The Passion For Science

TW: Another of a long list of non-headliner reasons why I so very much wanted a person like Obama as POTUS would include how our government addresses science. While not literally true, if there is one area where I doubt a budget could include too much money from my view it would be science. Just as importantly regardless of anyone's, left or right, protestations to the contrary, politics influence science. Progressives are not purely in the right by any means. But the efforts of W. Bush et al. to interject and impede certain scientific initiatives greatly concerned me. That Obama may have a particular passion for science is exciting. That progressives need to avoid self-righteousness on these issues is also true.

From Amy Sullivan at Time:
"I generally agree with the value of investing more in scientific research and with those who believe that the past eight years saw too many instances of ideological biases trumping scientific--and particularly public health--concerns. And yet I find it striking that whenever Obama talks about science--from that first mention during the Inauguration to his speech restoring funding for stem-cell research to today's address--his tone is rather un-Obama-like.

It's not that Obama works himself into a rant when he talks about science. He's still calm, cool Barack, after all. But for him, it is almost strident. Sometimes it's his language--today he complained that "We have watched as scientific integrity has been undermined and scientific research politicized in an effort to advance predetermined ideological agendas." And sometimes it's just his tone--when I listened to the stem-cell speech, his voice sounded uncharacteristically hard, although in reading the text later I noticed a sensitivity to dissenting beliefs that hadn't come through in the delivery.

Maybe the dismissal of science and evidence simply offends Obama's intellectual sensibilities. Or maybe it's one of those rare issues on which his emotions peek through and we're hearing from a man who believes his mother died too early from a disease he hopes will one day be curable.

Whatever the reason, it worries me somewhat because science is one of those areas in which Obama's generally nuanced intellectual approach would be helpful. The anti-science, anti-expert mindset is obviously troubling. But so too is the idea that science is always an unquestioned capital-G good and that anyone who raises questions stands in the way of progress. To cite just one troubling example, this week Michael Isikoff reports a confrontation between FBI interrogator Ali Soufan and a CIA contractor whose harsh methods disturbed him:

"I asked [the contractor] if he'd ever interrogated anyone, and he said no,"
Soufan says. But that didn't matter, the contractor shot back: "Science is science. This is a behavioral issue." The contractor suggested Soufan was the inexperienced one. "He told me he's a psychologist and he knows how the human mind works."

Now, obviously that's an extreme example. Most advocates of science aren't looking to use it to excuse torture. But neither are most people who worry about the use of embryonic stem cells engaged in "effort[s] to advance predetermined ideological agendas."
http://swampland.blogs.time.com/2009/04/27/obamas-strident-support-of-science/