Chris C Mooney

Chris C Mooney: "On the Origins of 'Sound Science'

Ever since doing my Washington Post piece, I've been trying to figure out how, when, and why conservatives and the business community started using this strategic phrase. The task is made very difficult by the fact that 'sound science'--like all good PR terms--is something a person might innocently say without realizing they're using somebody else's talking point (kind of like calling the estate tax the 'death tax').

But though it's probably impossible to find the very first 'strategic' use of the phrase, I've found some new evidence suggesting when it became a watchword for the right. As this 1996 report from the late Rep. George Brown, the former Democratic minority leader of the House Science Committee, shows, the answer seems to be during the 104th Congress. The context was the Gingrich gang's push for so-called 'regulatory reform.' As Brown's report explains:"