Smithsonian 'Toned Down the Science' In Climate Change Exhibit

An anonymous reader writes "According to an International Herald Tribune article, the Smithsonian pre-emptively toned down the scientific content of a climate change exhibit put into place last year. The changes, including removal of scientist conclusions and muddying of displayed data, were made to ensure that the exhibit would not offend the Congress or the White House. Pressure brought to bear by Institute officials resulted in the resignation of Robert Sullivan, a sixteen year veteran of the organization. 'This is not the first time the Smithsonian has been accused of taking politics into consideration. The congressionally chartered institution scaled down a 1995 exhibit of the restored Enola Gay, the B-29 that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, after veterans complained it focused too much on the damage and deaths. Amid the oil-drilling debate in 2003, a photo exhibit of Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge was moved to a less prominent space.'"

Comments

They are following the "Golden Rule".

[AltGrendel]

Who ever has the gold, makes the rules.

Self-policing

[PIPBoy3000]

The most troublesome part is that it was Smithsonian's administration that wanted the changes, not people from the US administration.

There's two kinds of people: those that change their beliefs to fit the facts and those that change the facts to fit their beliefs.

When you're changing the facts to fit other people's beliefs, well, I guess you get the budget dollars but lose all self-respect.

Re:Money ALWAYS comes with strings attached

[malsdavis]

It's like your typical parent company shareholder override situation:

The Smithsonian institute are funded by the government of the United States.
Most of the current Congressmen / Senators / President which make up the government of the United States are funded by the big Oil companies.

The big Oil companies obviously don't want to see pictures of Climate Change or pictures of the national parks they are in the process of trashing and so get what they see as their subsidiary company to "make the changes".

Courtesy of United States Inc.

Re:Government funding

[grub]

I guess these guys have to be as politically neutral as possible.

That's crap. Politics has no place in science. "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his job depends on not understanding it" comes to mind when politics and science meet.