Scientists Start a 527

Some scientists have decided to form a 527 -- a political action committee that is not tax deductible under election law -- to combat what they feel is a rising anti-science sentiment:

Several prominent scientists said yesterday that they had formed an organization dedicated to electing politicians "who respect evidence and understand the importance of using scientific and engineering advice in making public policy."

Organizers of the group, Scientists and Engineers for America, said it would be nonpartisan, but in interviews several said Bush administration science policies had led them to act. The issues they cited included the administration's position on climate change, its restrictions on stem cell research and delays in authorizing the over-the-counter sale of emergency contraception.

In a statement posted on its Web site (www.sefora.org), the group said scientists and engineers had an obligation "to enter the political debate when the nation's leaders systematically ignore scientific evidence and analysis, put ideological interest ahead of scientific truths, suppress valid scientific evidence and harass and threaten scientists for speaking honestly about their research."

The group's organizers include John H. Gibbons and Neal Lane, who were science advisers in the Clinton administration, the Nobel laureates Peter Agre and Alfred Gilman, and Susan F. Wood, who resigned from the Food and Drug Administration last year to protest the agency's delay in approving over-the-counter sales of the so-called Plan B emergency contraception.

I don't think this is a good idea for two reasons:
1) Academia is already seen as a liberal bastion. Do we really think it is a good idea to identify the sciences as one as well?
2) I consider political action and the scientific enterprise to be predicated on fundamentally different assumptions. Political action is predicated on selective use of facts. The scientific enterprise is predicated on the idea that facts cannot be omitted.

I am sympathetic to scientists who believe that anti-science forces are increasingly powerful in our government, but I would caution them on two grounds. First, political power is fleeting; the credibility of science as an institution -- having been constructed over generations -- is much more long lasting. Some day the Bush administration will have faded from memory, but people will still listen to scientists. Second, the credibility of an impartial mediator is far more powerful than any PAC could ever be. People listen to us because they don't think we have any reason to lie and shade the facts. Let's not give them one.

When I say things like this the response I usually get is: "Scientists are citizens. Why should they keep silent?" I agree, but I think that we should draw a bright line between our position as scientists and our position as citizens. If these scientists decide to join a PAC or a political party as citizens -- making explicit the difference between their public and private role -- I would have less of a problem. What I have a problem with is when scientists ally with a particular party either explicitly or implicitly in their public roles as scientists. I think that doing that will come back to bite us someday.

Roger Pielke, Jr. from Prometheus suggests something similar:

Good: a group of concerned citizens banding together to advocate their issue.

Bad: Despite a stated aim to be nonpartisan, the group's very birth is a response to partisan politics, which makes it political by default.

The bad doesn't necessarily outweigh the good for SEforA, but it does illustrate what will be its biggest challenge. The challenge won't be affecting races or having an impact on the process, but on becoming staunchly nonpartisan and burnishing time and again its nonpartisan credentials. If it can successfully manage that, then SEforA can become relevant and salient, partnering with politicians from both parties. If not, then SEforA will become a de facto Democrat advocacy group, ignored by the Republicans whenever they are in power. Unfortunately the origins of SEforA speak to its partisan upbringing by using two Clinton Administration science advisors as headliners and using language that sounds like it came straight from Chris Mooney's book and the UCS report: "...when the nation's leaders systematically ignore scientific evidence and analysis, put ideological interests ahead of scientific truths, suppress valid scientific evidence and harass and threaten scientists for speaking honestly about their research."

Here's hoping that SEforA works immediately toward nonpartisanship, realizing that they will have some work to do in convincing Republicans that their early, seemingly inherent links to the Democratic Party are nonbinding.

Having just finished fellow ScienceBlogger Chris Mooney's book, I don't think that is a fair shot. Chris raises an important point that a fairly large part of the Republican Party is quite explicitly antiscience. I would argue that this group does not represent the mainstream of conservative thought and that antiscience is a position that both parties employ when it suits them, but this omission is neither the book nor Chris's fault. The book did not claim to be an exhaustive history of politics and science, and it would have been self-defeating if it was.

However, I do agree with Roger that it is in no one's best interest for the scientific establishment to be at war with either the Republicans or the Democrats. Coming out with guns blazing and employing Democratic advisors doesn't really help matters.

I am willing to give everyone the benefit of the doubt for the time being, but I am concerned.

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1) Academia is already seen as a liberal bastion. Do we really think it is a good idea to identify the sciences as one as well?

The part of the "Right" that holds all the power is already targeting both academia and the sciences, and already identifying both academia and the sciences as something to be attacked as liberal, whether the sciences wish to acknowledge it or not.

This new group is, or should be, pro-science. Being pro-science shouldn't mean being liberal or conservative-- but in today's unfortunate political environment, it is.

If being pro-science means being liberal right now, this is hardly science's fault. The "Right" can change this situation at any time by simply deciding not to be anti-science anymore.

I would argue that this group does not represent the mainstream of conservative thought

What is "mainstream"? Does the Republican party represent the mainstream of conservative thought? And which is more politically important, the "mainstream of conservative thought" or the Republican party?

Of course there are many pro-science conservatives, and a group such as this, in order to be effective, will of course need to work with and reach out to pro-science republicans and conservatives. Why not wait to see whether or not they actually are able to do that before condemning them?

and that antiscience is a position that both parties employ when it suits them

Well then we can only hope SEFORA attacks the Democrats when and if they start taking antiscience positions, as to do otherwise would be the height of hypocrisy and destroy their credibility.

I have my reservations about the group as well, but I think the commentators who say that it is an out and out bad idea are ignoring a key reality. Namely, that public respect of the objectivity of scientific investigation can no longer be taken for granted, nor can politicians be trusted not to muzzle inconvenient scientific facts when it suits them to do so.

A good example is the blog entry posted at the beginning of this comment thread. The author is clearly a global warming denialist among other things, and makes arguments along the lines of "science is objective? says who?" Well, says the evidence. But this is the point. Much of the modern right, and the elements now in control of the Republican Party, views science as already being something that is political and ideological and not objective. This is something we have to worry about, and simply trying to immunize ourselves from political realities is not going to solve anything.

By Tyler DiPietro (not verified) on 04 Oct 2006 #permalink

The basic arguement between most Democrats and Republicans is the role of government in supporting science. Republicans have strongly supported government sponsorsip of basic research while Democrats have been more supportive of government-funded development (not counting the unfortunate parochialism driving billions for the obscenely-expensive DOE national laboratories). It will be readily transparent whether this group is another DNC voice, loudly arguing to double or quadruple current spending, or whether the group will argue for policies and changes in our nation's research infrastucture which will result in more efficient and imaginative stewardship of the billions in taxpayer dollars currently being wasted at the DOE.