Transcript Science and Opinion Journalism

On the Use and Misuse of
Scientific Evidence in Making
Public Policy
Chris Mooney
12:00 pm, Monday, September 19, 2005
Woodrow Wilson School
Science, Technology, and Environmental
Policy Seminar Series
Union of Concerned Scientists
Declaration
“Although scientific input to the
government is rarely the only factor
in public policy decisions, this input
should always be weighed from an
objective and impartial perspective to
avoid perilous consequences. Indeed,
this principle has long been adhered
to by presidents and administrations
of both parties in forming and
implementing policies. The
administration of George W. Bush
has, however, disregarded this
principle.”
-- “Restoring Scientific Integrity in
Policymaking,” February 2004
TOLES © 2004 The Washington Post. Reprinted with permission of UNIVERSAL PRESS
SYNDICATE. All rights reserved.
How We’ll Proceed….
1. How should science and politics interact?
2. What counts as political science abuse?
3. Why are such abuses becoming more frequent?
4. How can we know that George W. Bush’s
administration has politicized science to an
unprecedented extent?
5. What can be done?
1. The President on the Distinction Between
Technocracy and Democracy
“I am not a geologist, as
you know.”
-- George W. Bush,
Dec. 29, 2004
2. What is Political Science Abuse?
Def: “Any attempt to inappropriately undermine, alter,
or otherwise interfere with the scientific process, or
scientific conclusions, for political or ideological reasons.”
(Categories: General, Process, Substantive)
General Example: Undermining Science Itself
An assault on the very nature of science or the
scientific method. Examples:
1. Creationist claim: evolution is “just a theory” (Cobb
County, Georgia).
2. “Intelligent design” creationist claim: science, as
currently practiced, is equivalent to materialistic
philosophy/atheism (Kansas)
Process Example: Suppression
& Forced-Editing
Includes: Quashing scientific reports for political
reasons; seeking to edit unpublished reports to make
their contents more palatable.
Example: Internal Environmental Protection Agency
Memo, April 29, 2003 (source: National Wildlife
Federation/Revkin & Seelye, “Report by E.P.A. Leaves
Out Data on Climate Change,” The New York Times,
June 19, 2003.)
Substantive Example: Errors and
Misrepresentations
Includes: Misstatements of fact; errors of omission;
misrepresentations or distortions of scientific work
(essentially, the spinning of science).
Examples: 1. George W. Bush’s erroneous August 9,
2001 claim that “more than 60” embryonic stem cell
lines were in existence.
2. Repeated misrepresentations of 2001 National
Academy of Sciences Report, Climate Change Science: An
Analysis of Some Key Questions.
NAS 2001 “Climate Change Science”
Report

“The IPCC’s conclusion that most of the observed
warming of the last 50 years is likely to have been due
to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations
accurately reflects the current thinking of the scientific
community on this issue.”

“Because of the large and still uncertain level of natural
variability inherent in the climate record and the
uncertainties in the time histories of the various forcing
agents (and particularly aerosols), a causal linkage
between the buildup of greenhouse gases in the
atmosphere and the observed climate changes during
the 20th century cannot be unequivocally established.”
Substantive Example B: Relying on the
Outliers
Includes: Politicians handpicking experts willing to say
what they want to hear, even when the vast majority of
scientists believe something else. The “cherry-picking”
of expertise.
Bottom Line: While dissent has an important place in
science, the notion that policymakers should hold up
scientific outliers to justify their decisions is
preposterous. The best available consensus science
should guide policy, not the most convenient science
politicians can find in a pinch.
Senator James Inhofe (Extremely Reliant on
the Outliers)
“With all of the hysteria, all of the fear, all of the
phony science, could it be that man-made global
warming is the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the
American people? It sure sounds like it.”
-- James Inhofe, Senate floor speech, July 28, 2003
The Value of Consensus Science to
Policymaking
“Scientific knowledge is the intellectual and social
consensus of affiliated experts based on the weight of
available empirical evidence, and evaluated according to
accepted methodologies. If we feel that a policy
question deserves to be informed by scientific
knowledge, then we have no choice but to ask, what is
the consensus of experts on this matter?”
-- Naomi Oreskes, “Science and public policy:
What’s proof got to do with it,” Environmental
Science & Policy 7 [2004], 369-383.
Part III: Why is it Getting Worse?
Some* Trends Fueling Increased Science Politicization:
1. Growth of think tanks. (Offering alternative
expertise.)
2. Trend on the part of industry to target the role of
science in the regulatory process, rather than fighting
exclusively over regulations (“paralysis by analysis”).
3. Move by religious conservatives to have their own
“scientists” on virtually every moral issue of concern
to them.
(* Not all.)
A. Growth of Politicized Think Tanks
“Corporate philanthropy
should not be, and
cannot be, disinterested.”
-- Irving Kristol, 1972
Think Tanks, Cont.
“At the end of World War II, only a handful of private
policy think tanks were at work in Washington; at the
end of the Cold War there were over one hundred, the
largest ones spending tens of millions of dollars
annually on the analysis of policy problems.”
-- Bruce Bimber, The Politics of Expertise in Congress,
1996
(American Enterprise Institute founded in 1943;
Heritage Foundation founded in 1973.)
ExxonMobil 2004 Donations








American Enterprise Institute, $ 230,000
American Legislative Exchange Council: $ 222,000
Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise, $ 130,000
Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow, $ 125,000
Competitive Enterprise Institute, $ 270,000
Congress of Racial Equality, $ 135,000
Frontiers of Freedom, $ 250,000
George C. Marshall Institute, $ 170,000
Total: $ 1,532,000 (Source: ExxonMobil)
B. Growing Fights Over Regulatory Science
1970s: New environmental and public safety regulations
and agencies to implement them: EPA, OSHA, etc.
1981: Reagan Executive Order 12291, centralized
review of government regulations at Office of
Management & Budget (OIRA).
1995: Gingrich Congress seeks “regulatory reform”:
Unprecedented strictures on how government agencies
do science. (Slogan = “sound science”; likely effect =
“paralysis by analysis”).
1998: Shelby Amendment (“get the data”)
……
Jim J. Tozzi, former Phillip Morris lobbyist, unofficial creator of
the “Data Quality Act.” Most famous quotation: “I don’t want to
leave fingerprints.” Remark on getting the DQA through
Congress: “Sometimes you get the monkey, and sometimes the
monkey gets you.”
More Paralysis By Analysis….
2001: Data Quality Act.
2004: proposed “Endangered Species Act Data Quality
Act”
2003-2005: OMB “peer review” superstructure
(justified by “Data Quality Act”)
Bottom Line: Arguing over science helps special
interests slow down the process of regulation. It works
like a charm.
C. The Religious Right Gets Science
“You don’t have to wave your
bible to have an effect as a
Christian in the public arena. We
serve the greatest Scientist. We
serve the Author of all Truth. All
we’re required to do is proclaim
that Truth.”
-- W. David Hager, October
29, 2004 speech at Asbury
College, Kentucky
Anti-Evolutionists Get “Science”
1924: William Jennings Bryan joins
the American Association for
the Advancement of Science.
1961: Whitcomb and Morris, The
Genesis Flood
1974: Henry Morris publishes
Scientific Creationism (in biblical
and non-biblical versions).
1980: A campaigning Ronald
Reagan pronounces “great
flaws” in evolutionary theory.
……..
Anti-Evolutionists Get *Even More*
“Science”
1987: Edwards v. Aguillard, “creation science” loses at
Supreme Court.
1990: Discovery Institute founded.
1999: Wedge document (publicly exposed--oops).
Today: New wave of evolution fights sweeping across the
country.
And It’s Not Just Anti-Evolutionists…
“Adult” stem cell research versus embryonic.
Alleged health “risks” from abortion.
Abstinence education “works,” condoms “don’t.”
Not enough “data” on how Plan B contraception will
be used by young adolescents (down to age 11!).
Collapse of Old Paradigm for
Science/Religion/Government
C. Everett Koop on abortion
and women’s health, 1989:
“If I had put out the kind of
report that was not scientific,
that did not recognize the lack
of physical evidence of what
they wanted to know, it would
have been attacked and
destroyed by scientists and
statisticians.”
Part IV: Science and the Bush
Administration
“I am not a geologist, as
you know.”
-- President George W.
Bush, Dec. 29, 2004
Scientists Concerned From the Start…
Early 2001:
Climate change (dumping Kyoto, using NAS to review
IPCC).
Stem cell research (“more than 60” lines).
Holes in the “science net”: Surgeon General, FDA
Commissioner, and NIH Director positions go unfilled.
Early Troubles Over OSTP
Dr. John Marburger:
* Not confirmed by the Senate until October 23, 2001.
* Demoted from rank of “Assistant to the President”
before he ever assumed his position (“that title was
never offered to me”).
2002-2003: Charges of Advisory
Committee Politicization
September 2002, Washington Post expose reveals “broad
restructuring” of scientific advisory committees within
the Bush Department of Health and Human Services
so as to align them ideologically with the White House.
Subsequent reports/Famous cases: W. David Hager,
William Miller.
Fun with websites: Changing condom effectiveness
information at CDC; breast cancer/abortion
information at NCI.
“An Epidemic of Politics”
“What’s unusual about the
current epidemic is not that
the Bush administration
examines candidates for
compatibility with its ‘values.’
It’s how deep the practice cuts;
in particular, the way it now
invades areas once immune to
this kind of manipulation.”
-- Donald Kennedy,
executive editor-in-chief,
Science, January 31, 2003
2002-2004: Reports on Science
Politicization Emerge
December 2002: “Weird Science,” report on Department
of the Interior by Democratic Rep. Nick Rahall.
August 2003: “Politics and Science in the Bush
Administration,” Rep. Henry Waxman report.
February 2004: Union of Concerned Scientists report and
statement, “Restoring Scientific Integrity in
Policymaking,” signed by 20 Nobel Laureates. (Massive
press coverage.)
BUT: Reports lacking comparative historical analysis!!!!
Were Bush Administration Abuses
Unprecedented?
Probably so. Based on:
Volume of complaints by scientists and distinguished
policymakers—including Republicans.
Marburger’s inability to rebut virtually any of the
charges.
Historical analysis: Problem existent before, but never
so extensive in previous administrations.
Previously discussed trends—all of which merged in
the Bush administration.
Part IV: What Can Be Done?
Lewis Branscomb, “Science,
Politics, and U.S. Democracy,”
Issues in Science and Technology,
Fall 2004.
“The integrity of the science advisory
process cannot withstand overt actions to
censor or suppress unwanted advice, to
mischaracterize it, or to construct it by use
of political litmus tests in the selection of
individuals to serve on committees….If we
fail in the attempt to preserve the integrity
of science in democratic governance, a
strong source of unity in the electorate,
based on common interest in the actual
performance of government, will be
eroded. Policymaking by ideology requires
that reality be set aside; it can be maintained
only by moving towards ever more
authoritarian forms of governance.”
Legislative Steps That Must Be Taken…
Legal reforms: OTA, OSTP, safeguarding
advisory committees, protecting whistleblowers.
Roll back “Data Quality,” “peer review”
proposal.
Prevent passage of “Endangered Species Act
Data Quality Act” and other similar legislation.
November 2004 Columbia Journalism Review
Article on “Balance” in Science Reporting

Argues that the journalistic
norm of “balance” has no
parallel in the scientific
world and can lead
reporters to distort or
misrepresent what's
actually known.

Suggests science journalists
should avoid the trap of
“he said/she said/we’re
clueless” coverage and
actually help their readers
evaluate the credibility of
different claims.
September 2005 Columbia Journalism Review
Article on Evolution Coverage

Argues that political
reporters, TV news, and
editorial pages create a false
“debate” over the science
of evolution in their
coverage.

Suggests better journalist
training so that, again, they
can learn to avoid the trap
of “he said/she said/we’re
clueless” coverage.
Deterrence and Future Struggles
Scientist and university-based activism.
Continue to fight anti-evolutionists and other
attempts to distort what children learn.
And finally: Get political.
For Further Information
Chris Mooney is Washington
correspondent for Seed
magazine.
Book website:
www.waronscience.com
E-mail: [email protected]