24-10-2006, 08:52 PM
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#1 (permalink)
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| Kraut
Last Online: 01-07-2008 11:03 AM Join Date: Mar 2006 Location: under the headphones
Posts: 17,181
| The fate of science under the Bush regime An oldie but goddie, connecting nicely with the recent bible subjects: Quote:
The Attack on Science
by Marjorie Heins Dissident Voice: A Radical Newsletter In the Struggle For Peace and Social Justice
December 22, 2004
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From environmental hazards to sex education, the federal government in the past several years has been twisting science to political ends. The ends are sometimes ideological -- as in the suppression of information about condoms and sexual safety -- and sometimes simply take the form of favors to business interests that would like to see less environmental, public health, or workplace safety regulation. But the pattern has become so pervasive that much of the scientific community is up in arms. The question is, what can be done to stop it?
Concern about the current administration's manipulation and distortion of science goes back at least to July 2003, when the Interior Department introduced a new book into the Grand Canyon National Park's official bookstore. Titled Grand Canyon: A Different View, the book takes issue with extensive geological evidence that the canyon evolved over several million years, and instead argues that the canyon was forged by a single "catastrophic" event only a few thousand years ago: the great flood of biblical fame.
Leading geological associations protested this introduction of creationism into the National Park Service's educational programs. They pointed out that a major purpose of the Park Service is "to promote the use of sound science in all its programs." The government's top geologist, David Shaver, explained that A Different View "purports to be science when it is not," and makes "claims that are counter to widely accepted geological evidence." Nevertheless, the book was reordered after stock ran out, and as of October 2004 was still being marketed by the Parks Service. [1]
If this conflict between science and religious fundamentalism was just one more instance of Biblical literalists' unending effort to undermine evolution, a report released just a month after the appearance of A Different View on government bookstore shelves detailed more contemporary distortions of science. Prepared by the Democratic staff of the House Government Reform Committee at the request of Congressman Henry Waxman, this report described the purging of safer-sex information from the Centers for Disease Control Web site, the posting of misinformation on the National Cancer Institute site that asserted an increased risk of breast cancer among women who have had abortions, and the suppression of information about lead poisoning, global warming, prescription drug advertising, and water pollution caused by the oil and gas industries. [2]
In February 2004, the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) released a similar, but longer and more detailed report. Divided into two parts, it first documented "Suppression and Distortion of Research Findings at Federal Agencies," including information on climate change (global warming), air quality (mercury emissions from power plants and other air pollutants), reproductive health (sex education, HIV-AIDS, and the alleged breast cancer-abortion link), airborne bacteria, Iraq's aluminum tubes (erroneously claimed by the administration to be part of a nuclear weapons program), endangered species, and forest management. The second part of the UCS report, "Undermining the Quality and Integrity of the Appointment Process," described the purging of qualified scientists from federal advisory panels, the appointment of less qualified, and often industry-connected replacements, and the vetting of panel candidates with political questions such as whether they had voted for President Bush and would support his policies. [3]
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