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NASA Science Under Attack
The Bad Astronomer writes "The New York Times is reporting that NASA science is being harassed and even sometimes suppressed by presidential political appointees. The article details how NASA scientists dealing with such topics as global warming and the Big Bang are under attack for ideological and religious reasons." The submitter also has a running commentary summarizing a bit of the background of the story on his blog.
A week after NASA's top climate scientist complained that the space agency's public-affairs office was trying to silence his statements on global warming, the agency's administrator, Michael D. Griffin, issued a sharply worded statement yesterday calling for "scientific openness" throughout the agency.
Not His Own Words
Climate Expert Says NASA Tried to Silence Him (January 29, 2006)
"It is not the job of public-affairs officers," Dr. Griffin wrote in an e-mail message to the agency's 19,000 employees, "to alter, filter or adjust engineering or scientific material produced by NASA's technical staff."
The statement came six days after The New York Times quoted the scientist, James E. Hansen, as saying he was threatened with "dire consequences" if he continued to call for prompt action to limit emissions of heat-trapping gases linked to global warming. He and intermediaries in the agency's 350-member public-affairs staff said the warnings came from White House appointees in NASA headquarters.
Other National Aeronautics and Space Administration scientists and public-affairs employees came forward this week to say that beyond Dr. Hansen's case, there were several other instances in which political appointees had sought to control the flow of scientific information from the agency.
They called or e-mailed The Times and sent documents showing that news releases were delayed or altered to mesh with Bush administration policies.
In October, for example, George Deutsch, a presidential appointee in NASA headquarters, told a Web designer working for the agency to add the word "theory" after every mention of the Big Bang, according to an e-mail message from Mr. Deutsch that another NASA employee forwarded to The Times.
And in December 2004, a scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory complained to the agency that he had been pressured to say in a news release that his oceanic research would help advance the administration's goal of space exploration.
On Thursday night and Friday, The Times sent some of the documents to Dr. Griffin and senior public-affairs officials requesting a response.
While Dr. Griffin did not respond directly, he issued the "statement of scientific openness" to agency employees, saying, "NASA has always been, is and will continue to be committed to open scientific and technical inquiry and dialogue with the public."
Because NASA encompasses a nationwide network of research centers on everything from cosmology to climate, Dr. Griffin said, some central coordination was necessary. But he added that changes in the public-affairs office's procedures "can and will be made," and that a revised policy would "be disseminated throughout the agency."
Asked if the statement came in response to the new documents and the furor over Dr. Hansen's complaints, Dr. Griffin's press secretary, Dean Acosta, replied by e-mail:
"From time to time, the administrator communicates with NASA employees on policy and issues. Today was one of those days. I hope this helps. Have a good weekend."
Climate science has been a thorny issue for the administration since 2001, when Mr. Bush abandoned a campaign pledge to restrict power plant emissions of carbon dioxide, the main heat-trapping gas linked to global warming, and said the United States would not join the Kyoto Protocol, the first climate treaty requiring reductions.
But the accusations of political interference with the language of news releases and other public information on science go beyond climate change.
In interviews this week, more than a dozen public-affairs officials, along with half a dozen agency scientists, spoke of growing efforts by political appointees to control the flow of scientific information.
In the months before the 2004 election, according to interviews and some documents, these appointees sought to review news releases and to approve or deny news media requests to interview NASA scientists.
Repeatedly that year, public-affairs directo
cmd-q.co.uk - some sort of stupid fucking internet bullshit
His memo reads:
Religious issues at NASA. I only wish this were some loony story, but it appears legit.
Given his young age (twenty four), you might imagine George Deutsch having an impeccable resume. He graduated in 2003 from Texas A&M with a degree in journalism, then in 2004 was an intern in the Bush-Cheney re-election "war room". Here is a link to some of his articles he wrote while at the Texas A&M Battalion.
"Waste not one watt!" - CZ
Or you can get usernames and passwords here.
May the Maths Be with you!
You left out the very best part!
[Deutsch's email] continued: "This is more than a science issue, it is a religious issue. And I would hate to think that young people would only be getting one-half of this debate from NASA. That would mean we had failed to properly educate the very people who rely on us for factual information the most."
Or is that the worst part? It's certainly the scariest.
It was a joke! When you give me that look it was a joke.
this guy is a hack and defintly has an agenda
d eutsch.html
more info on this guy here
http://www.nasawatch.com/archives/2006/02/george_
Try it.
What's ironic about this is that when the Big Bang Theory first became popular, the biggest objections to it came not from religious conservatives, but from liberal scientists. The theory was (at least partially) consistent with the Genesis account of a creation event, and that was philosophically unacceptable. The Steady-State Theory was put forth to refute the notion that the universe has a beginning and to eliminate the possibility that God had anything to do with it.
Isn't it odd that the current generation of fundamentalists now oppose the Big Bang? Hopefuly in the midst of religious/philosophical biases both pro and con the facts will eventually win the day and theories will stand or fall based on the data. One can only hope.
Honestly, I think the news story here is that an idiot 24 year old kid got appointed into a job way over his head and acted like a moron.
This story's meaning just broke the sound barrier going over your head.
Did it ever occur to you that 24 year olds don't just get appointed to such jobs out of nowhere. He was posted for a reason. This is probably it.
May the Maths Be with you!
Big Bang is an hypothesis
Wrong Big Bang is a Theory. A theory is a hypothesis with evidence pointing to that fact. While theorys may not be what is happening it seems to fit the data well, in the experements. A Law which are quite rare in science is when something is proven without a doubt.
People need to learn these basic concepts to understand science. Science is more of a processes of finding fact vs. soldid fact itself.
The more evidence you have for your theory the better your theory is and more widly excepted as truth as we know it.
Back in time truth was considered the sun went around the earth, and anyone who said otherwise without the evidence would be considered wrong/evil (as it was the style at the time), and in general they would be wrong sciencetificly because there would be no proof that he was indeed correct. This was finally change when we had the ability to map the other planets movements to realize their orbits would be simpler if they went around the sun with us as well. Thus the new truth was the sun was the center of our solar system.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Big brains and open minds are welcome in Victoria, Australia and we don't suffer from the extremes of religiosity that divide so many other places.
We don't have the huge budgets of some countries, however the CSIRO still does world class science.
http://www.liveinvictoria.vic.gov.au/ViewPage.acti on
Top 100 NASA primes for 1998 (Clinton): http://www.spacelawstation.com/top100.html.
Top 100 NASA primes for 2003 (Bush): http://www.spacelawstation.com/top2003.html.
First, the money is not allocated to friends of the Bush administration. Second, the firms are almost all public.
If you want to go far in politics, you've got to bet on one side or the other. I suppose he thinks that in 30 years time, the US will be a cleric-ridden theocracy, and then he'll be at the top of the tree.
The bad thing on his part is that he hasn't even done his research on religion. If you read, Stephen Hawking's "Brief History of Time", he talks about how the Vatican in the mid 80's had declared that the Big Bang theory conforms to their doctrine and is the preferable sicentific explanation. Wheras, Hawking had expressed his doubt at one time shortly before this proclamation that there might have not been a singular big bang, but a possible "no begining, no end universe" (which he of course speculates but doesn't really go for) which would make Creationism impossible.
In fact the Big Bang is almost required for a creationist type of event.
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
Galileo also was warned by a Pope not to inquire too deeply into the nature of God's creation. Using a telescope, which he had constructed, Galileo had been able to confirm by observation that Copernicus had concluded correctly that the earth orbits the sun, and not the opposite as had been assumed during the dark ages.
But the Church had difficulty in accepting pluralism in Galileo's time. In 1542 Pope Paul III created The Holy Roman and Universal Inquisition. This institution was authorised to interrogate, if necessary by torture, and prosecute people for heresy. Galileo was never tortured, but in 1633 he was shown the instruments of torture twice.[ii]
As a result of his treatment Galileo recanted his support for Copernicus, and so avoided such torture on the rack, which might well have physically disconnected his mind and brain from his body. He was allowed to retire to his villa where he died a virtual prisoner in 1642. Sir Isaac Newton was born on Christmas Day the same year.
The trial and conviction of Galileo sent a warning to scholars across Europe. It was unsafe to study the handiwork of God by direct observation, and doubly unsafe to draw inferences from such observations.
If it wasn't such a serious problem, I would find it amusing the way the right-wing loonies under Bush are so actively borrowing ideas from Chairman Mao. It's unfortunate that the social and economic axies have been conflated in the U.S. Most of the Soviet and Chinese abuses that trouble Americans are related to their authoritarianism rather than their leftism. The only real difference is that Mao's religeon was Communism.
The Republican party is slowly but surely becoming just as authoritarian as those hated leftist bogeymen. Taking the average of republicans in power and Democrats in power on a 2D graph, the republicans are closer to Stalin and Mao than the Democrats. Of course, with the current anti-terrorism terror within the U.S. government, many of the Democrats seem to be trying hard to close that gap.
Of course, Leftism was always a red herring in U.S. politics. The Authroitarians in the U.S. have always assigned the name 'Leftist' to the authoritarian abuses that Americans find truly abhorrant meanwhile painting themselves as their opposite while truly opposing only their economic policies.
It would seem that the days of Republicans pushing for a smaller government that stays out of people's lives is a relic of the past.
I'd recommend keeping it civil, thoughtful, polite, on topic, etc., and leaving the vitriol on Slashdot, where it belongs. ;-)
Bullshit. The happy budget position the Clinton got to enjoy had most to do with (a) recognizing that deficits matter, (b)making the politically hard choice to raise taxes in 1993, and (c) holding the line on overall spending through both his terms.
Those wise choices kept the economy growing, and the deficit shrinking.
The recession started in March 2001, and lasted until November 2001
5% of the 2002 deficit is attributable to reduced economic activity from the recession of 2001. 70% is the tax cut, and 25% is increased spending.
In the current "recovery", job growth has trailed dramatically the average job growth of all the other post-WWII recessions/recoveries. So it is easy to make the case that current policies are hampering, not helping, the economy.
Budget deficits are a simple arithmatical consequence of decreasing income and increasing spending. Republicans say one thing, that they are for small government and low taxes, and then do something else, big-government spending, and not paying for that spending. And to make it all even worse, Republican spending tends to maximize the benefits for the politically well-connected, like the Medicaid Part D plan that benefits pharmaceutical manufacturers and insurance companies far more than it does old people who need medication.
Typical "have my cake and eat it too" respone. Government programs have to be paid for. It is irresponsible to spend like gangbusters and pass tax cuts so that future generations have to pay for that spending in addition to what benefits they want government to provide.
In 1993, all the usual Republican suspects whined and gnashed their teeth that Clinton's deficit reduction package would sink the economy. It did no such thing, and the longest, strongest economic expansion in history happened. In 2000, Bush campaigned on "giving the people back their money", and with 1+1+1=5 arithmatic, persuaded folks that his first tax cut wouldn't use up the whole surplus. It did, and the economic solution to good times (tax cuts) was applied to the recession. More tax cuts in 2002, and again more tax cuts in 2003. The economic recovery is the weakest one yet.