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Politicization of science

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The politicization of science is "manipulating science for political gain" It occurs when government, business or interest groups use legal or economic pressure to influence the findings of scientific research or the way the it is disseminated, reported or interpreted.

William Happer wrote:

Politicization taken to the extreme can be very harmful. In extreme politicization, governments or powerful advocacy groups use science and scientists who share or benefit from the politicization to drive science out of technical decisions and to promote a nonscientific agenda.

Typically these findings have a bearing on public policy questions of interest to government, business or other interest groups. Special interest groups, industry advocates, and religious organizations have all conducted various campaigns to promote their narrow interests in defiance of scientific consensus.


Galileo and the Catholic Church

One of the earliest and best known instances of politicization was the issue of the mobility of the earth, a controversy which came to a head in Renaissance times. Galileo supported the theory of Copernicus that the planets (including the Earth) all revolve around the Sun, while the politically dominant Roman Catholic Church exalted the view of Ptolemy that the Sun and the planets all revolve around the Earth.

After enjoying limited political support for his less provocative astronomical discoveries, Galileo was summoned to Rome, tried, and sentenced to life imprisonment (commuted to "house arrest").

Modern historians of science generally view this as a textbook case of political suppression of scientific fact, and in the 20th century the church issue a formal apology and vindication of Galileo.

Wheat production and the Soviet Union

Main article: Lysenkoism
  • Trofim Lysenko declared that the genetics of Mendel’s peas and Morgan’s fruit flies was incorrect and simply a capitalist plot to exploit the peasants and working class. Lysenko believed that environmental factors determined the performance of plants and that acquired characteristics could be inherited. Having unmasked the evil Western myth of gene-based inheritance, Lysenko promised almost instant improvements in agricultural production. Lysenko’s origins - a peasant background, and little education - helped him avoid the hatred of the Soviet authorities for the intelligentsia. He first became famous in 1928 by claiming that a series of simple steps, within reach of any farmer,produced markedly improved yields of wheat. All that was necessary was "vernalization" - soaking winter-wheat seed in the fall, burying it in sacks under the snow, and planting it in the spring like ordinary spring wheat. This was all a fraud, supported by corrupted experiments and falsified statistics.

Tobacco and cancer

  • Proctor claims that by the middle of the 1950s there was a scientific consensus that smoking caused lung cancer. But the tobacco industry fought that finding, both in the public eye and within the scientific community. Tobacco companies funded skeptics, started health reassurance campaigns, ran advertisements in medical journals and researched alternate explanations for lung cancer, such as pollution, asbestos and even the keeping of birds. Denying the case against tobacco was "closed," they called for more research as a tactic to delay regulation.

Modern accusations of politicization

Food and Drug Administration survey

According to a survey of FDA scientists by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility and the Union of Concerned Scientists, many scientists have been pressured to approve new drugs despite their own private concerns.

General criticism of the Bush administration

In 2004, The reported that that George W. Bush administration "has installed more than 100 top officials who were once lobbyists, attorneys or spokespeople for the industries they oversee." At least 20 of these former industry advocates helped their agencies write, shape or push for policy shifts that benefit their former industries. "They knew which changes to make because they had pushed for them as industry advocates."

Also in 2004, the Union of Concerned Scientists issued a report, Scientific Integrity in Policymaking: An Investigation into the Bush Administration's Misuse of Science which formally made the charge that the Bush administration was putting political ideology over science when writing policy or when determining who sits on advisory panels set up to provide expert input into decision making, saying:

"A growing number of scientists, policy makers, and technical specialists both inside and outside the government allege that the current Bush administration has suppressed or distorted the scientific analyses of federal agencies to bring these results in line with administration policy. In addition, these experts contend that irregularities in the appointment of scientific advisors and advisory panels are threatening to upset the legally mandated balance of these bodies."

The report resulted in a petition, Restoring Scientific Integrity in Policymaking, signed by more than 9,000 scientists, including 49 Nobel laureates and 63 National Medal of Science recipients. which said:

"When scientific knowledge has been found to be in conflict with its political goals, the administration has often manipulated the process through which science enters into its decisions. This has been done by placing people who are professionally unqualified or who have clear conflicts of interest in official posts and on scientific advisory committees; by disbanding existing advisory committees; by censoring and suppressing reports by the government’s own scientists; and by simply not seeking independent scientific advice. Other administrations have, on occasion, engaged in such practices, but not so systematically nor on so wide a front. Furthermore, in advocating policies that are not scientifically sound, the administration has sometimes misrepresented scientific knowledge and misled the public about the implications of its policies."

In response to such criticisms in 2006 President Bush unveiled a campaign in his State of the Union Address to promote scientific research and education to ensure American competitiveness in the world, vowing to "double the federal commitment to the most critical basic research programs in the physical sciences over the next 10 years." Later the same year Francesca Grifo, the executive director of the Union of Concerned Scientists' Scientific Integrity Program, reiterated their initial criticism, "We have reports that stay in draft form and don't get out to the public. We have reports that are changed. We have reports that are ignored and overwritten."

Surgeon General

Dr. Richard Carmona, the first surgeon general appointed by President George W. Bush, publicly accused the administration in July of 2007 of political interference and muzzling him on key issues like embryonic stem cell research. Although he did not use his name, the Washington Post reported on July 29 that the official who blocked at least one of Carmona's reports was William R. Steiger.

Global warming

Main article: Global warming controversy

Both sides on the global warming issue accuse each other of politicizing the science.

The Global Warming issue has long been a political issue for the Democratic party politician Al Gore. Climate issues have formed the center piece of his political career since he was a US Senator. He used the Global Warming issue as a means of advancing his Presidential and Vice Presidential ambitions. Recently Gore has continued to campaign for a Global Warming agenda that has won him an Academy Award and a Nobel Peace Prize nomination. The solidity of his Global Warming science has been questioned but few can doubt the effectiveness of the Global Warming issue on his personal political standing.

In 1991, a US corporate coalition including the National Coal Association, the Western Fuels Association and Edison Electrical Institute created a public relations front called the "Information Council on the Environment" (ICE). ICE launched a $500,000 advertising and PR blitz to, in ICE's own words, "reposition global warming as theory (not fact)." Burton and Rampton charge that the claims about the "politicization of science" regarding global warming are part of a deliberately engineered public relations campaign to reduce the impact any international treaty, such as the Kyoto Protocol, might have on the business interests sponsoring the campaigns. Conversely, skeptics of global warming have decried alarmism.

In June 2005, John Vidal, environment editor of The Guardian asserted the existence of US State Department papers showing the administration thanking Exxon executives for the company's "active involvement" in helping to determine climate change policy, including the US stance on Kyoto. Input from the business lobby group Global Climate Coalition was also a factor. In 2006 The Guardian reported that using data found in Exxon official documents, 124 organisations that have taken money from ExxonMobil or work closely with those that have, and that "These organisations take a consistent line on climate change: that the science is contradictory, the scientists are split, environmentalists are charlatans, liars or lunatics, and if governments took action to prevent global warming, they would be endangering the global economy for no good reason. The findings these organisations dislike are labelled 'junk science'. The findings they welcome are labelled 'sound science'."

. This category of scientific abuse is also called the "selective use of data" by the Pacific Institute's project on the Integrity of Science, and cherry picking by the public.

Waxman report

In the United States, Democratic Congressman Henry A. Waxman and the minority staff of the Government Reform Committee released a report in August 2003 which concluded that the administration of George W. Bush has politicized science in many areas and appointed key decision makers who shared the administration position on major issues. The issues analyzed in the report include sex education based on sexual abstinence. The report concludes that the administration modified performance measures for abstinence-based programs to make them look effective. In so doing, the Waxman report articulates positions long held by the California politician. It also finds that the Bush administration appointed a prominent advocate of abstinence-only programs, Dr. Joe McIlhaney, to the Advisory Committee to the CDC’s Director. It claims that information about comprehensive sex education was removed from the website of the Center for Disease Control. Other issues considered include agricultural pollution, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and breast cancer. The report finds that a National Cancer Institute website has been changed to reflect the administration view that there may be a risk of breast cancer associated with abortions. The website was updated after protests and now holds that no such risk has been found in recent, well-designed studies. The full report in PDF format is available here.

Responses

In 2004 the Union of Concerned Scientists issued a series of reports charging that the Bush administration's political agenda had permeated "the traditionally objective, nonpartisan mechanisms through which the government uses scientific knowledge in forming and implementing public policy", and "The Bush administration has proven that federal government science can easily be suppressed, manipulated, and distorted." An update to the report concluded

...at a time when one might expect the federal government to increasingly rely on impartial researchers for the critical role they play in gathering and analyzing specialized data, there are numerous indications that the opposite is occurring. A growing number of scientists, policy makers, and technical specialists both inside and outside the government allege that the Bush administration has suppressed or distorted the scientific analyses of federal agencies to bring these results in line with administration policy. In addition, these experts contend that irregularities in the appointment of scientific advisors and advisory panels are threatening to upset the legally mandated balance of these bodies."

A petition appended to the report and signed by more than 60 pre-eminent scientists, including 20 Nobel laureates. These resulted in the "Restoring Scientific Integrity" program organized by the union.

In January 2007 the House Committee on Science and Technology announced the formation of a new subcommittee, the Science Oversight and Investigation subcommittee, which handles investigative and oversight activities on matters covering the committee's entire jurisdiction. The new subcommittee will be chaired by Representative Brad Miller of North Carolina. The subcommittee has authority to look into a whole range of important issues, particularly those concerning manipulation of scientific data at Federal agencies. In an interview Miller commented on if the subcommittee will investigate recent allegations of the politicization of science levelled against the government:

You certainly can count on our looking at scientific integrity issues under the Bush Administration. There have been lots of reports in the press of manipulating science to support policy, rigging advisory panels, and suppressing research by federal employees or with federal dollars. I've written about that here before, and you interviewed me a year ago about the manipulation of science. In addition to the published reports, the committee staff has been collecting accounts, some confidential, of interference by political appointees. I hope that more folks will come forward now that Democrats are in the majority and we show we're really going to pursue the issue.

See also

External links

References

  1. The Wedge Document (PDF file), a 1999 Discovery Institute fundraising pamphlet. Cited in Handley P. Evolution or design debate heats up. The Times of Oman, 7 March 2005.
  2. "Some bills seek to discredit evolution by emphasizing so-called "flaws" in the theory of evolution or "disagreements" within the scientific community. Others insist that teachers have absolute freedom within their classrooms and cannot be disciplined for teaching non-scientific "alternatives" to evolution. A number of bills require that students be taught to "critically analyze" evolution or to understand "the controversy." But there is no significant controversy within the scientific community about the validity of the theory of evolution. The current controversy surrounding the teaching of evolution is not a scientific one." AAAS Statement on the Teaching of Evolution American Association for the Advancement of Science. February 16, 2006
  3. "That this controversy is one largely manufactured by the proponents of creationism and intelligent design may not matter, and as long as the controversy is taught in classes on current affairs, politics, or religion, and not in science classes, neither scientists nor citizens should be concerned." Intelligent Judging — Evolution in the Classroom and the Courtroom George J. Annas, New England Journal of Medicine, Volume 354:2277-2281 May 25, 2006
  5. In July 2006 the UCS released survey results which they say "demonstrate pervasive political influence of science" at the Food and Drug Administration
  6. ^ When Advocates Become Regulators Anne C. Mulkern. The Denver Post, May 23 2004.
  7. Scientific Integrity in Policymaking: An Investigation into the Bush Administration's Misuse of Science Union of Concerned Scientists
  8. Restoring Scientific Integrity in Policymaking Union of Concerned Scientists
  9. Scientific Integrity Statement Signatories Union of Concerned Scientists
  10. Bush Science Push Fails to Transform Critics Don Gonyea. National Public Radio, Weekend Edition Sunday, February 26 2006.
  11. Harris, Gardiner (July 11, 2007). "Surgeon General Sees 4-Year Term as Compromised". New York Times. Retrieved 2007-12-03. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  12. Dunham, Will (July 10, 2007). "Former Bush surgeon general says he was muzzled". Reuters. Retrieved 2007-12-03. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  13. Bush Aide Blocked Report, Christopher Lee and Marc Kaufman, The Washington Post, July 29, 2007.
  15. Revealed: how oil giant influenced Bush, White House sought advice from Exxon on Kyoto stance John Vidal. The Guardian, June 8 2005
  16. The Denial Industry The Guardian, September 19, 2006
  17. http://www.pacinst.org/topics/integrity_of_science/case_studies/selective_use_climate_update.pdf
  18. http://www.integrityofscience.org
  19. Scientific Integrity in Policymaking Union of Concerned Scientists, 2004.
  20. Ways to Support the Integrity of Science Union of Concerned Scientists, 2005.
  21. Update to Scientific Integrity in Policymaking Union of Concerned Scientists
  23. "The Subcommittee handles investigative and oversight activities on matters covering the entire jurisdiction of the Committee on Science and Technology. This Subcommittee is new for the 110th Congress." Subcommittees, Committee on Science and Technology
  24. Democrats Form New Science Subcommittee Brad Miller interview. Daily Kos, January 24, 2007.

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