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Scientists Decry Political Interference
RamblingMan writes "According to the BBC, the American Union of Concerned Scientists has put out a statement about the misrepresentation of date and a list of such interference by the U.S. government in scientific research. Besides the usual slew of Nobel Laureate signatories, they provide a number of examples besides the well-known example of the EPA's Global Warming Report." From the BBC article: "'It's very difficult to make good public policy without good science, and it's even harder to make good public policy with bad science,' said Dr Peter Gleick, president of the Pacific Institute for Studies in Development, Environment and Security. 'In the last several years, we've seen an increase in both the misuse of science and I would say an increase of bad science in a number of very important issues; for example, in global climate change, international peace and security, and water resources.'"
According to the BBC, the American Union of Concerned Scientists has put out a statement about the misrepresentation of date and a list of such interference by the U.S. government in scientific research.
What do you expect from a man who can't even pronounce "Nuclear" properly? Honestly?
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
No, its about the misrepresentation of data.
And, on that note, when thinking of misrepresentation, the phrase "Slasdhot editor" comes to mind.
science goes wherever the government sees a critical priority, unfortunately nowadays many governments are controlled by money interests, this is what's really interfering in the relationship between science/politics.
Even when the press puts such statements up for rebuttal to our president, he goes around the question, dodging it and then says "...we have a lot of work to do for the American people..."
Science has been a contentious subject throughout history. Whereas in the past science was misused and constrained by the church, today it has been co-opted by politics. Scientific progress has continued nevertheless. I believe that scientists will continue to discover new and exciting things about the physical world regardless of the representation or supression of their discoveries. This is especially true when viewed from a global perspective.
Many scientific organisations came into being due to cold war era military etc funded exercises which were justified by political goals. Why should things be expected to change now?
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Funding certain areas of scientific research instead of others is one thing; actively suppressing or ignoring the results of said research is entirely another. The executive branch has some control over what gets researched, and I'm basically OK with that; what I'm not OK with is the government's control of the results.
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Because ideally scientists provide information for making decisions (military, financial, etc.). The same reason you check your weather before deciding to have a picknick.
And the same reason you look at a label on the bottle before deciding whether to drink it... Instead of drinking something first, then deciding what it should say on the label ("joro spider toxin?")
A recent example is Iraq:
What should have been: (WMDs found?) -> (if YES, should we go to war?) -> (if YES, go to war)
Instead we got: (we want to go to war) -> (WMDs found?) -> (if NO say YES) -> (if YES, go to war)
Obama likes poor people so much, he wants to make more of them.
While I certainly don't approve of the way the current administration treats scientific research, the article seems to imply that it is bad for all science. No doubt the administration has hindered progress in areas that clash with its politics, such as climate change. However, there are plenty of areas not so politically turbulent that operate without interference. There are probably even some areas of scientific research that have benefited from the Bush administration, petroleum geology for instance. The Bush administration isn't necessarily bad for science, it's just bad for certain, politically sensitive, areas of science. I'm not taking issue with the report (like I said before, I don't approve of the way the administration has handled this), just the way that it has been presented.
It's too bad the data isn't out there so you could go and look at it yourself or anything.
Ok, climate change, acid rain, extinction of species, water resources, peak oil, blah blah blah -- I'll grant that's the domain of science.
But international peace?
The Israelis and Palestinians hate one another -- what role does science play in that?
"Well, after looking under the microscope, we now see that they don't hate one another."
Thank the Flying Spaghetti Monster for science!
Let me know when science can solve the problem of people hating one another for generations upon generations -- oh, and when they can go MMORPG cheater and dupe Taiwan so that China finally will shut up -- then I'll be impressed.
No, good public policy was never the norm, though lack of scientific knowledge hasn't been the only major reason (indeed, isn't even #1, which is "lack of interest in the public good among the governing elite".) But its certainly a limiting factor, nonetheless.
That's true. Unfortunately, almost any area of public policy requires knowing lots of things, some of which, for almost any policy question imaginable, are of the type that are non-obvious and for which systematic study is necessary to get right other than by chance.
And much of that received, traditional knowledge may be generally correct, but have rather severe limitations that don't become obvious until you try to apply it outside of the context in which that knowledge was generated. You can do that either by systematic study before you implement policy, or by implementing disastrous policy.
Of course, much of that received, traditional "knowledge" is just plain factually incorrect, too.
Perhaps you do not, but you almost certainly need a methodology that includes empirical tests and peer review at some point. Received wisdom -- about race, about god/godess/the gods, about how to cure ailments -- must be subjected to the same tests and the best tools we have for achieving some modicum of "truth" about the world. You don't have to argue for an absolute-truth epistemology or for modern science as the end of human progress to conclude that some ways of knowing are better than others, and that all attempts at knowing must be verified and critiqued as best we can.
More importantly, we live in a world where policy directly interacts with issues intimately connected with the sciences -- if you were making policy in 18th century Boston, you're not (except in the most remote senses) making policies that deal with the Internet, or nuclear weapons, or global warming. The spectre of these things makes science far more crucial in public policy than at any other point in human history.
Online citizen journalism from the inner city: The View From The Ground
Actually, the complaint is that politics is too separated from science. Politicians are ignoring real science and creating a falsified pseudoscience to replace it.
Science, at it's core, is about recognizing and organizing patterns in factual observations. Government, at it's core, should be about a lowest common denominator - things that the vast majority of people can agree on. This lowest common denominator is factual observations.
There is considerable debate over the existence of a God entity but there is very little debate over the existence of gravity. Gravity can be observed. Governments should take the existence of gravity into account when making their decisions. Governments should not take the existence of a God entity into account when making their decisions (unless/until the existence of a God entity can be established as a matter of factual observation).
If a pattern of factual observations is indicating the global warming is occurring then governments should take this into account. Governments should always take factual observations into account regardless of whether the decision is military decision or a financial decision or any other decision.
The basic message to the government is this: "Don't ignore factual observations when making decisions."
They are "special" where their public intelligence duties are concerned.
The same as doctors are "special" in their duties of preserving human life (even though killing off certain patients would save our insurance companies money)
Cops are "special" in that they uphold the rule of the law and not the will of a dictator (the reason Clinton could not throw all the Republican voters in jail in this country).
Shouldn't the voters decide what the truth is?
No. Voting the Earth flat will not make it so. Evolution will not disapear no matter what people believe. It will not stop raining the moment you impeach your Local8 weatherman. Voters can make up their policy given the facts, but they should not make up the facts
Obama likes poor people so much, he wants to make more of them.
What are you talking about ? There is oversight on scientists. It's called peer review.
Unless you can prove they ignore the suppression and misrepresentation of findings only in a very selective way, I think you'd have to say rather that they're trying to de-politicize science. They're a watchdog group whose only agenda is full disclosure and absolute rigor. I don't see how that would translate into any kind of political leaning.
(Of course it's common knowledge that the truth has a strong liberal bias.)
-- thinkyhead software and media
haha, you're not suggesting feed a cold, starve a fever is inaccurate are you?
It is funny how the parent assumes that everyone came from a sane upbringing where reason was taught rather than irrational hatred or any of the myriad of other attributes that make up this diverse world we live in.
Much of what we know as common sense now wasn't so common 200 years ago though and everything does need to get examined as you said, either through disastrous policy where thousands are injured or dead like Katrina or through scientific study before hand saving lives at the cost of money. Sounds like a no-brainer to me but I'm crazy like that.
I think you're right all around there, nice post.
That's right. Science is simply an extension and justification of popular opinion. Too many of these elitists seem to think it's about objective study of the nature our universe.
I think the government hasn't gone far enough. All scientists should be denied funding until they provide conclusive proof of the existence and location of the Garden of Eden, our common ancestors in Adam and Eve and that God is white and conservative. Funding any research until that is done should be an offense attracting the death penalty. By public burning at the stake.
While we're at it, how come meteorologists get off so lightly? There's an example of elitism right there. From now on weather forcasts should always be for perfect beach weather in coastal areas, perfect snow cover in the mountains, and just the right amount of rainfall for the farms. All year round.
This is clearly the only way forward
I don't therefore I'm not.
Academic freedom doesn't mean scientists are completely unregulated, in fact, there are many ethical restrictions placed on them when conducting research (and for good reason, I assume I don't have to point out historical examples here...), however, it means that the direction of the research and the publishing of conclusion ought to be unrestricted so it may come under the review of the scientist's peers.
Just junk food for thought...
Science + Truthiness = Scienciness
Scienciness gives us more consistent and reassuring results than that old-fashioned science. The old stuff is for pessimists and gloom-and-doomers. The optimists in this country will not let such negative attitudes hold back progress and growth.
They're a watchdog group whose only agenda is full disclosure and absolute rigor.
I see that you don't know much about the UCS. They're a Left-wing advocacy group whose original goal was to shut down nuclear power. Having largely succeeded at that, they then went on to other left-wing causes.
Unless you can prove they ignore the suppression and misrepresentation of findings only in a very selective way
There's plenty of proof of that out there already. Just Google it.
Their donor's list reads like a Who's Who of the Far Left. And THAT, my friend, is their only agenda. They're not the least bit interested in "full disclosure and absolute rigor", whatever the heck that may mean. They're certainly not interested in "full disclosure" of their agenda!
In times of universal deceit, telling the truth gets you modded -1 Troll
I'm just curious which "sides" you're talking about. It sounds like you're saying there's some clear line where scientists disagree. My understanding is that disagreement exists on subtler points, but not on whether human activity contributes to global warming. (Unless there's some disagreement about the principle of cause-and-effect I'm unaware of...?)
In any case, I don't think any research has itself stated that humanity must or mustn't curtail their emissions of hydrocarbons, only that there are predictable consequences of action versus inaction.
I'm not sure what point you're trying to make. If you know all about which studies are worthless, and who's quoting them, it would help if you provided some examples.
And not to be too much of a grammar nazi, but the word is lose not loose. And I think you meant to say partisan and not non-partisan. No one complains about "non-partisan work by Congress."
-- thinkyhead software and media
Leaving aside whether the UCS practices “politicized science”, or instead merely reacts to others’ politicization of science, they certainly didn't invent politicized science, having been founded in 1969, which certainly is later than birth of the scientific pretense of Marxism-Leninism as practiced by the Soviet state, which itself was hardly, itself, the birth of the politicization of science.
Heck, the cloak of modern empirical science was probably grabbed by political factions for their own ends without regard to scientific merits about a day after the first politician noticed that the whole idea of empiricism had started to catch on and have some influence. Politics are like that: any thing, religion, science, etc., that has utility for selling ideas it is associated with will be used to sell them.
It's also about politicians distorting and lying about the reports and findings of scientists. That is just as abhorrent when the politicians are distorting intelligence reports, or financial ones. So no, it's not a double standard. The politicians should be condemned whenever they distort and lie about stuff.
... and then they built the supercollider.
OK!
s cientists.html
So they publish a statement saying that the earth is becoming overpopulated. They say it is therefore imperative that abortion be universally available. (Coded, "reproductive decision.")
Saying that populations are exceeding expected future ability of the planet to sustain a minimal lifestyle...that is a relatively politically neutral statement. Just saying "overpopulation" is a bit more political, but only because you aren't stating your assumptions. Saying then that abortion is the solution is overtly political, and everyone should acknowledge this. There's probably a million potential solutions to overpopulation. Why do you suppose that abortion was chosen instead of generic population culling; or enacting a global one-child policy; launching a campaign to change cultural values; MANDATORY abortion; etc.
Union of Concerned Scientists in a statement made in 1992 regarding overpopulation: "We must ensure sexual equality, and guarantee women control over their own reproductive decisions. "
Regardless if one agrees or not with their statement, it is OVERTLY POLITICAL and has NO connection to scientific method or rigor!
http://www.actionbioscience.org/environment/world
The fact of the matter is, they are and have been for many years taking political positions on scientific findings. So the Bush administration says they disagree with some scientific finding or another. That's less destructive to science (maybe not the planet, however) than SCIENTISTS deriving concrete moral imperatives from cold scientific statement of fact.
I still can't believe the lack of knowledge on here (oops..wait this IS Slashdot..home of the ignorant and anonymous) about how the US Government works. The executive branch has little control over what gets researched. The LEGISLATIVE branch writes and funds ALL the Bills that provide the funds for Government research, if they don't like it they won't fund it (aka "it died in committie"). The "fourth branch" aka The Agencies have a great deal of control over what they PROPOSE to Congress to get funding in the budget requests they submit each year that get turned into Bills that are then funded (Authorization and Appropriations process). It is true the Exec Branch gets to name the heads of the Agencies but Congress confirms them and the long-term civil servants at the mid-levels really run the Agencies. Yes, the President also sends a "Budget" to Congress but that really has no bearing on what gets passed and most of the time the numbers are not real. Oh, and don't forget all the "pork" your Senator or Representative slips into the Bills. Having been the recipient of some "pork" when I was at NASA so I can tell you how the pig gets born, raised, slaughtered and sent to market.
Fundamentally science uses its own rules, logic, facts and deduction. Science is the only arm of the government that stands on its own merits rather than having to be forced upon us. For example science tells us the sun is very hot :) Regardless of who interprets it the fact remains the same. OTOH the financial arm of the government will say we have no money but if we were to have a separate group of accountants to view the same figures they would likely come up with a different conclusion. The latter is echoed throughout all governments. The only reason the government is so interested in science to begin with is that each scientific fact works for everyone in the same way and cannot be skewed, so it arises at the attitude "we are better to discover the fact then risk someone else find it first".
Back to the topic. Scientists are trusted to arrive at scientific conclusions, how can we trust the combustion engine but if they say the world is getting hotter in a bad way we should not? We should definitely challenge them by asking questions and seeking answers, but to discredit them for no reason is a very scary path to go down if you ask me.
A loop, by its nature, continues. If that didn't make sense, start reading this sentence again.
And I suppose you are going to tell me that the Scaife-funded "Capital Research Center" is a neutral, objective, unbiased commenter on political ideology.
There is considerable debate over the existence of a God
Actually, there is no debate among the faithful (whichever faith) about there being a God.
Faith has nothing to do with science. Science has nothing to do with faith.
Faith is the belief in something that cannot be shown to be true by science. Science is the belief that nothing is true that cannot be proven to be true.
If you use science to "prove" tenants of your faith, then it is no longer a faith, but a fact. And where is the nobility in believing in a fact?
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
Will politicians stop interfering with science when scientists stop interfering with politics?
Take for example, the pressure from scientists to implement the Kyoto protocol. A decision on whether or not to implement the Kyoto protocol is surely outside the domain of science, as it is a decision that must weight scientific data on the likely outcomes of global warming against non-scientific data on the economic effects of the Kyoto protocol. Do scientists have the advisors to balance the former against the latter? I'd argue not, and that therefore their advocacy for the Kyoto protocol is distorted. We would be better off if scientists presented neutral data.
I find it unreasonable that scientists bash the Bush and Howard administrations for not signing the Kyoto protocol when scientists only have half of the available data.
It's all very well to decry politicians interfering in science, but surely scientists should be held to the same standard.
I don't doubt that there's politics in science; But TFA is itself a political doument, trying to pose as a consensus of scientists.
Belief in an idea larger than yourself and that you can't ever really be sure is true is Noble.
Belief in the fact that water will boil at 212 degrees at sea level requires little effort.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
I refer you to this review of one of the more dishonest scientific episodes in recent memory, in which Patrick Michaels quite deliberately distorted Hansen's 1998 climate predictions (which, ten years later, were actually quite good). If I was Hansen I'd be pissed, too.
Care to provide any links that demonstrate with any shred of integrity why Dr. Hansen's research is crappy? And please don't waste my time with Junk Science or any other previously debunked sites.
Cheers.
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Yay, since you try to turn this into a political issue, now you set the scene for the political indoctrinated biases to work their way. The republicans now can just go home and ignore the whole report, because, obviously, they are against republicans so they must be democrats.
The way I see things is that the organization presented their findings now, because they noticed a huge drop of respect for science since the previous administrations. That's only a rep. vs dem. issue if you let it be one.
This description of yours fits into the "it was written by DEMS, don't listen!!!!111" conclusion you seem to be advocating.
Good excuses for not listening to a bunch of Nobel laureates. Especially since because only about 7% of them believe in any personal god at all, so they must be stupid atheist too, right? What do they know?!
It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
Be yourself no matter what they say
So we should respect these guys - http://www.mufon.com/ - instead of calling them fruitcakes?
Or perhaps you mean "noble" in the chemical sense and are suggesting they're congenitally unable to form stable relationships? If that's the case, there's going to be a lot of bowing and scraping amongst the Slashdot community in the days ahead...
"I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
Union of Concerned Scientists is a well known ultra liberal bunch of left wing scientists. Your Nobel lauretes are not that impressive, when Mohammed El-Baradi and IAEA are named as a Laureate something is wrong. The scientists are all from liberal bastions like Stanford, MIT, CalTech, Salk Institute, etc. I also see NO indications of there ever being political interference with Science before 2002 in your reference site. That's VERY sneaky as the Clintons were not really kind to science either cutting many areas of research. The "politics of science" has gone on for a long time dating back to the Manhattan Project, but the site cleverly fails to mention that. I'm betting half of them had no idea what they were signing up for. They just want to attack the current administration.
Anyone else notice the link is pointing to the Democratic Leadership Council?
Wouldn't an alternate news source be more appropriate? That's like linking to an article in the Republican Quarterly (Washington Times?) claiming that Hillary Clinton refused to kiss some child because his parents were Republican. It's not exactly unbiased.
This entire discussion feels a little like the 5 minutes hate. Maybe, just maybe, the Union of Concerned Scientists are concerned about more than science. Is it possible that they have a political agenda as well? Could it be there are other scientists out there who disagree with them on scientific issues? Maybe the EPA is cancelling these programs out of scientific validity or duplication of resources. I'm only saying these things because every damn comment in this article's thread has been a party line establishmentarian pile of arrogance. Just maybe we could do without funding these idiots.
Case in point. Look at the Ab entry. I'm DEFINITELY no fan of abstinence education but I find quotes like this to be questionable "with abstinence-only programs in place, the state ranked last in the nation in the decline of teen birth rates among 15- to 17-year-old females." (Emphasis is mine.) Why quote the decline of teen birth rates. Why not teen birth rates per-capita? That's right out of How to Lie With Statistics.
The whole article stinks of political bias even as they claim to be unbiased. We all hate President Bush but gimme a break - try some critical thinking.
I have a theory that the truth is never told during the nine-to-five hours. - Hunter S. Thompson
I post a rather diplomatic response and you come back all snotty and condescending.
./, and having a proposal and some other work due the same day, sometimes I devote less time and energy.
./ debate club prize on that point.
When writing my MS thesis, I was precise and correct and detailed. When posting on
Besides, in my post I was precise and correct; I stand by my characterization of the exec. branch having "some control" over funding, for reasons already mentioned. But I concede I didn't even need to single out the exec. branch; you win the
I mentioned distortion and suppression by "the government."
Distortion: Whoo boy. I'll start with this masterpiece about mercury (pdf) by Pombo et al. Then you have Mr. Deutsch- there's distortion and suppression all wrapped up in one nice package. And incompetence. I'll leave you with this resignation letter.
I like how you narrowly interpreted my comments to refer to strictly to publishing. Narrow interpretation is your favorite tool, isn't it. But I am more broadly concerned with the suppression/distortion of science in the government's decision making process. Refer to the situation regarding the U.S. National Assessment of the Potential Consequences of Climate Variability and Change described in the last link. See also this book.
I concur that we have it better than in China. There should be a corollary to Godwin's law- if you have to compare your country to China to argue that your government isn't so bad, you lose.
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Earlier this year, The Scientist, Magazine of the Life Sciences conducted a poll asking its mostly-scientist/science field readers what they thought of the Bush and Clinton administrations' science policies. Sorted by voting choices in 2004, and includes whether or not they believe themselves to be influenced by ideology in their science.
Poll: How bad is Bush for science?