Blinded by Science

St. Louis Post Dispatch

The problem with scientists is that they're prejudiced. They believe in objective, verifiable reality. They're biased toward facts.Politicians have been bothered by this for years. But few of them have done as much about it as the administration of President George W. Bush.A survey released this week by the nonprofit advocacy group Union of Concerned Scientists quantifies the administration's effort. More than half of the Environmental Protection Agency scientists who responded said they personally had experienced political interference with their work.Sometimes, it was the selective use of data to justify a regulatory decision. That happened last month when Mr. Bush personally intervened to weaken a rule governing ozone emissions. His eleventh-hour interference forced EPA officials to scramble to justify the move.

Other times, interference came when political appointees made changes during "reviews" that altered the meaning of scientific reports. Philip A. Cooney, a lobbyist Mr. Bush appointed to head the White House Council on Environment Quality, testified last year that it was his job to "align" scientific reports with administration policy. He made hundreds of edits to reports on global warming that emphasized doubt and uncertainty, not science.Though this week's report focused on the EPA, there's ample evidence of political interference in other government agencies:— White House officials removed references to the public health effects of global warming from testimony that Dr. Julie Gerberding, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, had prepared for a Senate committee hearing.— Dr. Richard H. Carmona, a former U.S. Surgeon General, testified that Bush administration appointees tried to suppress scientific information on topics from stem cell research to contraception and abstinence-only education.— The U.S. Food and Drug Administration delayed approving over-the-counter sales of the so-called morning-after pill, Plan B for Women, for two years because of political opposition to emergency contraception. It also removed all reference to the effectiveness of condoms at protecting against sexually transmitted disease and preventing pregnancy.Administration apologists say that political appointees always have interfered with government scientific research. There's a grain of truth in that statement. But the Bush administration has raised political interference in science to a new level. Some 43 percent of EPA scientists who responded to the survey released this week said political interference was greater over the past five year than it had been during the previous 10.Taxpayers spend billions each year on scientific research. That money is wasted if the results of the work are skewed toward political ends.Congress must insulate career federal scientists from the interference of political hacks. Good public policy is based on sound science.Political truth often is based on expediency. Scientific truth is based on evidence. We confuse them at our peril.

Reflection on Religion

From the notable Nobel laureate in physics Dr. Stephen Weinberg. "Religion is like a crazy old aunt. She tells lies, and she stirs up all sorts of mischief and she’s getting on, and she may not have that much life left in her, but she was beautiful once. When she’s gone, we may miss her.”

99.5 Percent Like a Neanderthal

New York Times Editorial

Scientists are tantalizingly close to learning just what genetic changes distinguish modern humans from Neanderthals, who went extinct some 30,000 years ago. The issue is important to experts who want to understand evolution, but also to people who deem themselves a cut above these early cousins, whose name we have turned into an insult.

Two research teams announced this week that they have assembled parts of a Neanderthal man’s genetic code from a fossil bone and teased out some preliminary information. Two experts called it the most significant advance in the field since the first Neanderthal fossils were discovered 150 years ago.

As it turns out, the genome of this particular Neanderthal — who lived some 38,000 years ago — is more than 99.5 percent identical to the genome of modern humans. The great similarity is yet more proof that Charles Darwin had it right when he viewed all life as descended from common ancestry whose genes, we now know, were passed down and modified through the ages. The new studies deduce that modern humans and Neanderthals were descended from a common forebear but parted on separate evolutionary paths at least 450,000 years ago.

Think Tank Will Promote Thinking

Advocates Want Science, Not Faith, at Core of Public Policy

By Marc Kaufman
Washington Post Staff WriterWednesday, November 15, 2006

Concerned that the voice of science and secularism is growing ever fainter in the White House, on Capitol Hill and in culture, a group of prominent scientists and advocates of strict church-state separation yesterday announced formation of a Washington think tank designed to promote "rationalism" as the basis of public policy.
The brainchild of Paul Kurtz, founder of the Center for Inquiry-Transnational, the small public policy office will lobby and sometimes litigate on behalf of science-based decision making and against religion in government affairs.
"This disdain for science is aggravated by the excessive influence of religious doctrine on our public policies," the declaration says. "We cannot hope to convince those in other countries of the dangers of religious fundamentalism when religious fundamentalists influence our policies at home."
While the speakers at the National Press Club unveiling were highly critical of Bush administration policies regarding stem cell research, global warming, abstinence-only sex education and the teaching of "intelligent design," they said that their group was nonpartisan and that many Democrats were hostile to keeping religion out of public policy.
"Unfortunately, not only do too many well-meaning people base their conceptions of the universe on ancient books -- such as the Bible and the Koran -- rather than scientific inquiry, but politicians of all parties encourage and abet this scientific ignorance," reads the declaration, which was signed by, among others, three Nobel Prize winners.