Slashdot Mirror
USDA Scrambles To Ease Concerns After Researchers Were Ordered To Stop Publishing Publicly Funded Science (popsci.com)
Layzej writes: Popular Science reports that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is now barred from communicating with the public. [And early this morning, BuzzFeed revealed that] The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has banned scientists and other employees from sharing the results of its taxpayer-funded research with the broader public. From the report: "The memo outlining these new rules has not been made public, but the ban reportedly includes everything from summaries of scientific papers to USDA-branded tweets. Scientists are still able to publish their findings in peer-reviewed journals, but they are unable to talk about that research without prior consent from their agency. This is not the first time that public science has been hamstrung by a gag order. To this day, the quantity of oil spewed into the ocean during the 2010 Deepwater Horizon Oil spill remains something of a mystery. Many of the scientists who worked on the spill were hired by BP and barred from speaking on it. But gag orders -- while always troublesome -- have usually been limited to one specific issue. Right now, the EPA and USDA have been forbidden to speak about all of their scientific research. It means that many of the kinds of stories we now cover will never see the light of day." UPDATE 1/24/17: The USDA has disavowed the memo sent to employees at its Agricultural Research Service unit. USDA's deputy administrator, Michael Young, clarified that the gag order specifically applies to policy-related statements in press releases and interviews, which need to be vetted with the secretary of agriculture. He told The Washington Post that peer-reviewed scientific papers from the unit should not be blocked, nor should food safety announcements. The Washington Post notes that "the memo's shortness and terse language seems to have exacerbated the confusion: 'Starting immediately and until further notice, ARS will not release any public-facing documents. This includes, but is not limited to, news releases, photos, fact sheets, news feeds, and social media content,' wrote ARS chief Sharon Drumm in an email to employees."
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/six-years-of-deceit-20070628
Maybe you don't want to face the truth, but that leaked memo was real, true and even confirmed as a USDA memo. They confirmed it, when they attempted to walk it back as badly worded!
"The U.S. Department of Agriculture said on Tuesday that an internal email sent to staff at its Agricultural Research Service unit this week calling for a suspension of “public-facing documents,” including news releases and photos, was flawed and that new guidance has been sent out to replace it."
So yeh, a real true memo, even confirmed by the department itself.
And again, Buzzfeed CNN etc. are shown to be true sources of true news. Wait till he lifts sanctions of Russia and releases a report claiming Nato hacked the US electin not Russia, and you'll deny he's a Putin puppet too.
The conservative Harper government sent government censors to monitor what scientists said at conferences. I would definitely expect the much-more-extremist conservative government we have here now to go further. And Trump knows the power of twitter and social media. The roadblock to taking action on climate change isn't a lack of peer-reviewed journals or conferences. The issue is getting the public to realize they're definitely in danger. Trump is likely looking into keeping that from happening.
Can you give an example - one example - of this "shitposting" by workers at these agencies? Can you even point to anything remotely partisan in any of the tweets that were deleted?
You are welcome on my lawn.
Here's a socialist hellhole where the government is involved in everything. It seems to be working out just fine.
"A copy of the interim procedures memo, dated Jan. 23 .. shows many of the steps reflect either the same or similar measures taken by the previous administration"
When was the previous admin instructed to remove the climate change page from its website?
Yes, well, Trump is not a strong president. You can see that in his constant references to himself as "smart" and going ballistic over every slight. He's a small-minded narcissist with the attention span of gnat.
Please explain how one publishes scientific information without publishing documents?
You hand it to a politician, who yellow lines the parts that do not align with party policy You remove the parts that are not true because the truth has been set by party policy, and if the politician ends up finding the now policy confirming paper acceptable, it gets published.
I have a strong suspicion that in science departments all over the country, that they are making backups to be hidden from the new age of alternative truth we have entered. Kind of like the Svalbard Global Seed Vault for science data https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... .
Because this too shall pass. Ages of alternative facts come and go. Ages of politics determining the laws of physics will come and go. We don't hear much of Lysenkoism these days, though it was once official Soviet Union policy.
I suspect that at this time that physics will be ignored and all research into the greenhouse effect will be suppressed, that creationism will rear it's head again, and a lot of heath science will be suppressed as well.
And? Well these are the times we live in. Scientists are a different breed. An example is in WW2, oddly enough - in Leningrad - 12 scientists chose to slowly starve to death rather than eat the seeds of their seed bank. http://www.popsci.com/science/...
All in all, if The new Politicians see fit to kill me for my views on physics, if the greenhouse effect and my support of it, or any of my other science views that have been banned by policy make me too dangerous to allow to live - then I shall die. Hopefully they are smart enough to know that suppression and killing tend to make truth stronger than policy. I have my grave doubts though.
Because all of this shall pass.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.