At this time, the Pacific Institute is going to be refocusing its blogging effort to go beyond the work of our Science Integrity program and incorporate all the work we do: from securing safe drinking water in Africa to cleaning up diesel truck traffic in Oakland to making sure that international corporate social responsibility standards are meaningful. Look for a mid-fall release of the new Pacific Institute blog at www.pacinst.org.

We will continue to work to defend science from political and corporate assaults. You can keep abreast of our work on this issue at www.integrityofscience.org.

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Much thanks to Katherine and everyone at ScienceBlogs and Seed Media for giving us the opportunity to blog here.

Happy trails,

Ian Hart
Editor, Integrity of Science blog

Multinational fossil fuel corporations have billions of dollars riding on U.S. inaction on climate change. These corporations are behind a number of analyses that do not hold up to peer review: not because of inherent biases of the peer reviewers, but because the science is junk.

In Saunders’s world, however, there is no such thing as junk science. Just honest disagreement.

Defending the integrity of sound science from the attack of propaganda is not a “muzzling of dissent.” Rather, it is the mechanism through which this fog of uncertainty will clear, and science will triumph over ideology.

Science policy professor Daniel Sarewitz of Arizona State University in Tempe says: “I think the opportunity to use science as a political tool against Bush has been irresistible — but it is very dangerous for science, and for politics. You can expect to see similar accusations of the political use of science in the next regime.” [...] And because polls show that scientists tend to be Democrats, Sarewitz says, their complaints should be viewed cautiously.

First off, assuming our next president is a Democrat, Sarewitz’s observations would seem to contradict themselves. Aside from that, consider how Vergano closes the piece:

“The danger comes when (science) gets to be seen as simply politics by other means,” (Harvard science historian Steven) Shapin says. “Why trust it then?”

The relationship (between the Bush administration and the nation’s scientific community) hit a new low last month when Richard Carmona, surgeon general from 2002 to 2006, lashed out at his former colleagues in testimony before a House committee.

Normally, I’d think the nation’s most circulated paper covering attacks on science integrity is a good thing. Unfortunately, throughout the article author Dan Vergano consistently confuses political interference and political considerations.

The difference is huge. Consider, for instance, comparisons from the accompanying text box titled “Where the Lines Are Drawn”:

Stem cell research: In August 2001, the president announced that federal money would be granted for research only on human embryonic stem cell lines already in existence. Bush has twice vetoed attempts by Congress to overturn his policy and expand federal spending on such research.

Global warming: In 2005, leaked documents revealed that the chief of staff for the White House Council on Environmental Quality, a former oil industry lawyer, had altered climate reports to soften scientific findings showing that fossil-fuel use and deforestation triggered global warming.

In the former example, scientific recommendations were outweighed by other political considerations. The latter example is fundamentally different: the science itself was compromised. Vergano equates these two very different actions — the administration’s not following scientific recommendations, and interference with the scientific process — throughout this article. He does not differentiate between the two.

“Science has become very powerful as a symbol and everyone who has a case to make, or argument to win, tries to recruit science on their side,” (White House science adviser John) Marburger says. “Issues that might not have been labeled as ‘science-related’ controversies in the past are now called science-related.”

Contrast that with

A Fish and Wildlife Service inspector general’s report last month revealed how a political appointee altered scientific reports on endangered species in ways that limited protected habitats, and released internal reports to real estate industry lawyers in violation of federal regulations. Agency director H. Dale Hall called the actions “a blemish” on its scientific integrity.

Vergano should not be comparing the two. Whether or not this administration has followed scientific advice is substantially different than whether or not it distorted the process. By conflating the two, Vergano does a disservice to his readers, and to scientists in particular.

Established last year, UCS’s “Science Idol” is an annual editorial cartoon contest on the theme of science integrity. Last year’s winning cartoon is here.
Check out all of this year’s finalists.

“This administration’s political appointees might be unique in their contempt for government scientists and the empiric process that shapes their work.”

Read “Frog by frog.” Hat-tip to Michael Halpern

Of course, the Washington Machine being what it is, we now have the inevitable backlash. Accordingly, Fox News is attacking the messenger.

It may, indeed, be a fair point to accuse the Bush administration of politicizing science. But Richard Carmona isn’t the person to make it. Carmona’s entire term as surgeon general has been marked by embracing every last hobgoblin promoted by the public health movement, generally above and beyond what the science says. Sometimes in spite of it. …

The critique is fairly libertarian: negative effects of marijuana, tobacco, and alcohol are overhyped, and were overhyped by Carmona.

This argument may hold water. But note the way it is wielded:

The Office of Surgeon General always has been overtly political, a captive of the most hysterical public health activists. Its only real powers are tongue-clucking and finger-wagging, usually about the latest moral panic, lecturing the American public to knock off its bad habits, lest somebody get hurt. Richard Carmona’s tenure was no different, which is why it’s laughable to hear him lecture someone else about science.

It’s kind of like Anita Hill: These revelations are disturbing, and in order to distract from them, I will attack you.

This technique is not new. One recent example is that taken by Republican Party spokespeople immediately following the Lewis Libby commutation. That afternoon, spokespersons (followed by pundits) attempted to immediately stir conversation away from the matter at hand by asking “How does this compare to Clinton’s pardons?” Similarly, rather than ask “What does it mean for our government to try to solve complex science and health problems without fully understanding the problem and with some possible solutions off the table?” or

“What is a government that hushes its experts afraid of exposing?” or even

“”What does it mean that we have an Executive that demands to be mentioned three times per page of speech?”

We’re hearing forces saying “who said that?”

Maybe, as Radley Balko suggests in the Fox News column, the former Surgeon General has his own skeletons in the closet. But that doesn’t mean the red flags he raised should be ignored. Let’s stick to the questions at hand.

Did you hear about the religious fundamentalist who wanted to teach physics at Cambridge University? This would-be instructor wasn’t simply a Christian; he was so preoccupied with biblical prophecy that he wrote a book titled “Observations on the Prophecies of Daniel and the Apocalypse of St. John.” Based on his reading of Daniel, in fact, he forecast the date of the Apocalypse: no earlier than 2060. He also calculated the year the world was created. When Genesis 1:1 says “In the beginning,” he determined, it means 3988 BC.

Not many modern universities are prepared to employ a science professor who espouses not merely “intelligent design” but out-and-out divine creation.

The man in question is Sir Isaac Newton, whom Cambridge nominated to the Lucasian Chair of Mathematics in 1668.

Jacobson’s thesis here is that Newton may offer us an example of how religious faith and scientific pursuits may be reconciled.

To be sure, religious dogma can be a blindfold, blocking truths from those who refuse to see them. Scientific dogma can have the same effect. Neither faith nor reason can answer every question. As Newton knew, the surer path to wisdom is the one that has room for both.

His examples harsh on science (Oxford’s Richard Dawkins’s “The God Delusion,” NAS classifying religion with myth) without counterbalancing examples. Of course, religious attacks on science no doubt get more play in the Globe, and I’m sure Jacoby’s readers don’t need his help conjuring examples.

The column is a little simplistic in its ‘Can’t we all just get along?’ message, but I think that encouraging harmony among the religious and the scientific is certainly a worthy cause. If we want science to help guide our policymaking, and we do, we’ll need to reach consensuses with people of faith. We may also need to provide a united front against zealots on both sides who threaten to spoil consensus.

Science doesn’t, and can’t, have all the answers. Being careful with our words and knowing where to draw the line between the knowable and the unknowable can help quell disquiet among science’s and religion’s faithful.

Willie Soon of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and his colleagues question whether polar bear populations really are declining and if sea ice, on which the animals hunt, will actually disappear as quickly as climate models predict (Ecological Complexity, DOI: 10.1016/j.ecocom.2007.03.002). Soon, who receives funding for this and other work from Exxon-Mobil, has been attacking climate change science for several years. Three of the six other authors also have links to the oil industry.

If the polar bears’ habitat disappears later than predicted, is that a valid excuse to delay implementing a solution? How does this study jibe with the ExxonMobil Foundation’s s biodiversity efforts (“Protect Tomorrow. Today”)?

It’s been a while since we checked in with Flamy McGassy, but here’s a toon from a couple months ago. Despite the Supreme Court ruling on C02, Flamy is unabashed in this episode: “Feeling the Heat.”

The takeaway message is that despite the Court’s intervention, enemies of science-based decisionmaking still lurk in the EPA. However, it is admittedly dated: the two officials featured in this cartoon Willia “Kids <3 Lead" Wehrum and Alex "Kids <3 Rocket Fuel" Beehler had their nominations withdrawn the week after this cartoon originally ran in April. Connection? Probably not.

Still, Flamy has a point: getting anything through the EPA will continue to be a struggle until January 20, 2009, at which point the oil and gas lobbyist market will be flooded. Good thing for those guys (and gals) that minimum wage got a bump up!