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Scientists Challenge U.S. on Scientific Distortions

Posted by michael on from the speak-truth-to-power dept.

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.

8 of 1,479 comments (clear)

  1. Marburger says... by rsidd · · Score: 5, Interesting
    "...but we doubled the NIH budget and increased NSF funding."

    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.

  2. Your dealing with a administration... by Ummon_i · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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..

  3. He was our University President by netglen · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

  4. It is truly a shame by instantkarma1 · · Score: 5, Interesting
    that politics influences the scientific process. This administration, in particular, seems to know no bounds when it comes to manipulating facts to better fit with their agenda.

    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.

  5. Troubling... by Lebofsky · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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

  6. Nothing new? by FreshFunk510 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.
  7. UCS isn't exactly an unbiased organization... by cruc · · Score: 5, Interesting
    ....that has consensus within the scientific community, though maybe they have consensus with the politically left which they are most certainly (the city where they are located should be a tiny hint). That they are unbiased and indendant is laughable.

    UCS Background:

    -The Union of Concerned Scientists was born out of a protest against the war in Vietnam. In 1969, a group of 48 faculty members at MIT -- the original "union" -- sponsored a one-day work stoppage of scientific research. A conference that coincided with the strike included appearances from such notables as Noam Chomsky (who is now recognized as a leader of the 21st Century "hate-America left"); Eric Mann, who led the 1960s terrorist Weather Underground; and Jonathan Kabat, who argued: "We want capitalism to come to an end."

    -Later that year, when the founding document of the Union of Concerned Scientists was formalized, the United States' relationship with the Soviet Union was featured even more prominently than environmental issues. Three of the five propositions in the founding document concern political questions of the Cold War -- a topic about which even the brightest physicists and biologists can claim no particular expertise.

    -UCS continues to involve itself in issues where scientific credentials carry little weight. For example, the group opposes urban sprawl, disputes a war in Iraq, and supports abortion. While these positions may be perfectly legitimate in themselves, they are hardly the product of "rigorous scientific analysis."

    Issues:

    -In 1998 UCS issued a report saying that the threat of North Korea developing nuclear weapons was exaggerated and that the bellicose nation posed no imminent danger.

    -In 1997 UCS organized a petition that warned of "global warming" and advocated U.S. ratification of the Kyoto treaty. It was signed by 1,600 scientists, and so UCS declared that "the scientific community has reached a consensus." But when a counter-petition that questioned this so-called "consensus" was signed by more than 17,000 other scientists, UCS declared it a "deliberate attempt to deceive the scientific community with misinformation."

    -UCS invested significant resources in "a multiyear effort to protect Bacillus thuringiensis, a valuable natural pesticide, by bringing high visibility to a preliminary report on the toxic effect of transgenic [biotech] corn pollen on the Monarch Butterfly." Unfortunately for them, both the USDA and the EPA have concluded that Bt corn is only a threat to the crop-devastating insects it's supposed to kill.

    -Based, we suppose, on some "science" or other, UCS's Margaret Mellon predicted in 1999 that American farmers would reduce their planting of genetically enhanced seeds in the year 2000, saying it "probably represents a turning point." What happened? Just the reverse. Planting of biotech crops has increased in 2000, 2001 and 2002 -- and shows no sign of slowing down.

    -In 1980 UCS predicted that the earth would soon run out of fossil fuels. "It is now abundantly clear," the group wrote, "that the world has entered a period of chronic energy shortages." Oops! Known reserves of oil, coal and natural gas have never been higher, and show every sign of increasing.

    -To improve fuel efficiency, UCS argues for lighter tires on SUVs. But lighter tires are blamed -- even by Ralph's Nader's Public Citizen -- for tread separation. 148 deaths and more than 500 injuries were attributed to tread separation in Firestone tires alone.
    UCS apparently hasn't learned from its many, many mistakes. But if at first you don't succeed, scare, scare again.


    (As quoted from www.activistcash.com )

    Unbiased? "Rigorus" scientific processes? Yea right.

    Cruc
  8. Re:USSR tried bad science, it failed... by mikerich · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Back in the 1970's, there was a USSR scientist who had weird biological theories that really hindered work done in that country by real biologists..

    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.