"In public health, as in a democracy, there is nothing worse than ignoring science or marginalizing the voice of science for reasons driven by changing political winds." So says former U.S. surgeon general Richard H. Carmona (2002-2006). Worth a read, if your day isn't already shot. Then there's NPR's All Things Considered, which has a beaut of a quote:
Carmona said when he first came to Washington in 2002, he was somewhat naïve.He recalled a meeting where senior White House officials talked about global warming as a liberal cause with no merit.
"I remember thinking, 'I know why they want me here, they want me to discuss the science; they don't understand the science.' So I had this scientific discussion for about a half an hour, and I was never invited back to the meeting."
I just about broke a rib when I heard that one.
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I think this is a bit over-simplified. Science gives us information. Policy decides what to do with that information. Just because policy decides to use the information in ways that don't nesscarily agree with how scientists think the information should be used doesn't mean it's being ignored.
Say, for instance, science discovered that a certain race had a greater tendency to violence because of higher testerone levels released during puberty. Does that mean that the government should mandate that all members of the race be locked up? Genetically modified? Forced to take estrogen?
Of course, while the science in this case should not be acted on, it doesn't really mean it's being ignored. But from the outside, since the action is the same, it's a bit hard to tell. This isn't to say that there aren't parts of the government that truely don't understand or know the science that applies to their policy decisions- but it's important to understand that in some cases, they may simply decide that the costs of addressing the problem outweigh the benefits.
Renee,
Read the reports and listen to the what these people are saying. Its not that the administration listened to the science, weighed it along with other factors, and then came to a policy decision. The adminstration had a policy decision and did not care about what the science said. They were only interested in being supported by science and were more than happy to distort, suppress, and otherwise manipulate the process. When a political college journalism major drop-out (Deutsch) is telling a highly trained NASA climatoligist (Hansen) that he cannot discuss global warming research and information, that's not policy deciding to use the information in ways that don't nesscarily agree with how scientists think the information should be used doesn't mean it's being ignored..
I know, dont tell me, Deutsch was a rogue appointee and if this issue was widespread we would have heard about from other agencies, such as the FDA, EPA, NOAA, NIH, CDC, and the Surgeon General's Office.....oh wait!
If alarms are reporting that a house is on fire, and its occupant decides to roll over and go back to sleep, we can reasonably say the alarms have been ignored.
Scientists have been ringing alarms for more than thirty years, and they have been ignored.