|
Cuneiformist
The Imperfectionist
USA
4955 Posts |
 Posted - 12/27/2004 : 08:53:26
|
This topic has come up more than once here at SFN, but I thought I'd bring it up again. Over at the New York Review of Books, they ran an interesting review of two books, one of which was the Scientific Integrity in Policymaking: An Investigation into the Bush Administration's Misuse of Science by the Union of Concerned Scientists. The review is quite interesting, and it sounds like the UCS report is worth getting, too:quote:
Scientific Integrity in Policymaking accuses the Bush administration, first, of deliberately suppressing scientific findings in the interest of its own ideological and political ends and, second, of packing various regulatory and review boards with unqualified members who can be counted on to favor industrial profits or conservative ideologies over public health and safety. Manipulation, distortion, and suppression of scientific findings in the interest of industries, the report shows, have affected research results on climate change, on mercury emissions and other pollutants, on airborne bacteria, on endangered species and forest management. The government's evidence about Iraq's famous aluminum tubes is said to have been misrepresented in the interests of building a case for war.
Three examples are given of the way in which education and information about scientific findings have been manipulated to support a conservative religious ideology. In order to demonstrate that abstinence-only programs were effective, the Bush administration instructed the Centers for Disease Control not to follow the actual birth rate for participants in an abstinence-only test program, but only their attendance and attitudes toward the program. In order to hide the effectiveness of condom use in preventing HIV infection, the CDC was directed to emphasize condom failure rates in its educational material. Finally, the National Cancer Institute was directed to post a claim on its Web site that abortion promotes breast cancer although a large study had shown no connection between them.
The report also discusses a number of cases in which government regulatory and review panels were packed with members favorable to the administration. Moreover, it is reported that many potential nominees for federal scientific advisory posts were questioned about their political views and even whether they had voted for Bush. The most transparent manipulation occurred in 2002 when the Center for Disease Control Advisory Committee on Childhood Lead Poisoning was to consider narrowing the criterion of lead poisoning, so that sources of poisoning that were formerly banned became permissible. A panel of new nominees for the Advisory Committee was proposed by the CDC and, for the first time in the history of the committee, nominees were rejected by the direct intervention of the secretary of health and human services, Tommy Thompson, who replaced them with five persons who were previously known to oppose tightening the standard. Two of the five had financial ties with the lead industry.
His discussion of the second book, H. Judson's The Great Betrayal: Fraud in Science, sounds like another thing SFNers should read.quote:
The Great Betrayal is not simply a narrative of scandals, but places var-ious instances of scientific bad behavior in the context of general social pressures and their manifestation in the scientific community. He reminds us that the drive for economic suc-cess, personal power, and the gratification of one's ego has led over and over to dishonesty, fraud, and wickedness in business, the church, and the state. Why do we think that the devotees of Newton's laws will be more saintly than those ruled by Cardinal Law?
Perhaps something to get with all that extra holiday cash floating around... 
|
|
Topic Locked
