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United States Science

Politicizing Science 124

Posted by michael from the appeal-to-authority dept.
grape jelly writes "A new website has been created by Rep. Harry A. Waxman, of California, by the name of Politics and Science that accuses the current administration of intentionally manipulating scientific data in order to further its ideology. The site was created as a result of a congressional report (pdf) request by Rep. Waxman, available on his site. A NYTimes article is also available about the report with a response from the administration."
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Politicizing Science More

Politicizing Science

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  • I guess we should impeach the liar. At least Clinton could speak english.

    • Re:Shocking development, government lies. (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Dr. Bent ( 533421 ) <ben&int,com> on Friday August 08, 2003 @12:07PM (#6646111) Homepage
      There is a big difference (in legal terms) between lying in a speech and lying under oath. Lying in a speech called a campaign promise. Lying under oath is called perjury. Little "details" like that are what make the Rule of Law work. If you start ignoring them, the whole system falls apart.
      • Yeah, lying about your sex life sure is more important than lying to get the country into a war. I'm sure glad that W. won't be lying to us [whitehouse.org] about his sex life!
      • Where does lying to a joint session of Congress fall on that scale?

      • Rule of law and elections (Score:1, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward
        "Little "details" like that are what make the Rule of Law work. If you start ignoring them, the whole system falls apart."

        Ignoring the "rule of law" like the 30% hardcore leftists that hate Bush so much that they denies that Bush won the last election just because they liked the other guy better?

        They think that the Constitutional election process is only OK if it produces a left-wing president like Clinton. If it produces a centrist or right-wing President, it can be ignored at will.
        • Ya gotta be pretty far out there on the hard core right to believe that Clinton was a left-wing president. You can't get elected once, let alone twice, as U.S. President if you are truly left wing. Clinton-Gore centrism was the reason that much of the left wanted to desert Gore for the Green Party in 2000.

          There are many centrists (it ain't just the lefties) who believe that Bush did not win the election but was instead appointed by the Supreme Court. Remember, Gore won more votes nationally than did B

  • this is something new? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by elmegil ( 12001 ) on Friday August 08, 2003 @11:48AM (#6645848) Homepage Journal
    Seems to me that the government has been manipulating and misrepresenting "scientific" data for a long time. Let's see, "marijuana makes you violent" came in the 40's as I recall, and there are plenty of other examples. This is nothing new with this administration.
    • The problem lies in the repercussions.

      "marijuana makes you violent" came in the 40's

      worst case scenario: Mass ignorance and some people get thrown in jail.

      Global warming is a myth

      worst case scenario: The planet becomes uninhabitable.

      • "marijuana makes you violent" came in the 40's

        Actual scenario: the drug war, billions spent and millions killed

        Global warming is a myth

        Actual scenario: no effect, probably no effect for 10,000 years, and hey, did the Sumerians pass any laws to curtail global warming?
        • Comment on second actual scenario:
          please ignore if that was sarcasm!
          Did the Sumerians release massive quantities of green house gasses into the environment? Did the Sumerians have the ability to measure global temperature variations over a long period of time? Just because people haven't worried about something before doesn't mean we shouldn't worry about it now.

          PS: I'm Persian == Sumerian + (sex with a lot of invaders: arabs, monguls, greeks, etc.).
        • I thought the most interesting thing on global warming recently was the point that weather patterns seem to correlate strongly with our position relative to the Sun. Seems like variations in that are easily as much to blame for global warming as our greenhouse gasses. Do I think that means we should just indiscriminately dump CO2 into the atmosphere? No, but it doesn't mean Chicken Little (aka the Greens) are right either, and I get more and more suspicous as they get more and more dogmatic about it. In

          • Pollution (Score:3, Insightful)

            by AtariAmarok ( 451306 )
            "Do I think that means we should just indiscriminately dump CO2 into the atmosphere?"

            It might mean that we should worry more about species extinction, habitat destruction, pollution with real toxins, and other environmental issues which get shoved to the back burner when "Global Warming" grabs the headlines.

            • Re:Pollution (Score:1, Flamebait)

              by bofkentucky ( 555107 )
              ding ding ding we have a winner folks. But to extend your analogy, what kills more people, breast cancer or colon cancer? Want to take a guess on what has more funding on how to cure it? I won't even go into the whole "We need an AIDS cure yesterday camp" could be solved the same way we controlled leprosy and tuberculosis before we had the marvels of modern science.
              • To quote California gubernatorial candidate Gary Coleman....

                ""But to extend your analogy," What analogy did I make? I don't recall comparing anything except in my SIG.
              • Your point is nonsense: before antibiotics tuberculosis was a killer, and it still is in much of the developing world

                (see http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/NEWS/0,,c ontentMDK:20101687~menuPK:34457~pagePK:34370~piPK: 34424~theSitePK:4607,00.html)

                how did you think we controlled tuberculosis before the "marvels of modern science"? Praying? Hugs and bunnies?
                • The contaigion was controled by moving infected individuals to TB hospitals. While the method is harsh, it was the only way some communities had from keeping the disease from wiping out entire towns. Leprosy has been controlled in much the same way throughout history as well and most plans for modern smallpox attacks do have strict quarantines to try and limit exposure to the bulk of society.

    • Re:this is something new? (Score:4, Informative)

      by BWJones ( 18351 ) on Friday August 08, 2003 @03:22PM (#6648671) Homepage Journal
      This is nothing new with this administration.

      No, but what is new with this administration is the extent of creation of policy based upon and filtered through pre-determined morality and financial interest. My letter to Sen. Waxman follows:

      Regarding your website: Politics and Science. http://www.house.gov/reform/min/politicsandscience /index.htm

      As a scientist beginning my career, I can certainly applaud your efforts to create such a page. We need more science education for the general public to ensure that people can reach appropriate decisions based upon factual and unbiased information provided by the scientific community.

      There will always be spin in politics and science, but the goal should be a search for the truth unencumbered by political ideologies or financial influence. Maintenance of this pure environment for scientific research is untenable, but the approach the Bush administration has taken has skewed scientific efforts in the name of pre-determined scientific results filtered through this administrations morality. Political decisions that guide the course of this country should not be made upon unilateral priorities. Rather, they need to be made through rigorous application of question, study and answer.

      Efforts to educate the scientific and lawmaking community through proper scientific procedure and questioning along with public education and critical thinking requires publicly funded peer-reviewed science. Your staff has done an admirable job in preparing this site based upon these principles and I would encourage the dissemination of these efforts to other lawmakers via a more intimate relationship with the scientific community. Ultimately, I would like to see in government fewer scientific cabals and more open discussions of current issues by a rotating group of scientists who advise this countries policy makers.

      Best Regards,

  • Here's a brief rundown of his contributors [opensecrets.org], looks like a run of the mill democrat stooge for labor unions, trial lawyers, and the entertainment industry.

    • Re:For those of you who don't know waxman.... (Score:4, Funny)

      by 4of12 ( 97621 ) on Friday August 08, 2003 @12:07PM (#6646119) Homepage Journal

      looks like a run of the mill democrat stooge

      Waxman, a stooge for the democrats, is a rarity these days.

      Contributors to the Republican seem to be able to afford to buy a lot more stooges.

    • He's also one of the originators of the war against smoking, which explains his support by trial lawyers-- the only "people" who really benefit from the crackdown on cigarettes.
    • Ok -- so what part about his contributor list makes the allegations in the report (which are heavily supported by references to well-established, peer-reviewed scientific literature) any less valid?

      When Science, Nature and the Lancet all agree that something is rotten in the state of Denmark the American public would do well to listen -- regardless of the political affiliation of those in the White House.

      While I understand your disagreement with most Democrats, their policies, and practices; Waxman's staf
  • In an age where scientific studies only give you accurate data on who paid for them, is there anyone who wouldn't expect this administration to manipulate data? What else can we expect from lying politicians?

    This attitude is what's scary about the world today, isn't it? We're being lied to and nobody gives a damn. I haven't read the article, but the apathy is appalling.

    • We have come to expect lies. It is considered part of the cost of doing business. Marketing; legal; political; the little niceties of socializing. Ours is a culture of lies.

  • What would you expect (Score:1, Insightful)

    by pmz ( 462998 )
    from a Christian Extremist with significant interests in the Oil Industry?

    The conflicts of interest in the current administration are so transparent, that anyone suprised by any of this literally needs a slap to set them back in reality.

  • Inevitable (Score:4, Interesting)

    by 4of12 ( 97621 ) on Friday August 08, 2003 @12:13PM (#6646190) Homepage Journal

    All information will be politicized, not just what comes from scientific investigation.

    The only defense for scientists is to continue to pursue the truth, postulate hypotheses, and to ask questions and get answers about the validity of those hypotheses.

    Honestly, what this world needs is less politics in science and more science in politics.

    Politics is so heavily weighted in emotion and personality that I hold out little hope of rational and critical thought making any more than a stage appearance in government.

  • article text (Score:3, Informative)

    by SolemnDragon ( 593956 ) <solemndragon AT gmail DOT com> on Friday August 08, 2003 @12:19PM (#6646270) Homepage Journal
    Bush Misuses Science Data, Report Says By CHRISTOPHER MARQUIS

    ASHINGTON, Aug. 7 -- The Bush administration persistently manipulates scientific data to serve its ideology and protect the interests of its political supporters, a report by the minority staff of the House Committee on Government Reform says.

    The 40-page report, which was prepared for Representative Henry A. Waxman, the committee's ranking Democrat, accused the administration of compromising the scientific integrity of federal institutions that monitor food and medicine, conduct health research, control disease and protect the environment.

    On many topics, including global warming and sex education, the administration "has manipulated the scientific process and distorted or suppressed scientific findings," the report said.

    "The administration's political interference with science has led to misleading statements by the president, inaccurate responses to Congress, altered Web sites, suppressed agency reports, erroneous international communications and the gagging of scientists," the report added.

    The White House spokesman, Scott McClellan, dismissed the report. He contended that its sponsor, Mr. Waxman, who is widely known for his aggressive inquiry into the tobacco industry, was seeking to score political points.

    "This administration looks at the facts, and reviews the best available science based on what's right for the American people," Mr. McClellan said. "The only one who is playing politics about science is Congressman Waxman. His report is riddled with distortion, inaccuracies and omissions."

    Some of the examples from the report's 21 subject areas have already been reported in the media. They include the Environmental Protection Agency's decision last year to delete a section on global warming in its comprehensive report on the state of the environment and President Bush's overstatement of the number of stem cell lines available for research under controls imposed by the administration.

    The report's authors say federal agencies have jeopardized scientific integrity in many ways, including stacking scientific advisory committees with unqualified officials or industry representatives, blocking publication of findings that could harm corporate interests and defending controversial decisions with misleading information.

    With respect to sex education, the report said, the Bush administration has advanced what the report described as an unproven "abstinence only" agenda and abolished an initiative at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that listed scientifically validated safe-sex techniques that included using condoms.

    On agricultural pollution, the Agriculture Department has issued tight controls on government scientists seeking to publish information that could have an adverse impact on industry, the report said. It cited the case of a microbiologist, James Zahn, who was denied permission to publish findings on the dangers of antibiotic-resistant bacteria near hog farms in the Midwest.

    On the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, the report said that Interior Secretary Gale A. Norton, a firm advocate of drilling for oil in the region, misrepresented to Congress her agency's scientific opinion on how drilling would affect the region's caribou population. She told lawmakers most of the caribou calving occurred outside the refuge; her scientists said the opposite was true.

  • I would hope Representative Waxman would present examples from both sides of the fence regarding science being misrepresented for politicial gain. (*cough* Global Warming. *cough* AIDS.) But, being a politician himself, I highly doubt that will happen.

    For better coverage of both science-for-political-gain AND the politics-OF-science, check out James P. Hogan's non-fiction books and his bulletin board [jamesphogan.com] for some very eye-opening insight into these types of things.

    • Re:James P Hogan does it better. (Score:4, Informative)

      by GeoGreg ( 631708 ) on Friday August 08, 2003 @01:44PM (#6647467)

      I did check out the website. He seems to be among a group of people these days who want to disbelieve any scientific result that is generally accepted. Practically all immune researchers believe HIV causes AIDS? They must be wrong! The establishment didn't accept Velikovsky? He must have been right! This attitude appears to come from an UNcritical distrust of authority. Just being dismissed by the authorities doesn't make an idea worthy of serious consideration. They may well have laughed at Galileo, but they also laughed at Bozo the Clown.

      • You apparently didn't read anything while you were checking it out, apparently. There's a great deal of facts behind the points he makes.
        • Actually, I've read a lot of it, elsewhere. Where I have some prior knowledge, I recognized some of the usual claims. More interestingly, I followed up one I didn't know about before. Here [jamesphogan.com], Hogan repeats an allegation that was new to me: that the 1986 Challenger disaster occured during the first launch using a new, asbestos-free joint putty. He says that the use of this putty was mandated due to environmental concerns about the previous, asbestos-containing putty. Sounds pretty bad... Except it's no
    • The guy is a crank: check out his page on

      http://www.jamesphogan.com/bb/archives/catastrop hi sm.shtml

      it takes an impressive degree of scientific illiteracy to fall for this kind of shit. The earth is only a few thousands of years old? Biblical events were caused by a comet bursting from Jupiter, almost hitting the earth and then turning into Venus?

      How can you believe anything someone this credulous says?

  • This is new? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Sgt York ( 591446 ) <jvolm@earthlin[ ]et ['k.n' in gap]> on Friday August 08, 2003 @01:10PM (#6646980)
    The government is manipulating information in order to further its agenda? This is news? Did anyone actually NOT know this? It's been true for centuries, even melinnia. It's certainly not limited to this administration.

    Today, it's actually a necessity. You can find a study to say whatever you want; depending on the model, experimental methods, statistical methods, and a dozen other variables. People who act on research must filter through what is discovered, and decide what they think is true.

    There are studies that prove global warming is currently killing thousands, and others that prove that it never exsisted, is a natural process, or is being/has been reversed. DTT is a killer, and the guy that did the study did it wrong/no he didn't. There is/is not a "gay gene".

    Adminstration has to filter through these reports and determine which ones are correct, because they can't all be correct. Is it surprising that they would pick the ones that best fit their agenda? Even when you take good advisors into account, these advisors must be selected by the administration. Who's best? How does the administration pick their advisors? The same way they would pick which study to believe: Based on what they already think is true, or whatever best fits into their perception of how the world works. No matter how open minded and unbiased they (the admin) tries to be, they won't be, can't be unbiased. They will still lean towards what they had previously believed. And they won't be easily swayed, because any data that comes out contradicting what they believe can be countered by some other piece of (just as accurate) data that was gathered under slightly different conditions.

    I guess the only real way around it would be to have advisory panels staffed by the scientists with the opposing views. Even then, though...many, if not most, scientists are severely lacking in interpersonal skills (I say this as a scientist severely lacking in interpersonal skills), so those panels would get little done, especially when several of the people in the room have been butting heads for decades.

    My sig seems even more appropriate than usual today...

    • Waxman = more government manipulation (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      " The government is manipulating information in order to further its agenda?"

      Realize that this describes this biased report by Waxman (who is also a member of the govenrment). Remember that Waxman would have never made such charges of Clinton no matter how much science manipulating they did. Waxman, after all, went way out on a limb to exonerate Clinton of actual crimes he committed (just because Clinton was a fellow Democrat).

  • I'm sorry but did the NY Times still have credibility? When did they earn that back after 25+ years as a left-wing rag?
  • While there is little doubt that executive administrations pick and choose the statisitics they base their policy choices on, this President has been particularly bad. Republicans and Democrats have twisted scientific data and opinions to suit their own desires, but President Bush has a habit of forcing his religious moral on the rest of us, and helping out his big business pals using 'scientists' as justification. The level of this type of behavior is unprecedented.
  • Scientists, whether or not they admit it, are guilty of letting their political views cloud their research all the time.

    For example, look at the recent editorial from the New England Journal of Medicine [nejm.org]. I quote:

    "The editors of the Journal will do our part by seeking out highly meritorious manuscripts that describe research using embryonic stem cells. When treatments derived from this technology emerge, we will publish the papers that describe them. As a physician who has cared for patients who suffered
  • Science finds objectives truths. Since science constiently comes out against conservatives on many issues, they tend to endorse a kind of sophism in which everything is debatable.


    They rely on people having factually incorrect data on global warming, birth control, etc. A Scientific worldview and a conservate worldview are as incompatable today as they were in the days of Galieo and Darwin.

    • " Science finds objectives truths. Since science constiently comes out against conservatives on many issues"

      Liberals come out against conservatives. "Science" rarely does, as it is not a policy matter.

      "They rely on people having factually incorrect data on global warming, birth control, etc"

      At this time, the conservatives tend to hold more to the real science on global warming (instead of silly fad "theories" in which someone has a political axe to grind so they make up "we are warming the earth" fict
      • "Science" rarely does, as it is not a policy matter

        But scientific data supports liberals more than conservatives.

        At this time, the conservatives tend to hold more to the real science on global warming

        I hope you're kidding. Scientists constiently say that global warming is real. Did you read the linked article? Scientists who say global wariming is real and is a problem literally outnumber the naysayers by more than one thousand to one.

        Birh control is not a science controversy. It is a political o

        • "But scientific data supports liberals more than conservatives."

          This is to much a value generality, like "liberals are better than conservatives".

          I'm sure that the average "liberal" is more science-supported than the "conservative" who happens to be a Creation Science fundamentalist. However, the average "conservative" is more science-supported than a "liberal" who happens to believe in GAIA theories (or the caller I heard on Larry King one night who said earthquakes are the Earth getting back at humans

          • Re:Because conservatives are wrong about most thin (Score:4, Insightful)

            by Tackhead ( 54550 ) on Friday August 08, 2003 @05:58PM (#6650463)
            > I'm sure that the average "liberal" is more science-supported than the "conservative" who happens to be a Creation Science fundamentalist. However, the average "conservative" is more science-supported than a "liberal" who happens to believe in GAIA theories (or the caller I heard on Larry King one night who said earthquakes are the Earth getting back at humans for environmental damage).

            *applause*. I'm reminded of a .sig where someone observed the following:

            The political left seems to regard economic policy issues as litmus tests for whether you are a good person, rather than as questions of facts about what works and doesn't work.

            There aren't too many people on the left or right) that would argue that. A leftie might phrase it differently - speaking of "heartless Republicans" and "those striving for social justice" - but would likely agree with the point.

            The odd part is that if you replace "left" with "right", and "economic" with "social", you still end up with a statement that both sides would take as a compliment.

      • Okay, just to piss in your cereal real quick...

        We are warming the earth.[1]

        There are three fundamental questions - does the earth regulate its temperature, is it regulating its temperature well enough to keep up with how fast we're warming it, and if not, is that dangerous in the long term.

        Your answers to those three questions might differ from mine, but saying that it's "fiction" that we are warming the earth is asinine.

        [1] Second Law of Thermodynamics.

  • Picking and Choosing Issues == Political (Score:4, Insightful)

    by bill_mcgonigle ( 4333 ) on Friday August 08, 2003 @04:12PM (#6649254) Homepage Journal
    I didn't see any 'facts' mentioning that the coal-burning electric plants in the US put out more nuclear radiation in a single day than the incident at 3 Mile Island did.

    Oh, right, because dems are anti-nuke and this site only serves to pick political fights.

    If someone wants to put up a site citing real science on the litany of hypocritical positions politicians take, great, but let's call this thing what it is: politics.

    • I didn't see any 'facts' mentioning that the coal-burning electric plants in the US put out more nuclear radiation in a single day than the incident at 3 Mile Island did.

      It might have been intentional but for what it's worth, your post doesn't have much to do with real science, either. Where's your source on this?

      I'm not really too concerned about whether you're right or not, because you might be. But what you've said doesn't mean much, because radiation is simply the name for a particular metho

      • Sorry, I thought it was well known. I used to have a DOE report around - I don't seem to have it at the moment - but random googling [google.com] turns up one [ornl.gov] from a national lab:
        The main sources of radiation released from coal combustion include not only uranium and thorium but also daughter products produced by the decay of these isotopes, such as radium, radon, polonium, bismuth, and lead. Although not a decay product, naturally occurring radioactive potassium-40 is also a significant contributor. The population
        • Nutz, I hit submit by accident. Here [ohio-state.edu]'s the second link I cited.

          But to your point, my comment wasn't intended to be good science - it was an editorial comment on Slashdot for pete's sake - my point was that by picking a small sample of issues that are pet peeves of the Senator, the site in question is bad science, and thinkly veiled politics. My example was to illustrate that policy is rarely influenced by science - usually religion, emotion, and politics are far more infulential factors.

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