Something Else For Obama To Do: Revitalize Science

TW: Because Obama does not have enough things to do, this article, and I concur, proposes another task, re-vitalizing American science after eight dreary years of Republican know-nothingness. The only stories I saw for eight years were those where the Bush Administration was one way or the other demeaning, downsizing, injecting religion or in some other form diminishing science and research (AIDS treatment in Africa being an exception). Perhaps I missed some more positive stories. But hopefully this is one of those initiatives where Obama with minimal involvement, a few more dollars and good implementers can get some things done.

From NYT:
"The most notable characteristic of the Bush administration’s science policy has been the repeated distortion and suppression of scientific evidence in order to fit ideological preferences about how the world should be, rather than how it is.

In his disturbing book “Undermining Science: Suppression and Distortion in the Bush Administration,” the journalist Seth Shulman describes case after case of intimidation of scientists in government posts, the suppression of scientific evidence and the perpetuation of misinformation.
The fields affected range from climate change to public health. Although some incidents are small in and of themselves, the cumulative effect is horrifying. Shulman also catalogs a long list of established government scientists who, during the course of the Bush administration, resigned their posts in despair...

...I don’t want to idealize this. To claim that scientists are free of bias, ambition or desires would be ridiculous...Moreover, to downplay evidence that doesn’t fit your ideas, and to place more weight on evidence that does — this is something that human brains just seem to do...

However, the beauty of the scientific approach is that even when individuals do succumb to bias or partiality, others can correct them using a framework of evidence that everyone broadly agrees on. (Admittedly, this can sometimes be a slow process.) But arguing over data is different from suppressing it. Or changing it. Or ignoring it. For these activities debase the whole enterprise and threaten its credibility. When data can’t be accessed or trusted, when “facts” are actually illusions — well, this threatens the nature of knowledge itself. And a society without knowledge is steering blind..."
http://judson.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/12/02/back-to-reality/?partner=rss&emc=rss