GOP moving towards "Soviet-style centralized planning of science"

[pmbryant]

From Chris Mooney's blog:

http://www.chriscmooney.com/blog.asp#572

The House Committee on Resources' "sound science" hearing I attended yesterday represented, in my view, a fairly stunning attempt by Republican legislators to cast themselves as the party of "science," while pushing proposals that would actually deemphasize science conducted by federal agencies while privileging scientific claims coming from the private sector. This pro-industry bias was never more clear than when GOP Rep. Jim Gibbons, of Nevada, called government science an "oxymoron"--or something to that effect. I don't have the quote exactly right, but some jaws dropped in the room when he said it.

We can, apparently, expect more scientific grandstanding from the GOP in the future. Gibbons already lists his membership in something called the House's "Sound Science Caucus," and GOP Rep. Chris Cannon, of Utah, repeatedly plugged this newly formed group at the hearing. It's not hard to guess what the caucus would do: Try to get agencies like EPA to use "sound science" and "peer review" in setting regulatory policy. Unfortunately, these buzzwords mean something very different from what you might expect if you were coming to this subject uninitiated.

Rep. Edward Markey, a Democrat from Massachusetts, had what I thought was the wisest statement about the GOP's "sound science" push. This is the same party, Markey noted, that in 1995 did away with Congress's Office of Technology Assessment (OTA). Comprised of non-partisan scientific experts, OTA used to be responsible for ensuring that federal policy was informed by so-called "sound science." The new "sound science" movement, by contrast, seems to consist entirely members of Congress--"almost never scientific experts," noted Markey--who arrogantly seek to legislate the definition of what science is and what it isn't.

(snip)

But then, this movement isn't really about science at all, as becomes clear when you consider an example of a proposed "sound science" law. Take H.R. 1662 (PDF), a bill introduced by GOP Rep. Greg Walden of Oregon that would amend the Endangered Species Act to include "sound science" and "peer review" provisions. Sounds harmless enough--until you look at the details.

As George Washington University epidemiology David Michaels--one of the few dissenters invited to the hearing--pointed out in his testimony (PDF), some provisions of H.R. 1662 smack of Soviet-style centralized planning of science--what you might call "Conservative Lysenkoism" Redux. Here's Michaels:

(snip)

Remember when you hear the words "sound science" that the person mouthing them is extremely likely to be, in reality, an anti-science, corporate stooge.

The same applies when you hear the words "junk science".

These people have distorted these terms beyond all reasonable meaning. You can pretty much reverse them and come out with a much better understanding of the reality of current scientific understanding.

:grr:

--Peter

[bobbieinok]

1. I remember when US made fun of Soviet 'science'

[Kitsune]

2. Federal legitimization of "Intelligent" Design?

Ugh, it's bad enough with the circus going from state to state promoting it >_< And I want to go into education....christ, I'll teach a unit on Charles Darwin's 'historical significance' to get around it if this ridiculous nonsense takes hold.

[pmbryant]

5. I wouldn't rule that out

That's not in the cards at the moment, but the way things are going, I wouldn't be shocked to see that come up in the future if the GOP remains in total control.

:scared:

--Peter

[bobbieinok]

3. don't businesses know their future new products come from real science?

...

[Nay]

6. Yeah, probably. but they will be buying their real science from

overseas PhD's anyway, since they are so much cheaper. Bastards.

[jpak]

4. Where can I submit my grant proposal for "sound science"

I want a 20 year $200 million grant to prove that global warming is nothing more than Liberal Claptrap.

These morans would fund this grant in a heartbeat - without peer review or oversight.

I could ride that Gravy Train right through to retirement...

Ahhhhooooooooooooo!

:)

[xray s]

7. According to the Republicans creationism is sound science

all you need to know

[blurp]

8. Now hold on a second

I've been a huge advocate for the scientific approach to things for most of my life. There was a point when I was young when I gave up being a religious fundamentalist because there was no objective support for the god hypothesis. I HAD to give it up. I just couldn't find scientific support for the idea. I became a skeptic. My dad tried to literally kill me after I told him I no longer believed in a heaven or hell.

Now you know where I'm coming from.

Now I'll say this: science has become politicized and it isn't just the political right that are at fault. There are plenty of folks on the political left that prefer to play political games with science as well and this is especially true in areas like environmentalism.

What the Republicans are doing is blow back from these excesses.

There is some good stuff at the link below, IMHO. I don't know what Crichton's politics are, but I think he has a good point.

http://www.crichton-official.com/speeches/speeches_quote04.html

[pmbryant]

9. That Crichton article was a sorry excuse for an argument

I actually read that ridiculous article by Crichton and am rather sorry I did, because I learned absolutely nothing from it, other than this fellow has a few personal grudges against Frank Drake, Carl Sagan, and Paul Ehrlich, for reasons that are possibly legitimate, but rather irrelevant to anything going on today. (The "nuclear winter" thing in the early 80s was indeed way overblown by the media, but that is the media's fault. The scientific community just calmly shot it down, point-by-point, like they do other mistaken results.) And what's the deal with Crichton implying that every time Sagan was on the Johnny Carson show (40 times apparently), he was hyping the nuclear winter study? That is very deceptive.

And Crichton's got a thing for Bjorn Lomborg for reasons that are unclear. (Poor guy was only given a page and a half of a major national scientific magazine to rebut his critics! If only the rest of us were so unfortunate.) When Crichton's point boils down to a desire for scientists to remove themselves from policy arguments, his affection for Lomborg, whose argument, valid or not, is explicitly directed at policy, is hypocritical.

I'm sorry, but the supposed past "excesses" (if one can even call it that) from a few individual scientists does not justify the current behavior of the GOP-controlled Congress (the Government!) to attempt to legislate what scientific sources are more legitimate than others.

It sounds to me like you are making excuses for this behavior. If you aren't, please feel free to clarify.

--Peter


(EDIT: Removed superfluous parenthetical comment.)

[Hammie]

14. The point

The point that he makes is that consensus is an invalid test of a scientific hypothesis. Unless the hypothesis actually predicts the results of a physically observable quantity with statistical significance, it simply can't be said to be correct. He backed that up with numerous examples of consensus on hypotheses that didn't predict observables and the shunning of those who proposed alternate hypotheses that did.

The further point that he makes is that in many cases, these travesties of science end up misinforming public policy with tremendous cost in terms of dollars and/or lives.

Crichton might be a terrible author, but at least he knows the difference between science and religion.

As the party of the smart people, I would expect more people on this board to be able to make that distinction too.

[pmbryant]

16. This is about good science and bad science, not about science and religion

The point that he makes is that consensus is an invalid test of a scientific hypothesis. Unless the hypothesis actually predicts the results of a physically observable quantity with statistical significance, it simply can't be said to be correct. He backed that up with numerous examples of consensus on hypotheses that didn't predict observables and the shunning of those who proposed alternate hypotheses that did.

The further point that he makes is that in many cases, these travesties of science end up misinforming public policy with tremendous cost in terms of dollars and/or lives.

Crichton does spend a few paragraphs on the 'scientific consensus' argument. It is not even close to the bulk of his essay; it is a small aside buried in the middle.

Unfortunately, in that part, he commits the logical fallacy of concluding that all scientific consensus is bad because it has occasionally been wrong in the past. He fails to make the distinction between consensus based upon hard results, i.e., consensus based upon the repeated application of the scientific process itself, and consensus based upon speculation and prejudice.

And Crichton only brings up one case of science supposedly misinforming public policy. But, based on his own words, it appears to be nothing of the sort. And nowhere does he indicate what the cost in dollars or lives was, if any, so that cannot be his point.

Even assuming his version of those events is accurate (and based on misleading statements by him elsewhere in the article, I am not inclined to trust his version), the incident he refers to, regarding the EPA and second-hand smoke, is an example of bad actions by government policy-making officials, not bad science. Yet he jumps to the conclusion that "this was openly fradulent science".

His further complaints about second-hand smoke are about how individual advocacy groups and the media have supposedly overhyped this risk and have nothing to do with science and the scientific community whatsoever. His implication that scientists are at fault for the actions of advocacy groups, the media, and the government is preposterous. And also note that Crichton then uses a scientific consensus argument to claim that second-hand smoke is not a health risk. Maybe this is true, maybe not (I certainly am not going to trust Crichton), but it is rather hypocritical coming from Crichton so soon after he railed against using such arguments.

Crichton might be a terrible author, but at least he knows the difference between science and religion.

As the party of the smart people, I would expect more people on this board to be able to make that distinction too.

Nice sound bite there, but it is meaningless in this context. Crichton's article is not about science and religion, and the original post in this thread is not about science and religion. This is about good science and bad, politically-distorted, science.

--Peter

[Viking12]

12. Do a little fact checking on

Crichton's piece of crap speech and you'll see how badly he uses science for politcal purposes. At one point he cites an article from Science about climate change mitigation and technology, he then completely misrepresents the artcile's premises and conclusions. Crichton has no credibility on the politization of science.

On edit: typo correction

[Loonman]

10. Sounds like Dr. Zaius

Minister of Science and Chief Defender of the Faith.

[BeFree]

11. Biostitutes

Worked on an issue once, where the biological scientists had used a few facts to establish the case that they were paid to make. One lady coined the term: "Biostitutes" as a way to label them.

Looking back, I now see how the pugs are doing the same thing. As your post says: "Soviet-style centralized planning of science" is a nice fit for those scientists who sold themselves to the highest bidder.

By the way, we beat the crap out of those Biostitutes and their Johns.

[Viking12]

13. Here's some more evidence

of the RW take over of science -- chimpy is in on the plan too.

http://wired.com/news/medtech/0,1286,62119,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_1

[Hell Hath No Fury]

15. There's also this little gem,....

"The White House is attempting to put control over the release of emergency public health, safety, and environmental declarations under the total control of it's own Office of Management and Budget. They are also proposing that all technical and scientific evaluations of governmental rules and regulations be put under their jurisdiction.
St. Louis Post-Dispatch, courtesy of Common Dreams, January 11, 2004"

Like I want Bush & Co. to have any more control of information.

Yikes.