I am a scientist. I have a PhD in Geology and a lot of experience in both academia and industry. I currently work for a major international cooperative science program, the IODP, which is focused on deep ocean drilling for climatological, tectonic, earthquake hazard, and biological/evolutionary basic research purposes. Side benefits include the potential for discovering new medicines and new sources of energy.
We rely on science – academic and industrial – to make the things we use, to understand the world we live in so that we can survive as a culture and as a species.
The decisions we make as a culture have results that are often contingent upon our grasp of reality – real data, real facts, real results.
The following article at Chris Mooney’s web site should be ringing even more alarm bells than are already ringing.
Industry can often be ugly, and the profit motive makes for some serously poisonous history and behavior…but at root, making money requires recognizing reality…hence the recent spate of articles from industry regarding global warming, peak oil, chemical pollution and so on. Not universal, not particularly heartfelt or sincere…but it is happening, and companies are trying to get the “Green” label on their activities for a damned good reason.
Academia can also often be ugly – puerile, immature, selfish, self-aggrandizing, hiding motives and methods in high-minded rhetoric while squelching new ideas and maintaining a medieval guild-like system of apprenticeships, sexism, and old-boys clubs. But academia, unfettered “pure” science, forms the theoretical and practical basis for nearly every scientific advancement, from the internet, to GPS, to superconductors, to new medicines, to new understandings of how the world and the universe works.
Now, we are under direct attack on a number of cultural fronts…and there is a new front opening – direct government attacks on scientists who do “inconvenient” research.
Michael Mann is a world-renowned climatologist. His data and methods have expanded our abilities to
- Gather and interpret climate proxy data all over the globe
- Extend the available data set back in time for purposes of calibrating models and testing hindcasting climate predictions
- Explain and explore new hypotheses regarding the ocean-climate-continent heat/water/air circulation system
- Understand carbon (and other nutrient and element) cycles through time, and corellate with ice and sediment cores in remote regions.
His “Hockey Stick” paper represented a massive advancement of our understanding of the climate record and provided a series of new tools, tests, hypotheses and predictions in the climate sciences.
As such, that paper became the target of a large number of sophisticated and idiotic attacks, ranging from the moronic Wall Street Journal attempt, to the much more well-couched but still libelous and dishonest works of McIntyre and McKitrick (whom I will not link to, but can be found in the above-linked essays, rebuttals and articles).
Not just Michael Mann, but an entire spectrum of scientists have contributed to a long-term, large-scale, complex and growing understanding of how our climate works, what dangers we face, how we are exacerbating those dangers, and what we can do about those problems.
Now, Joe Barton, Republican Chair of the House Committe on Energy and Commerce is threatening Mann, and the entire scientific community, by sending Letters (PDF) requesting extremely detailed, time consuming, intrusive, invasive and chilling amounts of information regarding Mann’s (and many others’) history, funding, methods, publications, and everything else under the sun.
Barton is using the Wall Street Journal editorial as basis and justification for his actions – a letter that has been roundly, soundly, and directly debunked by Mann and others at RealClimate, and is, anyway, based on the idiotic and uninformed rantings of a writer (or ghostwriter) who is dredging up large amounts of already debunked and addressed criticisms.
This amounts to nothing less than an attempt to quell, quash, silence, and shackle scientists by threatening them directly, impugning their reputations, and hampering their research by burying them in governmental paperwork and bureaucratic procedural garbage.
The war on science is ramping up.
I urge you to come to our defense.
Help us, help science.
Modern science makes everything you use, and our discipline forms the basis for survival of our species on this planet.
Write Letters to the committee.
Join and contribute to The Union of Concerned Scientists.
Write letters to the editor.
Go to Real Climate and register your support.
Whatever.
Thanks.
This is a vital issue, and is in fact a meta-issue, since if science is vilified and research is slowed, we lose the basis for making reality-based arguments on a range of environmental, public health, and other issues.
As RedDan points out, the business community is a potential ally in this fight, as you have to be reality-based to run a profitable business. As other nations pass us by as we enter a self-imposed dark age, the business community will feel the pinch – they will not be able to find properly-educated workers, all the advanced technologies they need to stay competitive will have to be bought from overseas suppliers, and foreigh nations will have lower energy costs because they will have transitioned away from oil to alternative power supplies.
This is already well underway in the US. Can a superpower survive if it neglects science education and scientific research? Look to the history of the USSR for your answer: by heavy-handed force we can bluster our way around the globe and economically limp along for a few decades before we totally collapse into third-world-nation status.
This is one facet of the war against reality by the alliance of the religious right and extreme conservatives. As the effects of their extremism start to take effect, we can expect the moderate / businessman faction of the Republican party to peel away.
In the past this process has been self-limiting, but saying that is just another way of saying “It could never happen here.” They’re pushing against the limits and moving into the danger zone this time with their social experiments – we shall see if they avoid the societal equivalent of Chernobyl, or if we can wrestle the control rod levers away from them in time.
Next time someone brings up an issue that falls under the category “demonization of scientific research,” ask them:
“Why do you want to throw sand into the gears of the machinery that protects us from disease and starvation, and has made our nation strong, rich, and free? Do you know you’re aiding our enemies by making America ignorant, economically weaker, and a backwater of the world? Is your God so afraid of the truth embodied in the universe He created?”
If it’s too late to turn the nation from this path, then we are all on the path to the Gulag, some to arrive sooner, some a little later.
This is also the end-goal of the Creationist movement. Science and intellectual investigation shackled to the demands of politics and ideology. Yet another reason why we can’t compromise on education.
Specifically, read more about Trofim Lysenko and the triumph of political wishful thinking over scientific thinking.
Although the USSR managed to retain significant expertise in the physical sciences, Lysenkoism destroyed its expertise in the biological sciences, and it never recovered fully.
Exactly right. On European Tribune, where RedDan also posted this diary, I drew the Lyssenko parallel too.
Lysenkoism was exactly what I was thinking of.
Although Andrei Sakharov showed that all a theoretical physicist needs is chalk and a blackboard.
Yup, Lysenko is a prime example.
Another one is the originator of the term “Gender Role”, John Money.
Dr Money should be remembered as the man who tortured and drove to suicide David Reimer. (Hopefully everyone has heard of this classic “sex-reassignment” experiment. This is a prime example of what happens when ideology clashes with reality. Yes, there were likely other factors in David’s suicide, but Money’s actions were inexcusable.)
There’s stuff on this all over. See here and here.
Please remember David whenever you use the term “Gender Role”.
“The” issue is conquest, pure and simple.
Just beneath that, they’re opposed to rational thinking of all kinds; science, as important as it is, is a subset. What they need is a majority population incapable or philosophically opposed to reasoning, so they don’t even listen to scientists. Because that’s how the cabal attains the ability to confiscate and rule.
Their economic system now creates such vast rewards in such short periods of times for management that our Enlightenment system breaks down under the pressure. Institutions can expand, scaling ever larger without obvious limitation if information technology supports it, with steadily expanding ability to reward–but human leaders retain their 85 year lifespan with its animal drives and comparatively trivial susceptibility to the growing corporate ability to reward.
So business leaders today can make their families lifetime Peers of the Realm after only a few months or years of work. It becomes worthwhile, and increasingly irresistable, for decisionmakers to neglect their institutions and the nation in order to catch the gold ring for themselves.
As RedDan points out, the business community is a potential ally in this fight,
Maybe in the old earn-a-living world, but I think we’ve created too much of a jackpot-based economy to count on this. But I certainly hope someone can make this approach work.
Do you know you’re aiding our enemies by making America ignorant,
Dude, do you have any idea what an educated, informed and reasoning work force and electorate would cost the kind of businesses and government we run these days?
Do you have any idea what an educated, informed and reasoning work force and electorate would cost the kind of businesses and government we run these days?
Bingo.
It would cost them the whole ball of wax.
IWW, One Big Union, CIO…scared the bejeezuz outta the pigs.
Can we get back there?
Hitler drove the scientists out of Europe and into America.
Bush is reversing that process.
Draw your own conclusions.
A kinder, gentler [insert noun here].
This is the one of the scariest posts I’ve read today. Just came back from reading the ‘demands’ in the pdf letter and I’m stunned – in my academic life to date I have never seen such a request from a body outside of the academic/ journal peer review/ grant proposal and granting agency update/ etc. requiring that detail of information. Thanks RedDan for bringing this to our attention.
This sets a really bad precedent. Such a massive review of a scientist’s research should only come if there have been credible alegations of fraud made by peers.
For those of you concerned about attacks on the Endangered Species Act, I recommend taking a look at the Center for Biological Diversity’s website.
Pombo’s busy in the House making claims about ESA that are counter to the opinions of the majority of conservation biologists.
And so it begins.
I wonder who the “expert” who will review the documents is and what their qualifications are.
The oil, gas, automotive, and other polluting companies are getting desperate to shut-down climate research so it’s not surprising the “Honorable” Ed Whitfield is sticking his nose in.
This diary needs to be on the front page.
He’s equally expert on climatological science as he is on brain dead women blessed with the gift of sight.
…some in the corporate world over global climate change and peak oil is reminiscent of DuPont over chlorofluorocarbons. For a long time, DuPont was part of the crowd that said anybody who argued the ozone was being damaged by CFCs was just a watermelon (green on the outside, red on the inside) and not to be trusted because their goal was to destroy capitalism. Then DuPont found an alternative product and switched gears, becoming one of the more outspoken corporations favoring the Montreal Protocol. If they think they can make money at it, they’ll be green, blue, purple, or, like the Chinese, even adopt Red Capitalism.
As far as the Bush Administration and its minions go, what a confusion. Some days I think they actually believe the content of their pandering to the creationist wing of the GOP, to wit: if global climate change is happening (and we don’t admit that it is, but if it is) then we really shouldn’t do anything about it because it could very well be God’s omen for the imminent arrival of The Rapture, which, obviously, will be a good thing (if you’re one of us).
I’m a longtime contributor to the UCS. But maybe I’ll give a little more this year.
Great Diary.
The insurance industry has been terrified of global warming for more than 5 years now. The American ski industry and Vermont maple syrup industry are starting to feel the effects of global warming and, for the latter at least, the end may be in sight as Vermont loses its ideal maple syrup climate to Canada. THese are only the first hadnful of industries that will be hurt badly by global warming.
Of course Bush only cares about the oil industry, which wants to pretend the problem doesn’t exist for as long as possible. After all, all those pumps needed to prevent Louisiana and Florida from being inundated and all those air conditioners that we will all need USE ENERGY. So it’s all good for big oil.
pattern regarding the teaching of birth control in high schools?
Since it is ‘not happening’ there is no need to take precautions.
“It will not be taught because teenagers are not allowed to be sexually active. They must abstain.”
This is so important. A recent NPR story that aroused my ire (regarding selenium levels in streams resulting from the destruction of mountaintops in coal mining) was just the latest example of Bushco distorting or suppressing science. Shrub has even stated that he has his doubts, not only about global warming, but about evolution! What a maroon. I just hope we can weather this and get back to an evidence-based government soon…
-Alan
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Support Hugo Chavez: Fill up your car at CITGO!
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Global Warming
Evolution
Mad Cow
Toxic metals in soil and water
Cuts in NIH and NSF funding (which is hitting me directly since soon I will be out of a job because of declining funding)
These are part of a seeming crusade against science by the Bush neo-Con fanatics. How can America compete long term if we denegrate science yet more. Our society already is leery of science and soon it will be outright hostile.
I have been a longtime supporter of Union of Concerned Sientists and National Center for Science Education. I strongly suggest we all support them before our government issues in a new Dark Age.
To whom it may concern,
It has come to my attention that The House Committee on Energy and Commerce is wasting the time and resources of the US Government in staging a witch hunt designed to stifle and intimidate scientists. I perused the letter that you sent to Professor Mann, and as a scientist I can’t help but see this as politcally motivated. You are basing your objections to his work on one Wall Street Journal editorial and one journal article. Giving Professor Mann two weeks to prepare the laundry list of items you have demanded is furthermore a waste of his time, and as he probably is receiving government funding, a waste of taxpayer money.
Not only is this wasteful of time and resources, it is harassment. Plain and simple. Mann’s findings, along with those of many other scientists, are inconvenient to your political agenda, and therefore you are intimidating scientists in order to further your aims. This is fraudulent.
The component of abuse is also present here. The scientific chilling effect that your letter portends is dangerous to the well-being of our country. If we no longer lead the world in education and science, we no longer lead the world in innovation, and we will no longer lead the world.
If you could let me know what your findings are about this egregious example of waste, fraud, and abuse, I would appreciate it.
Thank you
[Primordial Ooze]
Dear House UnAmerican (Scientific) Activities Committee:
I believe that our government may have been hijacked by corporate profit-mongers and the lackeys that their ill-gotten gains promote to office. There’s compelling evidence that the last US presidential election was the victim of corporate sabotage. However, the computer codes used to program electronic voting machines are privileged information. Thus I am heartened by this paragraph expressing your demands on certain scientists who have produced results that conflict with your agenda of raping planet earth and enslaving its inhabitants.
“According to The Wall Street Journal, you have declined to release the exact computer code you used to generate your results. (a) Is this correct? (b) What policy on sharing research and methods do you follow? (c) What is the source of that policy? (d) Provide this exact computer code used to generate your results.”
So I would like to return these questions to Diebold and ESS, those companies that have produced electronic voting machines. Is it true that they decline to provide their exact computer codes? If so, why can such privileges be afforded to corporations that help elect tragically unpopular presidents, when they are not afforded to our country’s most rigorous scientists? Please apply these question to the 2004 presidential elections and reply immediately:
(a) Is this correct?
(b) What policy on sharing research and methods do you follow?
(c) What is the source of that policy?
(d) Provide this exact computer code used to generate your results.
Sincerely,
Mythmother
Thanks for the comments and the recommends – I am sorry I could not reply to each of you – one of the problems I have with the cross-posting between all the allies in the Blogosphere is that I am a strong believer in “Diary Maintenance” – If I cannot participate in the conversation my diary may (or may not) spark, I feel uncomfortable posting…
In this case, I thought it too important to simpy let pass.
In any case, thanks so much for increasing the visibility of this frightening event/trend, and I appreciate your comments.
I would add to the commentary that it is NOT just Climate Science/Scientists under attack.
Astronomy, Cosmology, Exobiology, Evolutionary Biology, Medical Biology, Aspects of Chemistry (radiometric dating, specifically), and some Basic Physics disciplines are under concerted, if slightly less prominent attacks.
NOAA, NASA, USGS, NSF, NCAR and many other agencies are facing budgetary cutbacks and shortfalls. Basic, long-running programs are being denied renewal of operating funds, Post-docs and PhDs are losing stipends and grants…
It really runs deep, and it is getting worse.
The fightback must ramp up and step up.
I will do all that I can, and please help!
Thanks so much!!
Why should science get off easy? The war on Americans is broad and deep and crosses every discipline. If you don’t buy in to their vision you get to be in the crosshairs. Simples as that.
Thanks, RedDan, as a scientist, I appreciate your posting of this information a great deal. If you haven’t mentioned it elsewhere (I read quickly after a long day), I strongly recommend Rep. Henry Waxman’s (Dem, California) website Politics & Science.
http://democrats.reform.house.gov/features/politics_and_science/index.htm
It details all of the various attacks that are being made against science in the Bush administration.
As you note later in your post, this attack extends to virtually all areas of science, far more than the list in your original post. In my own field, reseachers who examine social and behavioral aspects of HIV-AIDs, among others, have come in for particular close scrutiny and objection.
The reporting on Waxman’s site clearly shows that the corruption of intelligence surrounding Iraq was part of a much wider assault on unwanted information. What went on was far more deliberate and far more sinister than simply telling lies. Circumventing, intimidating, or replacing people who give accurate, unwanted information is the prime motivation across a wide range of areas.
And, of course, it’s not limited to the Bush Administration. In Congress, if there’s a roll-call vote, and they haven’t twisted enough arms yet, even accutate information about what time it is falls into this same category.