The Silencing of Science

[PowerSwitchJames]

Published on Thursday, February 16, 2006 by Washington Post

The silencing of science
By Anne Applebaum

One of the benefits of writing newspaper articles is that sometimes, instead of sending anonymous insults, readers call you up and tell you interesting things. Two weeks ago, after news broke that a NASA press officer had resigned amid revelations that he'd tried to muffle the agency's top climate scientist, I got several such calls. All were from people with similar tales of government-funded scientists intimidated by heavy-handed public relations departments. Curiosity piqued, I followed one up, at least as far as the nervous scientists and the equally nervous government press officers would let me. Here's what I learned.

The story begins with the publication of an article -- "Potential Environmental Impact of a Hydrogen Economy on the Stratosphere" -- in the June 2003 issue of the journal Science, which is not exactly beach reading. Yet although crammed with graphs, equations and references to chlorofluorocarbons, the basic premise isn't hard to explain: The five authors, all affiliated at the time with the prestigious California Institute of Technology, wanted to explore the potential long-term impact of hydrogen fuel cells on the Earth's atmosphere.

For those who've forgotten, hydrogen fuel cells were, three State of the Unions ago, the thing that was going to save Americans from their oil addiction and stop the auto emissions that help cause global warming. Nowadays switch grass and biomass are the hot alternative fuels, but back in 2003, the president won applause for proposing "$1.2 billion in research funding so that America can lead the world in developing clean, hydrogen-powered automobiles." On Capitol Hill, there were demonstrations of one such "Freedom Car," and the president called on scientists to be "bold and innovative" in their hydrogen research.

Unfortunately for the authors of "Potential Environmental Impact of a Hydrogen Economy on the Stratosphere," their research, while bold and innovative, didn't exactly mesh with the hype. According to their model, tiny leaks from hydrogen cells, if such cells are ever mass-produced, could cause serious environmental damage. But they made no suggestion of inevitability: One of the study's authors, John Eiler of Caltech, pointed out that foreknowledge of potential environmental problems could "help guide investments in technologies to favor designs that minimize leakage." Presumably thinking along the same lines, NASA, which had helped pay for the research, prepared a news release and news conference on the paper.

Abruptly, both were canceled. Although "we often hear that releases are held up for political reasons," one NASA employee told me, "that one was a surprise: It went all the way to the top and then got killed." In fact, the release and the conference were "killed" by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. An official there told me this was because the office wanted to give Energy Department scientists a chance to respond to the study before it was publicized: "Our role is to facilitate interagency cooperation." Coincidentally or not, it also happens that Spencer Abraham, then the energy secretary, was that same week preparing to depart for Brussels, where he was to tell Europeans that U.S. hydrogen research proved the Bush administration cared about the environment.

All of that part of the story is confirmed. The rest -- the story of how none of the scientists ever got government grants for further research on this subject -- is complicated by rumor and hearsay. Eiler, seeing that the Energy Department was looking for proposals to study the environmental impact of hydrogen, applied for a grant to do so. He was turned down on the grounds that he thought were "peculiar" -- that the department was not, in fact, interested in proposals on the subject. Today he gets his only money for related research from the private sector. The National Science Foundation officially rejected another researcher's grant application -- and then unofficially told him that some in the foundation thought the timing of the Science magazine paper had been deliberately designed to embarrass the energy secretary. One of the authors has now changed his research focus, he e-mailed me, to something that "has less politics." Others refused to talk about the paper at all.

None of this means that there really was any government interference in the funding. Another eminent scientist who does related research, Mark Jacobson of Stanford University, told me that while he considered the Science paper "groundbreaking" and "pioneering," because it was "the first to actually go after this issue," he disagreed with the conclusions and methodology, and said that perhaps grant reviewers did too. The science and technology policy office says it is "preposterous" to think that the White House was involved in funding issues. Abraham remembers the trip to Europe but (very plausibly) doesn't recall anything about this contrarian paper at all.

I'm thus left with nothing to report -- except that a fuss over a press release and a rumor about who said what to whom at the National Science Foundation left some scientists feeling, rightly or wrongly, that they'd better stay away from "political" subjects if they want government grants. And, three years down the road, they have.

[skeptik]

Yes...people have been talking about this for some time. It's source is the White House. Bush and Cheney are fundamentalists - Bible literalists.

Their worldview is dominated by dogma, as opposed to evidence and pragmatism, which forces them into a strange sort of doublethink - science and technology are accepted where they are useful but rejected where they contradict fundi Christian beliefs. Its a sort of faith induced mental blindness... or blinkering.

This attitude is seen in Bush's insistence that he is only interested in evidence which supports his convictions... It pervades his attidude to all things, not just science - He didnt want to know that Saddam Hussein had no weapons of MD, and was not connected to Al-Quaeda, as the CIA was telling him, so a special department, The Office of Special Plans, was established inside the Pentagon and staffed with NeoCons to manufacture the evidence he did want to hear... which I suppose you could call 'faith based intel'

This is one of my favourite pieces on Dubya and Co's disconnect from reality, which I bookmarked a couple of years ago...

The President of Fantasyland
http://gadfly.igc.org/liberal/fantasyland.htm

I doubt we will see any sort of sane US foreign or energy policy until Bush and the Neocons are out of power - if they ever are. Whether there is ever going to be an unfixed Presidential election ever again is, I think, a moot point. Ideally the USA needs another intelligent trained scientist like Jimmy Carter (nuclear physics) as President capable of getting his head around the problem. Theres no hope with Dubya. Aparently the most he can cope with on any subject is a single side of doublespaced US letter, and his attention span in meetings is 1 hour, tops. Then he gets twitchy and has to go for a run... or have a kip. Dyslexia? Seems possible as it runs in the family.

http://bushwatch.com/dyslexia.htm

[EmptyBee]

I think it's been apparent for quite a while now just what kind of world the Neocons imagine they've created for themselves.

This article by Ron Suskind originally published in the New York Times magazine clued a lot of people in, particularly this oft-quoted segment:

In the summer of 2002, after I had written an article in Esquire that the White House didn't like about Bush's former communications director, Karen Hughes, I had a meeting with a senior adviser to Bush. He expressed the White House's displeasure, and then he told me something that at the time I didn't fully comprehend -- but which I now believe gets to the very heart of the Bush presidency.

The aide said that guys like me were ''in what we call the reality-based community,'' which he defined as people who ''believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.'' I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. ''That's not the way the world really works anymore,'' he continued. ''We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.''

It's interesting - Bush's blindness appears to derive from his faith, but the Neocons are much more ambitious - they want to create a new reality for everybody, and in fact, believe they already have.

[skeptik]

The aide said that guys like me were ''in what we call the reality-based community,'' which he defined as people who ''believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.'' I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. ''That's not the way the world really works anymore,'' he continued. ''We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.''

It's interesting - Bush's blindness appears to derive from his faith, but the Neocons are much more ambitious - they want to create a new reality for everybody, and in fact, believe they already have.

Ha.. that aide... lovely quote , just so typical . Arrogance and stupidity in equal measure. They are setting themselves up for a neverending series of pratfalls. If you thought Iraq was good watch what a mess they make of whatever comes next. The way the world really works is that dogmatically 'created reality' ( or consensual delusion as I prefer to think of it ) inevitablity comes a cropper eventually against the imovable object of reality. The higher they float on cloud nine, the harder they eventually fall.

Whatever happened to the geocentric universe or the 1000 year Reich?


"Eppur se muove"

[Joe]

A recent Gallup Poll noted that 42 percent of Americans identify themselves as evangelical or ''born again.''

uh oh.

[MacG]

What Skeptic said!

[skeptik]

A recent Gallup Poll noted that 42 percent of Americans identify themselves as evangelical or ''born again.''

uh oh.

Is it surprising? The country was founded by religious extremists - English fundamentallist Christians, the Puritans.

I imagine the whole of England heaved a big sigh of relief when the Puritans finally got fed up with being shouted at all the time, and buggered of in the Mayflower et al. to what would eventually be the North Eastern United States... They were by all accounts a dreary miserable lot. No fun at parties.

America is a the most religious of the industrialised countries . I think (dont quote, havent checked) 40% of the population regularly go to church. or some form of worship. In the UK it's 2%. Unfortunately a faith based view of life does lend itself to credulity rather than skepticism, which is how Dubya gets away with it.

Despite dark mutterings about "Addiction" (you should know George!) in the State of the Union Address, I dont thiunk much will be done at the Federal level prior to Peak Oil kicking in seriously. " The American way of life is not negotiable"

[andyh]

ahh as an atheist condemnation of religion is music to my ears - I am of course hopeful that the above posters are even handed in their derision of the world's various religions and their adherents.................after all why give the Christians all the credit for being the most out of touch and medievalist. There are a few other candidate religions out there who might deserve that award are there not?

[skeptik]

ahh as an atheist condemnation of religion is music to my ears -

Well.. yes I am an atheist but I dont condemn religion. Chacun a son go?t. It is more or less a matter of taste and upbringing rather than a subject thats suceptible to rational discussion. You either believe or you don't, and thats all there is to it. I can't prove that there isn't a god, but I dont see any evidence that there is one. Beyond that lies faith, and I havent got any.

I used to point out to literalist religionists where their faith is contradicted by demonstrable reality, but even that doesnt make any difference against - "The world and all that is in it was created in seven days - it says so in the bible so it must be true", so I dont bother any more. Arguing with religionists is futile.

Maybe I should change my nic to Doubting Thomas. Lots of people dont seem to understand skepticism - they seem to think it means kneejerk naysaying

[GD]

Did anyone else catch Richard Dawkins' recent program? Now I believe in Bertrand Russels' orbiting teapot!

[isenhand]

Is it surprising? The country was founded by religious extremists - English fundamentallist Christians, the Puritans.

[/quote]

I used to have an America friend, she used to say that America was founded by intellectuals and religious fanatics. Then she would ask: ?guess who breads the fastest??

Underlining PO is physical reality. Faith based reasoning is not based on reality and in the end nature does not care about people?s irrational beliefs. Trying to solve physical really based problems with faith based reasoning, therefore, is more like to make things worse.

[GD]

On a recent trip over to the sunshine state, a relative of my wife was told explicitly how oil wells top themselves up all the time.

[Pixie]

Bush and Cheney are fundamentalists - Bible literalists.

Their worldview is dominated by dogma, as opposed to evidence and pragmatism, which forces them into a strange sort of doublethink - science and technology are accepted where they are useful but rejected where they contradict fundi Christian beliefs. Its a sort of faith induced mental blindness... or blinkering.

...Theres no hope with Dubya. Aparently the most he can cope with on any subject is a single side of doublespaced US letter, and his attention span in meetings is 1 hour, tops. Then he gets twitchy and has to go for a run... or have a kip. Dyslexia? Seems possible as it runs in the family.

Please don't make the mistake of confusing dyslexia with lack of ability or lack of intelligence. People who are dyslexic just have brains that work in different ways from non-dyslexics. This is often an advantage, not a disadvantage, eg Einstein and Leonardo da Vinci were probably dyslexic, as are many architects, artists, actors, computer programmers, musicians, pilots... In fact anyone who shows a strong sense of spatial awareness and/or a strong perceptiveness for inter-personal relations is showing a tendancy to use the right side of their brain predominately and may, as a result, show a greater or lesser degree of dyslexia.

As a point of interest dyslexia only exists as a labelled problem in societies where reading and writing are fundamental to that societies measure of intelligence. Societies with different values (eg more 'hands on' values, or valuing artistic and musical abilities more) or with pictorial-based written language, as in China, don't recognise dyslexia as a problem but undoubtedly recognise many people as very able or even gifted who in our society would be labelled as having a problem.

Off me soapbox and back to Bush: The blinkering from being brought up surrounded by fundamentalists however is, imo, a severe and worrying disability because it is almost impossible to introduce and discuss alternative ideas with someone who is convinced that they already know the absolute truth.

[skeptik]

Please don't make the mistake of confusing dyslexia with lack of ability or lack of intelligence.

I dont. It's unfortunate that Bush appears possibly to be both dyslexic and stupid. He has certain abilities as a 'gut' politician, and thats about it. Luckily for him half his electorate is as stupid and ignorant as he is so he is instinctively good at pulling their levers. He has no ability when it comes to dealing with complexity or ambiguity.

[RevdTess]

This news this morning didn't surprise me at all:-

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4765058.stm

Video has been obtained by a US news agency showing President George W Bush being briefed by officials on the eve of the Hurricane Katrina disaster.
The confidential video obtained by the Associated Press shows very strong warnings being given to Mr Bush about the potential strength of the storm.

It appears to contradict subsequent suggestions by the Bush administration that the threat had been unclear.