E-M:/ Scientists Protest Bush Administration Misuse of Science and "TheJunk Science of the Bush Administration"

[Tracey Easthope <tracey@ecocenter.org>]

Title: Scientists Protest Bush Administration Misuse of Scien

Enviromich readers might be interested in the release of a report

signed by many National Medal of Science winners and

nobel laureates about the abuse of science in the

Bush Administration.  This abuse has real implications for Michigan

residents on a range of issues, not only because of the

implications for regulation, but because it fundamentally frays

trust in the scientific integrity of our federal agencies.

And below that -  is a brief excerpt from a hardhitting Nation article

written by Robert Kennedy on the same issue.

Preeminent Scientists Protest Bush Administration's Misuse of Science

Nobel Laureates, National Medal of Science Recipients, and Other Leading Researchers Call for End to Scientific Abuses, February 18, 2004

Washington, D.C.-Today, more than 60 leading scientists-including Nobel laureates, leading medical experts, former federal agency directors and university chairs and presidents-issued a statement calling for regulatory and legislative action to restore scientific integrity to federal policymaking. According to the scientists, the Bush administration has, among other abuses, suppressed and distorted scientific analysis from federal agencies, and taken actions that have undermined the quality of scientific advisory panels.

"Across a broad range of issues, the administration has undermined the quality of the scientific advisory system and the morale of the government's outstanding scientific personnel," said Dr. Kurt Gottfried, emeritus professor of physics at Cornell University and Chairman of the Union of Concerned Scientists. "Whether the issue is lead paint, clean air or climate change, this behavior has serious consequences for all Americans." 

"Science, to quote President Bush's father, the former president, relies on freedom of inquiry and objectivity," said Russell Train, head of the Environmental Protection Agency under Nixon and Ford, who joined the scientists in calling for action. "But this administration has obstructed that freedom and distorted that objectivity in ways that were unheard of in any previous administration."

The statement notes that while scientific input to the government is rarely the only factor in public policy decisions, this input should be weighed from an objective and impartial perspective. However, the administration of George W. Bush has disregarded this principle.

"The Earth system follows laws which scientists strive to understand," said Dr. F. Sherwood Rowland a Nobel laureate in chemistry. "The public deserves rational decisionmaking based on the best scientific advice about what is likely to happen, not what political entities might wish to happen."

"We are not simply raising warning flags about an academic subject of interest only to scientists and doctors," said Dr. Neal Lane, a former director of the National Science Foundation and a former Presidential Science Advisor. "In case after case, scientific input to policymaking is being censored and distorted. This will have serious consequences for public health."

In conjunction with the statement, the Union of Concerned Scientists today released a report  Scientific Integrity in Policymaking that investigates numerous allegations in the scientists' statement involving censorship and political interference with independent scientific inquiry at the Environmental Protection Agency, the Food and Drug Administration, and the Departments of Health and Human Services, Agriculture, Interior and Defense.

One example cited in the statement and report involves the suppression of an EPA study that found the bipartisan Senate Clear Air bill would do more to reduce mercury contamination in fish and prevent more deaths than the administration's proposed Clear Skies Act. "This is akin to the White House directing the National Weather Service to alter a hurricane forecast because they want everyone to think we have clear skies ahead," said Kevin Knobloch, president of the Union of Concerned Scientists "The hurricane is still coming, but without factual information no one will be ready for it."

Comparing President Bush with his father, George H.W. Bush and former president Richard M. Nixon, the statement warned that had these former presidents similarly dismissed science in favor of political ends, over 200,000 deaths and millions of respiratory and cardiovascular disease cases would not have been prevented with the signing of the original Clean Air Act and the 1990 amendments to that Act.

The statement demands that the Bush administration's "distortion of scientific knowledge for partisan political ends must cease" and calls for Congressional oversight hearings, guaranteed public access to government scientific studies and other measures to prevent such abuses in the future. The statement further calls on the scientific, engineering and medical communities to work together to reestablish scientific integrity in the policymaking process.

# # #
Among the statement signers are:

Philip W. Anderson*Ý
David Baltimore*Ý
Paul Berg*Ý
Lewis Branscomb
Thomas Eisner*
Jerome FriedmanÝ
Richard Garwin*
Walter Kohn*Ý
Neal Lane
Leon Lederman*Ý
Mario MolinaÝ
W.K.H. Panofsky*
F. Sherwood RowlandÝ
J. Robert Schrieffer*Ý
Richard SmalleyÝ
Harold E. Varmus*Ý
Steven Weinberg*Ý
E.O. Wilson*

* National Medal of Science

Ý Nobel laureate

From the Robert Kennedy article:

"Today, flat-earthers within the Bush Administration - aided by

right-wing allies who have produced assorted hired guns and conservative

think tanks to further their goals - are engaged in a campaign to

suppress science that is arguably unmatched in the Western world since

the Inquisition. Sometimes, rather than suppress good science, they

simply order up their own. Meanwhile, the Bush White House is purging,

censoring, and blacklisting scientists and engineers whose work

threatens the profits of the Administration's corporate paymasters or

challenges the ideological underpinnings of their radical

anti-environmental agenda. Indeed, so extreme is this campaign that more

than sixty scientists, including Nobel laureates and medical experts,

released a statement on February 18 that accuses the Bush Administration

of deliberately distorting scientific fact "for partisan political

ends."

http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=17949

Nation Magazine

February 26, 2004

The Junk Science of George W. Bush

By Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., The Nation

As Jesuit schoolboys studying world history we learned that Copernicus

and Galileo self-censored for many decades their proofs that the earth

revolved around the sun and that a less restrained heliocentrist,

Giordano Bruno, was burned alive in 1600 for the crime of sound science.

With the encouragement of our professor, Father Joyce, we marveled at

the capacity of human leaders to corrupt noble institutions. Lust for

power had caused the Catholic hierarchy to subvert the church's most

central purpose - the search for existential truths.

Today, flat-earthers within the Bush Administration - aided by

right-wing allies who have produced assorted hired guns and conservative

think tanks to further their goals - are engaged in a campaign to

suppress science that is arguably unmatched in the Western world since

the Inquisition. Sometimes, rather than suppress good science, they

simply order up their own. Meanwhile, the Bush White House is purging,

censoring, and blacklisting scientists and engineers whose work

threatens the profits of the Administration's corporate paymasters or

challenges the ideological underpinnings of their radical

anti-environmental agenda. Indeed, so extreme is this campaign that more

than sixty scientists, including Nobel laureates and medical experts,

released a statement on February 18 that accuses the Bush Administration

of deliberately distorting scientific fact "for partisan political

ends."

 - snip -