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U.S. Scientists Say They Are Told to Alter Finding
tree3075 writes "The LA Times is reporting that a survey by the Union of Concerned Scientists and Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility has found hundreds of U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service scientists have been instructed to change findings to favor business interests. I'm not surprised anymore when I read these things."
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Scientific honesty is the core and foundation of all of our discoverys. If kepler modified his measurements to fit into the then current view of things, astronomy would have been set back 100 years.
Um, why did you already divide this into a Republican/Democrat debate? No one else has done any bashing yet, even the article submitter didn't (amazingly.)
:-P
What really bothered me about your post, though, was this:
"1. In the last 15 years, the majority of most of these scientist's time has been spend under a Democratic president;"
What, can we all just pick an arbitrary number of past years, whichever happens to overlap the point we want to push? Try 4 years? 20?
Thanks for the interesting tidbit though.
Slightly related to the post, but here's my 2 cents. Science is expensive. Very expensive. And when a scientist has the choice between getting his career ruined because of bad results / wrong hypothesis or lie in order to get a second chance, some do chose the second option. Of course, the 'lie' isn't always intentional, even conscious; some tend to alter to reality in order to see what they want to see. You can't be always right, but when you're wrong, funding (private or public) gets a lot tougher to get. It can be fatal to a scientific career... when you put your life behind an idea, you tend to want to be right. No matter what. The funding system is just bad; failure is punished too harshly.
Now back on topic, political ingerence in science is even worse. Especially when motivated by a $$ agenda. Your career versus a should-be-protected plant? Not everyone has the courage to say 'no'... I admire this group of scientist, they had the courage to stand up. Sadly, some don't, and we'll never know it.
Eureka Science News - automatically updated
In Australia, some call it bush bashing. Others call it four wheel driving!
Who is behind "Activist Cash"?
Don't get me wrong, it does look like the UCS is partisan. But it's not like the rebuttal is coming from a totally neutral voice, either.
There were under 800 cattle from mad cow affected countries imported into Canada before the importations were stopped. And the US imported over 1600 cattle from affected countries.
Yet Canada has found 3, before they entered the human or animal food chains, and the US found one after it was partly processed. Tell us who is doing a better job of detecting mad cow in North America?
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
why did you already divide this into a Republican/Democrat debate?
He was planning ahead. See:
Example 1
Example 2
I'm sure there will be many more to follow.
He also brought it up because the group of scientists in the article (and always has been) are extremely leftist and always have been. It's the same as when Fox News gets mentioned, just in the opposite direction this time.
You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life. --Winston Churchill
Who cares about either party? Tampering with the scientific process AT ALL must be condemned.
If political pressure was allowed to alter "scientific fact" then:
1: The sun would orbit the earth, the center of our solar system.
2: It would be the nature of things to move, then stop.
3: People could breath in space.
4: The earth would have suddenly come into existance a tad over five millenia ago.
5: Humans would have suddenly formed a few days after the earth.
6: Evolution would NOT have been proven to occur in a laboratory.
In all honesty, posts like the parent show growth in a disturbing trend. To wit, very well-spoken idiots who can completely miss the obvious in attempting to bash rivals at every irrelevent turn.
By the way, you know how the neoconservatives always claim that they never went to college because it's "just liberal brainwashing"? To me, that just screams "Sour grapes".
Okay, so "more than half" of 30% makes it a little over 15%. So thats around 210+ scientists. Technically, the summary is right in saying "hundreds", but it sounds a whole lot more sensational than it really is.
Secondly, also from TFA
If that's not dodging the issue, I don't know what is. I would seriously like a spokesman for a scientific agency to give a better defense to his stand than that very vague statement that says nothing.False sensationalism and dodging aside, I believe this is a very serious issue. If the scientific integrity of this office has been reduced because of corporate pressures, there's very little faith left in me for any scientific agency. People generally assume that science works in the best interests of man, even though the results may go against him.
StrayByte.Net
I know what you mean. All those Nobelists in the Union of Concerned Scientsts are just hacks. Heck, you can't even get a Nobel prize in the physical sciences without being a liberal, everyone knows that.
Sheesh.
If you'd like to criticize the substance of their report, indicating what they did wrong and why their conclusions are flawed, that'd be a worthwhile contribution to the discussion. Until then, though, all you've contributed is ad hominem.
Put another way, your response is the equivalent of suggesting that General Relativity must be wrong because Einstein abused his wife.
All that matters anymore is that the trains run on time.
If there's anything that history has taught me, it's that it doesn't matter if the trains actually run on time. All that matters is that you say that the trains run on time, and keep repeating this over and over again until people actually believe it.
I never ceases to amaze me how so many people frown upon protecting the world we live in, the air we breath, the water we drink, and the food we eat. "Liberal agenda" my ass. This is about our survival as a species. You would hope that the people expressing deep concern over matters of the environment would receive thanks and praise for the efforts. Nevertheless, there is no shortage of greedy, wholeheartedly selfish people out there out to ensure their own personal and short-term gain, the consequences be damned. but then, I suppose I'm just some unamerican hippie...
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1400 people were sent surveys. 30% responded which means about 420 people responded. These people responded in spite of "...memos from Fish and Wildlife officials that instructed employees not to respond to the survey, even if they did so on their own time. Snow said that agency employees could not use work time to respond to outside surveys."
However, 69% [~300 of the 420 people who responded] said they had never been given such a directive[to alter results]. And, although more than half of the respondents said they had been ordered to alter findings to lessen protection of species, nearly 40% said they had never been required to do so.
So of the 1400 people sent surveys, 420 responded IN SPITE OF ORDERS NOT TO DO SO and of those 420, only 42 said they had been forced to alter results.
That's not to say that science and politics shouldn't be mixed this way. It's bad. But it happens on BOTH SIDES of the political line.
Look at one of the last quotes:
"Sally Stefferud, a biologist who retired in 2002 after 20 years with the agency, said Wednesday she was not surprised by the survey results, saying she had been ordered to change a finding on a biological opinion.
"Political pressures influence the outcome of almost all the cases," she said. "As a scientist, I would probably say you really can't trust the science coming out of the agency.""
That's 12 years under Republican Administrations and 8 years under a Democratic one.
You guys want to stop this? Good. But first realize this is not just a Bush/Republican problem... This is a SYSTEM WIDE problem.
Chocolate rations are up! There is no environmental problem! The defecit is not a problem! Except social security, that's fucked! But tax breaks for the rich are the best idea since pre-emptive wars! We have always been at war with Oceania^WIraqanistanKorea!
FreeBSD for the impatient.
Actually, having seen the parts of my family that follow the "red state" ideals over the course of the last election cycle, I'm thoroughly convinced that most of the people in the "red states" that voted for Bush with such vigor, really did not seem to care that they were being lied to.
I'll use my own mother as an example. She's generally a very level-headed person, but when it comes down to politics she -loves- burying her head in the sand and seeing things as a "black or white, good or evil" issue. And I suspect most mothers are the same way once they're close to sixty. The entire process the right-wing republicans have been using is to make everything a soundbite, a good vs. evil / us against them / with or against us argument. You cannot possibly tell me with a straight face that the democrats were ever this blatant, misleading or dense about anything remotely close to this kind of manipulative behavior.
The answer "But Clinton did it!" does not make it right, and on those occasions when the democrats get caught pulling this nonsense, they should get bitched out too. If anyone ever showed me evidence of them doing it on one tenth of the scale this administration's been caught in just the past -month-, I'd be one of the first ones bitching. It's just much, much easier to give the republicans a black eye for this shit because they're such masters of it. Did Clinton stand behind repeating grids of soundbite text at -every- appearance that didn't have him in front a huge flag instead? Did his administration bribe columnists to push his agenda? (If he did, please cite a Reuters/AP/UPI link so I can learn about it.)
These same people thought there were WMD's. These same people STILL fucking think they exist.
People like having things laid out for them in black and white, they don't like to think about them. Nobody wants to waste the time and energy to contemplate world affairs because they can't change them. So why worry? They put their trust in the person that makes the plainest-spoken argument, not even giving enough of a shit to think he's wrong.
Yes, there are some people out there that follow the Republican way of thought and actually give thought TO that belief. Unfortunately, what they don't do is win elections. John McCain and his type of Republican are an endangered species. The neoconservative wing has discovered how to pull all the puppets into line, and will cut loose the rogues it can't control.
My own pointless vanity vintage computing page
I forget what 8 was for.
You are totally correct in saying that science cannot answer many technological and political questions. Endangered species, stem cell research, abortion, cloning: these are ethical questions. Science can only contribute fact.
However, there is one thing which science is fantastic at. All worthy science must be reproducible and disputable. This is what makes it science. Because of this, it doesn't matter what the biases of the scientists are. This is the breakthrough that made positivist science paramount.
Don't trust scientists, but do trust the scientific process, because it doesn't trust anyone.
I think people got in a stir over this because it is not the first case of this administration pushing facts around, and pushing scientists around. They seem to like science's authoritative voice, but not the multiple voices it turns out to actually be.
If the public doesn't believe the system can ever work properly, it's all that much easier to manipulate it. This seems to be a recurring theme with the current administration. If you screw up, screw up big and everyone will let it slide:
1) Hey, this strategic intelligence stuff is difficult, how could we know there weren't WMDs there?
2) Wars are complicated. Taking control of a nation is complicated. Of course there are bound to be a lot of really, really serious screw-ups in our planning.
3) What is "torture?" I mean, really. Aren't we really just splitting hairs here? One man's "brutal interrogation" is another man's "questioning session." Besides, this sort of thing has always happened throughout history, but in previous American wars there weren't nosy reporters snooping around all over the place.
4) Everyone knows government is inefficient. We're trying to cut the size of the government. If we cut domestic spending, we can slice out the deficit and shrink government. And we all know that the military and government are two totally different things, which is why $8 billion in missing funds in Washington demands outrage, while $8 billion missing in Iraq is just the fog of war.
5) It's impossible to estimate the cost of war in Iraq before we go in. It's impossible to estimate the cost of the war once we're in it. Therefore it is obviously impossible to estimate its cost in the future, which is why it's not in the budget package.
Desensitize the public to gross incompetence by convincing them that it is to be expected, and over time the public will come to expect it. Those who are outraged will be promptly marginalized as hopelessly romantic idiots.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
It's basic human nature. People value what's theirs. All it takes is to look at any public park and see the trash blowing through it (often dumped within feet of a trash can). Yet these same people who will toss a burger wrapper out of their car at 60mph will be just as likely to go home and obsessively groom their lawns and maintain their homes. It's the same thing on a corporate scale. "Big corporations" don't dump on and despoil land they own and intend to keep (it's worth money, they don't want to ruin it). Dumping always happens on public land somewhere. It sounds counter productive to the environmental movement, but the best way to preserve land is to privatize it. Public maintainership doesn't work. When everyone's responsible, no one's responsible ultimately. We see it every day in every aspect of our lives, yet refuse to see it in the environment.
You make a good point -- why trust the ravings of a lunatic mass murderer -- but at the same time, given his reason and Bush's reason, which seems closer to the truth?
Leaving the issue of whether he actually is a lunatic mass murderer or not alone for the moment, which seems more likely: the digested sound-bite propaganda (hates our freedom) or the one that suggests that he might have had an actual reason based on things the US has actually done that he didn't like?
Partisan raving aside, the problem with the whole "hates our freedom" thing is that it is clearly designed to be wartime propaganda. Look at it. It takes the one thing that every American values -- our freedom -- and makes it out to be something that Osama hates.
The other takes things that, while certainly not warranting something like the WTC attacks, are considered bad by a great number of people nowhere near as crazy as Osama: namely, support for Israel in the face of its flagrant disregard for UN resolutions and support of the theocratic regime in Saudi Arabia.
See, no one is going to come away from "he hates our freedom" thinking that Osama, for all his lunacy, might actually have a point or a reason worth considering for his hatred of the US. It's a great way to make sure everyone is behind you, everyone supports you. Osama's reasons are a little bit more of gray area. I don't think anyone would say, "Damn, Osama has a point, I guess we should do what he says and not kill him slowly like we'd planned," but people might say, "After we kill him slowly, maybe we should evaluate how our actions in the middle east are affecting the way the US is viewed there, and how we can help stabilize the region by not generally coming off as total dicks."
I believe it was Sun Tzu who said, "If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle."
We are in a situation here where, by way of wartime propaganda, we are being encouraged to not consider the motivations of the enemy. This, from a strategic perspective, is very dangerous. There was a documentary about Robert S. Macnamara a while ago, called "The Fog of War"; did you see it? (I recommend it, it was very interesting.) Robert S. Macnamara was Secretary of Defense under JFK and Lyndon Johnson. He was around for the Bay of Pigs fiasco, and Vietnam was called "Macnamara's war" back in the day. The guy was one of the west's primary strategists during the cold war; it's very interesting hearing his perspective now, years later, as an old man.
He comments on how he saw the North Vietnamese versus how they saw themselves, and it's really quite insightful. He says that at the time, he saw the North Vietnamese as being puppets for the Soviets and the Chinese, attempting to spread communism into South East Asia. Much later, he talked with his equivalent on the Vietnamese side and was told that from their perspective, the Americans were imperialists who wanted nothing more than to colonize where the French had failed. When presented with the idea that they were in fact acting as proxy for war with the PRC and USSR, his Vietnamese counterpart absolutely scoffed. "Vietnam was occupied by China before it was occupied by the French," he said (I'm paraphrasing). "We had never been our own country; we were fighting for our independance. No matter how many tanks or military personnel you had sent, we would have won, because we were not invaders -- we were fighting for our freedom."
While we Americans may laugh at the Vietnamese view of freedom, it's pretty apparent that he was absolutely right. They handed us our asses in Vietnam; they then did the same to the Chinese in 1979. It was a classic case of not knowing your enemy, and Robert Macnamara makes a point of using this and other examples from his life to illustr
I, for one, welcome our new censored, creationist supporting theocratic "scientists"
Actually, having worked for the forest service and watched the shenannigans involved in some of the "environmental" impact reports, I have to say that I tend to believe the article, and I'm Republican. A report will come in saying something like "the cut as designed will have the following adverse effects ...," typically things like muddying the water and silting up spawning beds in really nice trout streams, "to avoid this the clearance along these streams should be be increased to say 90 horizontal feet."
... well ignore that. Anyway, it wasn't based on ANY environmental concern.
The TMO had anticipated a 10 foot or 20 slope foot exclusion along the streams, and maybe a generous kickback from the multinational that wants to cut the timber and sell the best stuff to the Japanese - who at least appreciate nice wood. The original recommendation involved maybe 50 acres of timber out of 5,000. The TMO cries real tears in the SO's office and words are heard about "tree huggers" and "owl lovers" "jobs lost" and similar nonsense. The best timber is in those corridors!!
The SO may also be, almost unavoidably HAS to be, acquaintented with the multinational reps as well. Surprisingly the directive comes down, "change the corridor to 35 feet."
The backside of the story is that since many "specialists" know how these things work, they work very hard to identify "issues" that will protect their recommendations. Consequently, the stream is good but not critical trout habitat and some accountant (not a field scientist but a real, honest to god accountant who has never ventured into the woods alone in his life) has already determined how much stream the forest can "afford" to protect. His determination was made on the basis of a dollars and cents estimate he pulled from
The biologist, knowing the dweeb who REALLY made the critical stream determination, has "fudged" the data, and another hot topic was inserted the hypothesis that creek corridor is nesting territory for spotted owls - who never harmed the biologist - but at least they'll protect his fish. When his crew is out "hoot owling" he'll be out there with a speaker system giving them something to listen and report. Most are pretty young, naieve, and honest, so he can't let them in on the secret.
The SO meanwhile knows perfectly well what's up. He recons that the entire issue is childish and that both the TMO and biologist would have been screaming just as loud regardless. He also knows the area is not pristine and that it was denuded 80 years ago, so there isn't any owl habitat really. But he does like fly fishing and plans to do some on that creek next spring now that biologist has pointed it out. So he pulls and other number out of the air, one he hopes will keep his multinational pals and the local loggers more or less happy, salt the beer of that conniving TMO, and piss on that biologist that lied about everything, all at the same time. Just maybe it'll protect the stream enough, too. Besides, he's retiring in 5 years anyway.
(disclaimer: I'm not American, I'm just calling this as I see it. Some may be offended by this, sorry.)
America is no longer the land of the free, and the home of the brave. It's just a haven for corporate controlled special interest groups. Too bad, if people (meaning the government, and the corporations they're tied to) were less interested in making money, and more interested in helping their own country, and the planet as a whole, they really could be what they claim they are. As it stands, it's pretty much a lie. We see this all the time in things ranging from the war in iraq (which was based on a false premise to begin with), to ridiculous patent grants, to other environmentally important things like the Kyoto Accord. All the while, these people who make the key decisions are not held accountable for their actions. And when they are held accountable, which is rare, they're treated with more respect than they should be due. Got a CEO who made millions off the suffering of others? I got two words for you: General Population. Right beside the murderers, car thieves and rapists. Too bad it doesn't happen.
Frankly, I don't blame American individuals per-se. Some might say "well, you voted them in!" but if you have a good long look at the choices, there may as well not be any choices. Like people anywhere, they have their own worries on an individual level. It's not surprising that some of these scientists who are coerced by corporations with extreme power just comply. I mean, they have their own families to feed, and that has to be a primary worry of many of them. What would you do if someone threatened to take away your ability to provide for your kids? Lets face it, these people are caught in an economical machine they just can't change.
The truth is, capitolism doesn't work in favour of the base population. It's a system based on keeping the poor as poor as possible, and the rich as rich as possible, with a mid-point "hump" that's really hard to get past, even if you work your ass off. The government tends to make this whole thing far worse by letting large business entities get away with murder.
If I were American, I'd move. Anywhere has got to be better than where America is currently heading. You may wake up one day to find out your country has become the very thing you hate, assuming it's not there already.
BeauHD. Worst editor since kdawson.
From TFA:
"But when it comes to altering data, that is a serious matter. I am really sorry to hear that scientists working for the service feel they have to do that. Changing facts to fit the politics -- that is a very unhealthy thing. If I were a scientist in that position I would just refuse to do it."
The "scientist" who alters data is simply not a scientist. Period. It's like a preacher who is an atheist. It simply doesn't make sense. Science is all about the data, and facts - even if your results fly into the face of your hypothesis, you have to accept them and find another explanation for them - not alter them.
If politicians found out that scientists cannot be pressured they'd have to stop doing it. You shouldn't be able to "rent" a PhD and tell them what to say. I might as well buy my degree on the internet if I let that be done to me. But there are always spineless individuals in every field and they give the rest of us a bad name.
Good for them for going public with this - one has to ask: exactly how long has this been going on, and where else has this junk science been taking place...
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
You do realize that abortion is considered by many to be tantamount to murder.
[...]
Don't write this behavior off to stupidity. These people are voting based on their personal ethics, not their pocketbooks.
My point is every election cycle the Republicans promise to do end abortion, or put state led prayer in public school, or prevent gays from marrying, or outlaw flag burning, or whatever, and yet every election cycle they don't. Instead they push their crony-capitalist agenda that results in lowering standards of living for the majority of Americans.
The reason why the Republicans never do anything about these social issues is that they need them to promote the idea of besiegement among their grassroot supporters. If Republicans ever did outlaw abortion, as they could today given that anti-abortion supporters currently control all three branches of the federal government, then the Republicans would lose one of their most powerful rallying cries of the past 30 years, and they're not about to do that. Instead the Republicans use abortion to get out the vote, and turn around and use that power for their wealthy backers.
Every year, the Republican grassroots are worse off than the year before. Workers are laid off, as companies take advantage of promiscuous trade policies. Every year, education cut is, so there is less opportunity of the worker to be retrained and get a new job. Every year welfare is cut, so now the worker can barely feed his kids. Every year health care costs rise. Every year, the worker falls further and further behind. Every year laws and programs that would help him are weakened. And every year, the worker laments that this year is worse than the previous one. Yet, every election he happily votes for the person who helped put him in that situation because THIS TIME he's going to "keep the sodomites down". He never realizes he's being taken advantage of, and that is dumb.
Finally, I would imagine that the cost of living in Kansas is lower than many other regions of the country. $30k might not support one person in New York City, but would probably be a nice wage in a small Kansas town.
I didn't make a comparison of the purchasing power of x dollars in one part of the country, than another. "Rich" and "poor" are relative terms, of course they are going to be defined for whatever domain (in this case geographic) you're talking about. For your information, according to the census bureau, the median household income is $40k, with a mean of $50k.
Here's a Kansan example of what I meant by the poor voting against their own interests. Kiowa County has a median household income 22% below the state average, 29% of which comes from government programs. Since 1995, it has received $40 million from farm subsidies alone Yet, that county is so desperate to get "big government off its back", in 1992, it voted to secede from Kansas. Every time they vote to eliminte these programs, they are quite literally voting to take money out of their own pockets.
As for education, don't confused schooling with learning. School is an excellent way to learn some ideas, but a very poor way to learn other ideas: Why do you think certain professions require apprenticeship? The average fulltime farmer isn't some ignorant country hick: He's a small businessman who needs to understand farming, science, finance and even a bit of law. There's a lot more to the job then digging a hole in the ground and dropping a few seeds.
It's quite interesting that you brought up the stereotype that everyone in Kansas is a farmer. They're not. In fact, one of the largest employers in Kansas is Boeing.
What really has touched me off about your "farmer's aren't dumb" comment, is that I'm willing to bet that between the two us, only one of us grew up with a cornfield less than a 100 feet from his bedroom window.
Well, actually, they are rather right-wing from a non-American perspective. But in America, apparently, it's the difference between night and day. It's all in our head, but whatever.
Republicans essentially stand for lowering taxes, decreasing the size/amount of government and government regulation, etc, etc. Recently they've also seemed to take a very socially conservative point of view (ie: wanting to regulate the private life), which is somewhat ironic. However, this may just be a momentary trend and go away in the future, as Republican ideals are consistently in favor of less Federal Government intervention.
Democrats essentially stand for government programs that benefit the people (though this is not always what we get in practice!), higher taxes for the rich (to support these new government programs) and Federal regulation on anything they believe needs it (which could be quite the slippery slope toward socialism).
And there are more than two parties: there's the Libertarian party, the Green party, hell, we even have the Communist and Nazi Party in the US. If you don't like those two parties, start your own! Until you get a moderate amount of votes for president, you won't recieve any funding to help you run your party, but there you have it.
Also, even if you belong to a party, you don't have to vote for them if you don't want to. You can write in "Micky Mouse" on the ballot if it really struck your fancy. It's your choice.
The big reason that these two standpoints are mentioned is because our country has, apparently, become completely incapable of respecting the intricasy of any argument, and tries to boil everything down to two base-line viewpoints. Everything gets simpliified down to sound bites and harped on and used as war cries, regardless of whether they even truly have any meaning for their particular point.
For example, we have the "anti partial birth abortion" people vs. "pro choice". They argued back and forth for weeks/months, but no one seemed to notice that the "pro choice" people weren't necessarily for murdering fully formed fetuses, per se, but only in wanting to allow the mother, if medically necessary, an "escape route", so to speak. I don't want to get into details on which side is right or wrong, but the point is, "pro choice" is a far cry from "wanting to make sure the mother's life isn't in danger by not allowing this". But instead, it was made to sound like these people wanted to go about aborting fetuses willy nilly, just for fun. It's really dishonest - and I don't blame the Republicans/Conservatives for this - it's rampant throughout America, and, in my opinion, a serious, terminal disease to the political process in America.
(Please note that I am not a political scientist, just a geek who takes politics very seriously. I'm sure Republicans would try to paint themselves in a different way and Democrats as well, but it's really difficult to determine what is fact and what is an offshoot of their respective Public Relations campaigns.)