Scientists normally eschew politics. Science is supposed to be impartial. Of course, as Stephen Jay Gould often pointed out, science is more entwined with politics than most scientists like to believe. Nevertheless, there is rarely any mention of politics in scientific publications.
The Bush administration has changed that. Scientists are finding they cannot avoid politics if they care about their profession. Science is under siege from an administration driven by rightwing ideology, in a way it's never been before. And scientists are starting to fight back.
Ronald Reagan was disappointed when a study of women's health showed abortions cause no long-term harm, but he did not try to keep Surgeon General C. Everett Koop from publicizing the information. And Koop, despite being anti-abortion personally, did not try to "spin" the results.
Not so the Bush administration. The stem cell research issue has gotten a lot of press coverage, but Bush's assault on science is much broader than that. Information about reproductive health has been removed from the CDC Web site, apparently because religious conservatives objected to articles about abortion and condom use. Sex education and HIV prevention programs have been denied funding unless they are abstinence-only. The White House has dismissed global warming, and pressured the EPA to change its reports to be more favorable to industry. Civilian science funding has been drastically cut in order to fund military and defense research.
The October issue of Discover, a popular science magazine, tackles this problem head-on. I've been reading this magazine for close to twenty years, and I've never seen anything like this. There's a special "Letter From Discover," explaining why they decided they could no longer avoid politics:
Discover has received quite a few letters recently asking us not to get political. It started in January when we listed Bush's dustup with scientists over stem cell research and other items as the fifth (out of 100) most important science story of 2003. That spilled over into a lively exchange of opinions on our letters pages. Then a story in our May issue by Stephen Hall -
"The Good Egg" - explored what science has to say about when viable life begins. That seemed to arouse slightly paranoid feelings among some readers about abortion. The truth is that the editors of
Discover have determinedly avoided politics - and religion - as if they were plagues. But, but, but, some of you will point out, there is a Bush vs. Kerry story in this issue. How can we claim to be nonpolitical when we print that? Here is our explanation:
There has been a great tradition in science of remaining unbiased and nonpolitical. Scientists are reluctant to believe something until the experiment is run and the results are in. We're all for that. Yet the majority of scientific research in this country is paid for by the federal government, using your tax dollars. The biggest bucks these days go to the military and antiterrorism concerns. What's left over for civilian concerns is mostly doled out by the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health. Like it or not (and we don't), when science is dependent on government sources for funding, the result will often be political. Creating tax incentives for privately funded research is political too. And that leaves the door open for ideology. For example, some of us would rationally maintain that scientists should be allowed to use leftover embryos for stem cell research that otherwise would be flushed down the drain at fertility clinics. Others would rationally disagree. To ignore that politics is part of science - and always has been - is Pollyannaish and foolish. We should all be keenly aware of that reality no matter which party controls the White House and Congress.
So that's why we chose to look at the presidential candidates in this issue through the lens of science. We chose an author, Daniel S. Greenberg, who has a history of looking critically at national policies no matter who is behind them, and we have bent over backward trying to be fair to both candidates. (You can't imagine the conversations we've had about which policies - Bush's or Kerry's - should be discussed first, or whether they should be alternated. We take it as a good sign that we can't agree.)
We will continue to avoid politics in our coverage of science in the future. But we believe that science is now the most important front-page news in the world. We believe that science will determine who the next superpower will be (watch China). We believe that the commander in chief will ultimately have more of an effect on this nation's future by wisely commanding science than he will by wisely commanding armies. We accept that politics is part of science, and we intend to look politicians straight in the eye and ask the hardest questions we can think of and do it as fairly as we humanly can.
In addition, there's a detailed "Bush vs. Kerry on Science" voter's guide, which spells out the candidates' positions on a variety of science-related topics - and makes clear which one they favor. The most telling is the section on scientific integrity. (Emphasis mine.)
BUSH: The administration denies allegations that it has employed ideological "litmus tests" to screen candidates for appointments to federal committees on environmental and health issues, that it has suppressed reports that offend its antiabortion backers, and that it has politicized science. John H. Marburger III, the president's science adviser, says critics have conjured up conspiratorial patterns from isolated incidents involving advisory appointments and policy decisions at the Department of Health and Human Services and the EPA. "Even when the science is clear - and often it is not - it is but one input into the policy process," Marburger argued last April. Marburger, a Democrat, was backed by a predecessor in the White House science post, D. Allan Bromley, adviser to the first President Bush. Responding to a bill of particulars against the administration by 60 scientists, including 20 Nobel laureates, Bromley scoffed, "You know perfectly well that it is very clearly a politically motivated statement."
BUT: No one can ignore that the number of scientists who say research is being influenced by right-wing ideology is increasing. Although an editorial in the journal Nature last year recalled that prior administrations have also been accused of tinkering with scientific independence, it noted that "some of the recent developments are disturbing." The plain fact is that the scientific community is fired up as never before, and very few scientists have spoken out in Bush's favor.
KERRY: The senator strongly seconds the accusations against the White House, denouncing Bush as the head of "one of the most antiscience administrations in our nation's history," and accusing him of abusing scientific independence to pander to his right-wing backers. Kerry says his administration would always judge scientific advice on its professional merits, and not by ideological standards.
BUT: All presidents seem to favor advisers who share their political and ideological preferences.
Discover will probably lose a bunch of subscribers over this. From a financial point of view, they had nothing to gain and everything to lose by going out on this limb. If you were ever thinking of subscribing, or know someone who might enjoy this magazine as a gift, now would be a good time to sign up.
Or send them props:
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