I think it’s fascinating that the political abuses of science, which has reached a level in the U.S. unseen in recent memory, is receiving surprisingly strong attention.
Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) and his staff have done yeomen’s work on the issue, culminating with a detailed study — Politics and Science in the Bush administration — released last summer.
The story got increased attention about a month ago when the Union of Concerned Scientists — 62 of the nation’s top scholars, including 12 Nobel laureates — denounced the Bush administration for “misrepresenting and suppressing scientific knowledge for political purposes.”
Of course, writer (and blogger) Chris C. Mooney does a terrific job of chronicling the political abuses of science on a very regular basis (he even has a new book coming out on the subject), and the way in which the White House has taken these abuses to new depths.
In that vein, I wanted to point out that the San Francisco Chronicle had an editorial on the subject yesterday that served as an excellent overview. (Thanks to J.K. for the tip.)
The Bush administration is waging a campaign to alter, eliminate, distort or suppress any scientific evidence that doesn’t support its policies or ideology. Here are but a few examples:
— Abortion: To strengthen its anti-abortion agenda, the administration portrayed abortion as a risk factor in breast cancer, which it is not.
— Environmental health: The Bush administration has suppressed evidence about safe levels of mercury emissions and lead. Mercury and lead contamination are linked to neurological and development impairment in children.
— The environment: President Bush has dismissed the dangers posed by global warming and has, by executive order, reversed or relaxed environmental regulations that have protected the American public from air, water and soil pollution.
— Sexual abstinence: To support its abstinence-only sex education campaign, the government deleted important information from a Web site about how using condoms can help prevent HIV infection.
— Stem cell research: The Bush administration recently replaced two eminent scientists on the Council on Bio-Ethics who disagreed with the administration’s political opposition to embryonic stem-cell research.
To be sure, there are plenty of other examples; too many to list here. But the Chronicle editorial does a fine job in summarizing the administration’s efforts to manipulate science to advance its political agenda and why that matters.
If it’s a subject that interests you, it’s definitely worth checking out.
When politics trumps science, no one wins: The Bush administration, already burdened by a growing credibility gap, squanders even greater public trust; scientists waste precious time fighting political battles; and we, the nations’ citizens, lose expert advice on how to protect our health and that of the environment.