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AW: 'Sound Science'? Bush closer than big government promoters.
-----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
Von: owner-radsafe@list.vanderbilt.edu
[mailto:owner-radsafe@list.vanderbilt.edu]Im Auftrag von Howard Long
Gesendet: Montag, 01. März 2004 04:24
An: John Jacobus; know_nukes; radsafe
Betreff: Re: 'Sound Science'? Bush closer than big government promoters.
---------------------------------------------
Howard,
Your list of (unnamed) Nobelists and other persons you obviously regard as
the "creme de la creme" of radiation protection and other sciences, confirms
for me only one thing: Doctors of Disaster Preparedness must have really
great funds. Where do they come from? Maybe from the (Bush) administration?
In earlier days, just a few hundreds of years ago, science was done by
mostly poor scientists, even professors at the university were not free of
financial problems. You should be aware, that times have changed. A
professor or another scientist without funds will within a very short time
loose his reputation, because there will not be any research done at his
institute. His duty is to raise funds, the work is done by his
collaborators. How to raise funds? He has to propose interesting projects.
If the government or administration asks for a confirmation that the
climatic problems caused by CO2 are nothing but a propaganda trick of those
who want to obstruct the US economy, then I bet that so-called "Research
Institutes" stand in row to receive funds.
This in no way restricted to the USA. We know all to well, that so-called
scientists are easily and well manipulated by funds and other kind of
pressures. A special kind of pressure is "ethics", where obviously
nobel-prize winners can be easily manipulated. This made a nobel-prize
winner for his work on behaviour of grey-geese (Konrad Lorenz, now after
decades having been recognized to have been a fervent supporter of Nazi
theories, and whose theories are now totally rejected by his collegues) an
"authority" in the fight against the Austrian nuclear power plant. What you
do is just the contrary - to name Muckerheide as an authority for the Bush
administration is obviously to you something positive, but I guess to the
majority of radiation safety people totally negative.
Come on, please do not spread political propaganda, because just by chance
the current USA administration pretends to do something you like. How many
nuclear power plants have been built since the Bush administration took
over? Is the WIPP open? etc. etc......
Franz
Doctors for Disaster Preparedness presentations, 18/year since '93, by many
Nobelists, + Teller, Pollycove, Muckerheide, Singer, Robinson (to name a
few) have given critical science basis supporting most Bush actions on
missle defense, "The Myth of Global Warming", anthrax and nerve poison and
nuclear bomb program preemption, nuclear waste disposal, etc.
To confirm most easily, go to www.oism.org/DDP . Then compare the Bush
position with that of perpetual employment for regulators (promoted below).
Which is closer to "Sound Science"?
Howard Long
----- Original Message -----
From: "John Jacobus" <crispy_bird@YAHOO.COM>
To: "know_nukes" <know_nukes@yahoogroups.com>; "radsafe"
<radsafe@list.vanderbilt.edu>
Sent: Sunday, February 29, 2004 4:03 PM
Subject: Article: Beware 'Sound Science.' It's Doublespeak for Trouble
The following appeared in the opinion section of
today's Washington Post. While it may not directly
relate to discussions about radiation safety and
policy, I thought would be of interest. It goes to
the question of how fair government policies are
developed. To me, it again shows that policies,
whether they be on climate control, nuclear waste,
etc., are not formulated without political input.
The original appeared at
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A13994-2004Feb27.html
---------------------------
Beware 'Sound Science.' It's Doublespeak for Trouble
By Chris Mooney
Sunday, February 29, 2004; Page B02
When George W. Bush and members of his administration
talk about environmental policy, the phrase "sound
science" rarely goes unuttered. On issues ranging from
climate change to the storage of nuclear waste in
Nevada's Yucca Mountain, our president has assured us
that he's backing up his decisions with careful
attention to the best available research.
It's not just Bush: Republican lawmakers in the House
of Representatives, led by Reps. Chris Cannon of Utah
and Jim Gibbons of Nevada, have announced the
formation of a "Sound Science Caucus" to ramp up the
role of "empirical" and "peer reviewed" data in laws
such as the Endangered Species Act. And last August
the Office of Management and Budget unveiled a
proposal to amplify the role of "peer review" in the
evaluation of scientific research conducted by federal
agencies such as the Environmental Protection Agency
(EPA).
It all sounds noble enough, but the phrases "sound
science" and "peer review" don't necessarily mean what
you might think. Instead, they're part of a lexicon
used to put a pro-science veneer on policies that most
of the scientific community itself tends to be up in
arms about. In this Orwellian vocabulary, "peer
review" isn't simply an evaluation by learned
colleagues. Instead, it appears to mean an
industry-friendly plan to require such exhaustive
analysis that federal agencies could have a hard time
taking prompt action to protect public health and the
environment. And "sound science" can mean, well,
not-so-sound science.
Dig into the origins of the phrase "sound science" as
a slogan in policy disputes, and its double meaning
becomes clearer. That use of the term goes back to a
campaign waged by the tobacco industry to undermine
the indisputable connection between smoking and
disease. Industry documents released as a result of
tobacco litigation show that in 1993 Philip Morris and
its public relations firm, APCO Associates, created a
nonprofit front group called The Advancement of Sound
Science Coalition (TASSC) to fight against the
regulation of cigarettes. To mask its true purpose,
TASSC assembled a range of anti-regulatory interests
under one umbrella. The group also challenged the now
widely accepted notion that secondhand smoke poses
health risks.
Since then, other industry groups have invoked "sound
science" to ease government restrictions. In 1996,
Jerry J. Jasinowski, president of the National
Association of Manufacturers, said GOP presidential
candidate Bob Dole's "emphasis on sound science, the
need to apply cost-benefit analyses and finding some
way to enforce common sense in the regulatory process
are most important to the business community." In
April 2001, Vice President Cheney's energy task force
urged the Interior Department to open up more of
Alaska for oil and gas drilling based on "sound
science and the best available technology." Last
October, Allen James, president of Responsible
Industry for a Sound Environment, a group of
manufacturers and suppliers of pest management
products, urged the use of pesticides to kill
disease-carrying mosquitoes in a letter to the Post.
"As a citizen, I expect my elected officials to
consider sound science in making decisions that affect
my health and the health of my neighbors. Sound
science says pesticide sprays are safe and effective,"
he wrote.
The phrase "sound science" has also become part of a
political sales pitch. In 2002, Republican pollster
and strategist Frank Luntz wrote in a memorandum for
GOP congressional candidates that "The most important
principle in any discussion of global warming is your
commitment to sound science." The choice of words --
as much as policy -- was the key to swaying public
opinion, he suggested, providing a voter-friendly
vocabulary list. On climate change, "The scientific
debate is closing [against us] but not yet closed," he
added. "There is still a window of opportunity to
challenge the science." In this instance, "sound
science" seems to mean undermining the robust
consensus that has developed in the scientific
community on climate change -- precisely the opposite
of what you'd expect.
The fact that Democrats such as former EPA
administrator Carol Browner and Sen. John F. Kerry
have used the phrase to defend their views only
furthers Luntz's goal of blurring distinctions on
these issues.
President Bush isn't claiming that cigarettes are
safe. But if you switch from examining rhetoric to
analyzing policy, it turns out that he's treating
science in much the same way that tobacco companies
did -- as a means of justifying predetermined
political conclusions. In a statement this month by
the Union of Concerned Scientists, more than 60
scientific luminaries -- including leading
policymakers from previous administrations and 20
Nobel laureates -- charge that Bush has
"systematically" undermined the role traditionally
played by scientific information in presidential
policymaking.
None of these scientists thinks Bush's science is
actually sound -- and they ought to know. In fact, if
you examine the administration's record, Bush's
supposed commitment to science unravels in much the
same way that the case for war against Iraq did.
Instead, an alternative narrative emerges, in which
many science policies have been corrupted by political
considerations.
Start early in the administration, with the 2001
release of the third assessment by the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
Marshaling the work of thousands of scientists
worldwide, the U.N. body found that climate change was
indeed happening, thanks to our relentless pumping of
carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases into the
atmosphere. Bush's reaction: Put the policy before the
science. Calling our understanding of the global
climate "incomplete," he pulled the United States out
of the Kyoto Protocol. Only then did the
administration ask the National Academy of Sciences
(NAS) to review, in the space of a month, the IPCC's
report, which had been years in the making. Sure
enough, the NAS confirmed the IPCC's findings --
embarrassing Bush and exposing the flaws in his
approach to science policymaking.
The president's approach to stem cell research was
more startling. After making a great show of agonizing
over whether to permit federal funding of research
involving the destruction of human embryos, Bush
unveiled a cannily crafted "compromise" position that
appeared to preserve scientific research but in fact
doomed it. In a speech to the nation on Aug. 9, 2001,
Bush promised that "more than 60" preexisting stem
cell lines would be available for federally funded
research. As journalist Stephen Hall has shown in his
book "Merchants of Immortality," this was at best a
misunderstanding and, at worst, a deliberate
deception.
Given stem cell variety, even 60 lines would have
hampered the search for the most promising research
candidates. But it soon became clear to biologists
that the 60 supposed "cell lines" weren't actually
that at all. Some were merely cells extracted from
blastocysts, which might never develop into
research-ready lines capable of being turned into
different types of human tissue. The NIH Web site
today lists only 15 stem cell lines suitable for
shipping to scientists, limiting both the amount and
variety of research that can be done. This partly
explains why this month's breakthrough of the cloning
of a human embryo for its stem cells came from South
Korea, not the United States.
Stem cell research and climate change have dominated
the news, but the scientific case against Bush doesn't
rest upon them alone. On issues ranging from missile
defense to ergonomics to early childhood development,
a similar pattern of cart-before-the-horse thinking is
evident.
Recently, the Department of Health and Human Services,
citing the need for "sound science," challenged a
World Health Organization report linking obesity to
soft drinks, junk food and fast food. "Only by
employing open and transparent processes that are
science-based and peer-reviewed can the WHO . . .
produce a credible product," HHS said.
The administration has tampered with the scientific
process at the personnel level, too. In a January 2003
editorial titled "An Epidemic of Politics," Science
magazine editor in chief Donald Kennedy lamented the
politicization of scientific advisory committees -- a
little noticed alphabet soup of boards, panels and
study groups sometimes called the "Fifth Branch" of
government -- across numerous federal agencies.
Normally, agencies like the EPA use such committees to
bring expertise into their decision-making processes.
But under the Bush administration, full committees
were disbanded, while others were stacked with
nominees who have pro-life and pro-industry stances.
One prominent scientist told the Los Angeles Times
that during a screening interview for committee
membership he was asked his views on abortion and
whether he'd voted for Bush. "What's unusual about the
current epidemic is not that the Bush administration
examines candidates for compatibility with its
'values,' " wrote Kennedy. "It's how deep the practice
cuts."
There will always be a gap between pure science and
the making of policy. For a healthy relationship
between the two spheres to exist, science shouldn't
dictate political choices; it should underpin them,
much as good intelligence can inform national security
decisions. Policymakers should consult with
scientists, then factor what they learn into their
decisions -- especially today, when it's hard to find
a political issue, from Medicare reform to Iraq's
nuclear program, that lacks a core scientific
component.
Under Bush, however, this crucial relationship has
been upended. Instead of allowing facts to inform
policies, preexisting political commitments have
twisted facts and tainted information. If Bush insists
on calling this "sound science," so be it. The English
language will probably survive. But the
once-cooperative relationship between politicians and
scientists in this country seems to be in serious
jeopardy.
Author's e-mail: moonecc@yahoo.com
Chris Mooney, a freelance writer living in Washington,
is writing a book on the politicization of science
under President Bush.
© 2004 The Washington Post Company
=====
+++++++++++++++++++
"The care of human life and happiness . . . is the first and only legitimate
object of good government."
Thomas Jefferson
-- John
John Jacobus, MS
Certified Health Physicist
e-mail: crispy_bird@yahoo.com
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