Pure Pedantry : Some Concerns on the Miller Amendment

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Jake Young is a MD/PhD student at Mount Sinai School of Medicine focusing in Neuroscience. He is due to graduate in 2032. He received a BS and a MS in Biological Sciences from Stanford University -- where he spent most of his time drinking heavily and building vegetable catapults instead of learning information that would now be eminently useful. When he is not failing terrifically to perform his sworn duties, he enjoys watching bad movies, ethnic food, and running.

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Some Concerns on the Miller Amendment

Category: Science policy
Posted on: June 14, 2006 11:13 PM, by Jake Young

I think that the Miller Amendment is well intentioned, but I have some concerns. If you don't know what the Miller Amendment is Nick is all over that.

Here is my concern. How is such an amendment to be enforced? If the means of enforcement is either by Senate hearings or by judicial prosecution, can members of the political establishment be trusted to distinguish accurate from inaccurate scientific information in an impartial manner? Also, can this amendment be abused?

Consider the following scenario. Congressman A has a problem with a set of scientific results done by a scientific researcher, say with respect to global warming. He decides to take that individual to court or drag them into hearings because that researcher has failed to acknowledge alternative theories -- for example the research of global warming skeptics. A court or a Senate panel would then be required to screen the validity of the scientist's results -- though such a forum lacks the training to do so and unlikely to be impartial.

I guess I am worried that this is going to blow up in its proponents faces big time and that this amendment is going to be used to bring politicians into the process of determining scientific validity rather than keeping them out of it.

I agree completely with the principle that results should not be censored and that advisory panel members should not be politically motivated. I also think that this response by Blogs for Industry is a crass ad hominem attack. However, I do think concerns about this bill are reasonable, even if Republicans do not seem to be motivated by reasonable concerns in their decision to vote against it.

Comments

I think anytime you mix science and politics you're probably asking for trouble, but I'm not sure if I really see a scenario playing out that way. As it stands right now, there is quite a bit of political interference in science and no legal avenues to address it. For example, NASA wasn't able to do anything about the person at the heart of the NASA censorship scandal, because he was an administration appointee. It was only because of the unrelated fact that he lied on his resume that he had to resign. Regulations such as the ones in this amendment would have hopefully gotten rid of him when it first became apparent that he was blatantly censoring the science.

Posted by: Nick Anthis | June 15, 2006 4:33 AM