Re: Ending the War on Science?



[M]adman wrote:
VoiceOfReason wrote:
President Obama made good on a campaign promise today by announcing a
plan to raise the level of scientific integrity in policymaking - but
the guy who is supposed to flesh out the plan is still stuck in Senate
confirmation limbo.

Word about Obama's presidential memorandum on scientific integrity
came as the president signed a separate executive order loosening the
White House's limits on stem cell research.

"Promoting science isn�t just about providing resources - it is also
about protecting free and open inquiry," Obama said during today's
signing ceremony. "It is about letting scientists like those here
today do their jobs, free from manipulation or coercion, and listening
to what they tell us, even when it�s inconvenient - especially when
it�s inconvenient. It is about ensuring that scientific data is never
distorted or concealed to serve a political agenda - and that we make
scientific decisions based on facts, not ideology."

Alan Leshner, chief executive officer of the American Association for
the Advancement of Science, told The Associated Press that the turnout
for the ceremony included "more happy scientists than I've seen" at
the White House during his 30 years in Washington.

Doug Melton, who is the co-director of the Harvard Stem Cell Institute
as well as the father of two children with Type I diabetes that could
possibly be treated with stem cells, said he welcomed today's
developments as "an enormous relief and a time for celebration."

"Science thrives when there is an open and collaborative exchange, not
when there are artificial barriers, silos, constructed by the
government," Melton said in a statement.

Obama's predecessor, George W. Bush, came under criticism throughout
his White House tenure for letting political leanings dictate federal
policy on issues ranging from embryonic stem cells to environmental
policies. There's a long list of horror stories, including the tales
told about climate researcher Rick Piltz and wildlife biologist Andy
Eller, as well as accounts from researchers at the U.S. Geological
Survey and at NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration.

Today's memo calls on the director of the White House's Office of
Science and Technology Policy to draw up a detailed plan over the next
120 days to make sure officials who deal with science and technology
policy are selected because of their expertise rather than their
politics. The plan also would seek to ensure that all the findings on
which policy decisions are based will be made public, and that
appropriate protections will be extended to "science whistleblowers"
who question the basis for those decisions.

The memo makes good on a promise included in Obama's responses to a
Science Debate 2008 questionnaire. Chris Mooney, author of "The
Republican War on Science," said the memo breaks new ground by putting
the White House's top science adviser in charge of guaranteeing
scientific integrity at every federal agency. "It sounds like the
people in the Cabinet will need to talk to him like an equal," Mooney
said.

During the previous administration, White House science adviser John
Marburger often seemed to be cast as an apologist for Bush's science
policies rather than a watchdog, Mooney said. "Either Marburger or the
agency would say, 'No, we didn't do anything wrong. This is standard
agency procedure,'" he said.

"It's a different situation now. ... There are going to be rules,
things you can't do - and at least nominally, that's more than the
Bush administration did," Mooney added.

The only problem is that Obama's nominee for science adviser, Harvard
physicist and climate expert John Holdren, hasn't yet been confirmed
by the Senate. Neither has marine researcher Jane Lubchenco, Obama's
choice to head NOAA.

The reasons for the delay are murky: Any senator can put a hold on a
confirmation vote, and for a time it looked as if the culprit was Sen.
Robert Menendez, D-N.J. But late last week, Menendez's office told
Talking Points Memo that the senator was no longer standing in the
way. So who is?

Lubchenco has faced some criticism from Eastern fishing interests, but
it's Holdren who has generated the most controversy. Some worry that
Holdren holds extreme views on the global climate crisis, and that
science policies might be slanted to fit those views. That's made him
a lightning rod for commentators sounding the alarm about a "Democrat
War on Science."

Mooney addressed those worries in a Science Progress blog posting in
December and is keeping an eye on the controversy. In Mooney's view,
the opposition is a political reaction to the years of criticism that
Bush faced on the integrity issue. "What could be more obvious than to
try to do a 180 and flip it, and say, 'No, it's Obama who's trying to
get political'?" Mooney said.

For whatever reason, Holdren's appointment remains on hold - and thus
Obama's plan for improving scientific integrity may have to be put on
hold as well.

You'll find a variety of perspectives on Obama's policies from the
National Academies, from TierneyLab at The New York Times, from
Commonweal and the Union of Concerned Scientists.


Obama is defending */real/* science.

Not evolution.

Obama's defense of science also means that politicians will cease the
Bush League's practice of interfering when Federal agencies talk about
evolution, age of the earth, how the Grand Canyon was formed, etc.

.

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