More Accusations of Scientific Abuse by the Bush Administration

Saeed al-Sahaf writes "Last week, the Union of Concerned Scientists released new evidence that the Bush Administration continues to suppress and distort scientific knowledge and undermine scientific advisory panels. Of course we're not talking about such subjective issues like stem cell research which Bush objects to on religious grounds. Here we are talking about money. The cases discussed in this story detail incidents of suppression and distortion of scientific knowledge on issues ranging from mountaintop removal strip mining to endangered species such as wild Salmon in the Pacific Northwest."

Comments

Re:Any peer review on this?

[sfjoe]

Because the Union of Concerned Scientists is right up there with the Clown College in my book.

Admission standards to Clown College are a bit higher than I would have thought:

"62 preeminent scientists including Nobel laureates, National Medal of Science recipients, former senior advisers to administrations of both parties, numerous members of the National Academy of Sciences, and other well-known researchers..."

Re:Any peer review on this?

[Vaevictis666]

That would be 4000 total, including "48 Nobel laureates, 62 National Medal of Science recipients, and 127 members of the National Academy of Sciences."

Fundamentalism had nothing to do with it.

[Fished]

Fundamentalism had nothing to do with the fall of Arab culture. In fact, Islamic fundamentalism is more or less a twentieth century invention, whereas Islamic culture lost its "edge" around the time of the Renaissance. Rather, the fall of Arab culture had a lot to do with a society and an economy that was utterly dependent on constant expansion to maintain itself. When no more expansion was available (thanks to geographical boundaries for the most part) the culture began to go into decline.

Re:Fundamentalism had nothing to do with it.

[crsm]

At the height of Arab and Chinese culture, either region could have steamrolled Europe with no problem

Don't know about the Chinese, but the Arabs actually tried. The succeeded in grabbing Sicily and Spain but was stopped dead at the battle of Tours/Poitiers in 737 and soon after driven from all of their french possessions.

The battle also marked the end of the reign of the feared Arab cavalery as the super-weapon of the time. This defeat was accomplished by the medieval french infantery drawed up in square formations to defend against the onslaugt. Until then the Arab cavalery had been virtual undefeated, but from the battle of Tours and on the odds had changed in favor of the europeans.

Sicily was liberated later by descendants of wikings from the Normandy looking for a kingdom to conqueror :-)

Quite specific evidence

[KnightStalker]

See that great big yellow sidebar on the right side of all the ucsusa pages, with "Reports", "Cases", and "Activism" headings? It takes up nearly half of each page. The "Cases" section, as you might surmise from the name, contains links to specific pieces of evidence.

The page linked to in the /. summary contains a "Related Links" box with a link to a 351k PDF. (The text is "Read the new report".)

Here's the link, in case you still can't find it:
http://www.ucsusa.org/publications/report.cfm?publ icationID=877

Here is the full report, published in February:
http://www.ucsusa.org/publications/report.cfm?publ icationID=730

Re:I call shenanigans...

[4of12]

The Washington Times says

You mean the newspaper owned by the Rev. Sun Myung Moon, the man who was recently coronated on Capitol Hill [entertaining account] in the presence of a number of Congressmen?

Re:I call shenanigans...

[GOD_ALMIGHTY]

Wait, I want to get this straight.... You brought up a Washington Times story to refute an attack on a GOP administration?
Are you aware the Times is operated at a loss of $1 million a week by the Moonies as a propaganda tool? It's not a credible newspaper, especially when critiquing a GOP administration. Go do some research on the Times and the Moonies, it'll make you feel like you stepped into some bizarre world.

Uhm, Greenwatch is funded by the "vast right-wing conspiracy". Scaife funded organizations call anyone to the left of Attila the Hun, radical leftists. Please try discrediting the UCS again. Media Transparency

I haven't got time to go pick apart a 20 page doc right now, but I can't say that I trust much that comes from the White House these days. And about the guy being a life-long Dem, so's Zell Miller, but he's speaking at the GOP convention.

Quit listening to right wing media, it will rot your brain.