming, by the way).
Furthermore scientists are human. They have biases. They have agendas. They have blindspots.
By the way, did the UCS complain when the Clinton administration was suppressing research that did not support Al Gore's environmental agenda? I know people who had to be very careful what they said in public, and knew they would not get funded submitting research proposals likely to produce uncertainty about global warming forecasts.
When the government pays for science, the science will be subject to political steering.
The only good weather is bad weather.
There is no such thing as the "fact of evolution". You should really check your sources on that one. It's called a theory for a reason.
Actually, evolution was accepted as fact even before Darwin advanced a theory to explain it. Before Darwin, there actually were real scientists (as opposed to religious ideologues masquerading as scientists) who took creation seriously as a theory of the origin of species. But even before Darwin, they had rejected the Biblical notion of creation as patently inconsistent with the data that clearly demonstrated evolution over time. The creationist theories before Darwin tended to postulate multiple creation events at different times and places. Of course, after Darwin, all the real biologists embraced the new theory, leaving behind the Biblical zealots who wouldn't even accept creation theories that didn't agree with Genesis.
Cry me a river, Over the past four years I paid over half a million dollars in taxes. But I would rather see the tax cuts repealled and the economy doing better than continue with a stagnant economy and $50,000 off my taxes.
During the Clinton boom the economy grew 4% year on year, that means the economy grew by almost a fifth in each term. That means far more to me than any amount I might pay in taxes. During the Bush recession the economy was stagnant, there was one quarter where it grew by 2% (reported in the press as 8% anualized) and a second when it grew by 1% (reported in the press as 5% anualized). But we still havent had one year that comes close to matching the Clinton performance.
Sure Bush had some bad luck, but all President's do. Bush has made no good luck. That is the problem. He is also responsible for the bulk of the deficit, he has not vetoed a single one of the pork filled spending bills from the Republican Congress. He pushed through irresponsible tax cuts which in many cases will only start to take effect after the recession is over. That means that long term interest rates, the rates businesses borrow money at and the rates that determine economic growth are much too high. The markets know there is a big increase in borrowing comming.
The falloff of tax revenues and the $250 billion cost of the war in Iraq are part of the reason for the deficit, but they are not the biggest reason and they are not part of the forward planning estimates that are predicting $400 billion dollar deficits for the next ten years.
So no, a four year tax cut does not impress me in the slightest. It is clearly not going to last. Regardless of who is President next year taxes are going to return to their pre-Bush level and then some extra will be added on top. Read my lips, Tax rises are inevitable.
No politician deserves credit for tax cuts unless they can cut spending or raise revenues by enough to pay for them.
Looking for an Information Security student project suggestion?
Try http://dotcrimeManifesto.com/
That's a point, but that's not the real reason.
Iraq decided back in November 2000 to start selling oil in Euros instead of Dollars, and the bad side for America is that it did succeed.
This war was fought to prevent other countries from doing the same. Like Venezuela who felt under a coup (a US funded coup) just after trying to exchange oil with services instead of dollars.
The thing is that if OPEC starts to accept Euros for oil purchases the US will economically collapse because of its huge debt (way worse than Argentina when it did collapse).
Full explanation and documents to prove this point of view.
This has never been discussed in any major US media. Weird.
Iraq: war to save the U
You're thinking of Trofim Lysenko who wasn't a trained scientist, but his 'theories' seemed to fit in with Communist dogma - so he attracted the approval of Stalin. Lysenko got his ideas from a Russian form of Lamarckism known as Michurianism. Essentially it was the old falsehood that said such nonsense as the children of a giraffe have longer necks because their parents stretched to reach leaves on trees.
Lysenko came to prominence in 1948 when he declared Mendelist evolution to be reactionary, decadant and its proponents to be enemies of the Soviets. Other scientists knew what that meant and on whose behalf he was speaking (Uncle Joe) and quickly fell behind the Party line. He and his theories basically held sway in the Eastern Bloc until 1965 when Kruschev had Lysenko denounced and returned the Soviet Union to the orthodox view of evolution.
But of course Lysenko's theories were in sway during the pivotal discoveries of DNA and how it affected genetics. So the Soviet Union fell behind at a vital moment and never recovered.
It's an extreme form of the current situation in the US, where any old nonsense can be promoted by politicians to keep their vested interests (be they oil, lead or Christian fundamentalism) happy. Sadly the same is starting to happen over here in the UK, where our non-scientific Prime Minister refuses to condemn schools that teach creationism over evolution.
Best wishes,
Mike.
Fair enough, seeing as at no point have I even suggested that scientists are "completely objective". I said they were more likely than anyone else to be able to present a rational, objective analysis of the situation. Clearly, you disagree.
So, as twenty Nobel laureates are so clearly incapable of critical, objective thought, who should we look to for rational analysis of the role of science in today's government?
I understand your skepticism, but honestly, your life will be largely fruitless if you refuse to place your trust in other people. There's no way any one of us is qualified to make more than a small fraction of the decisions one typically faces in the modern world--there's simply too much you'd need to learn to make your own rational decisions to the exclusion of the advice of others.
Personally, I can't think of many groups of people as learned and diverse as a full twenty Nobel laureates--these people don't grow on trees, and while there are a few exceptions, the majority of them are frighteningly intelligent people. I trust them to know what they're talking about when it comes to conducting and analyzing scientific research...
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
Most people who have gotten a Noble prize gets it because they have challenges, and more importantely, changed the accepted scientific view in their field.
That does not make it better. And it seems like the current adminstration is much more eager in this than has been seen for a long time in the USA.
Ultimately, the judges of science is scientists themselves. Peer review is the key. Anyone who think that you can become a recognized scientist just through connections and not through hard work and hard won respect for your published work, must had little contact with the academia. The problem is that the current administration don't put recognized scientist on scientific panels and committees, but industrial lobbiest and people from outside the peer review system of science.
--- guns don't kill people, people with guns kill people ---
Care to point examples of "liberal bias"? That someone thinks creationism is utter rubbish (being not backed by a single scientifically sound argument)? That vast majority of studies consider global warming to be a potentially serious problem? That current understanding of toxicity of lead levels should be used on defining legal limits for lead levels in various substances? That current policies regarding sexuality (preaching abstinence as the main solution to teen-age pregnany and other rubbish) are idiotic?
I like paying taxes. With them I buy civilization -- Oliver Wendell Holmes
really? no proof given though, huh?
Proof of the scientific studies or proof of government omissions? It should be obvious that they don't need to republish the results of previous studies in this report.
Highly qualified according to whom? UCS?
Ah, but there are such things as verifiable scientific qualifications. Of course, a little healthy skepticism is good too. You are free to verify the findings of the report on your own. This isn't politics; it's science.
That's specific? Not a single incident is cited.
I can't access the report right now, but I still managed to find this from cnn.com:
Among the examples cited in the union's report:
* A 2003 report that the administration sought changes in an Environmental Protection Agency climate study, including deletion of a 1,000-year temperature record and removal of reference to a study that attributed some of global warming to human activity.
* A delay in an EPA report on mercury pollution from some power plants.
* A charge that the administration pressed the Centers for Disease Control to end a project called "Programs that Work," which found sex education programs that did not insist only on abstinence were still effective.
I'm surprised that you couldn't find the examples yourself. Did you read the actual report or just an article about the report?