The Republic :: It's how the dark ages got their start

The Republic :: It's how the dark ages got their start: "A Massachusetts Institute of Technology-based organization representing over 100,000 American scientists and citizens last week issued a grave report charging that the Bush administration is routinely corrupting scientific information to achieve partisan political aims.

The Union of Concerned Scientists (USC), formed in 1969 at MIT to combat the misuse of scientific information by policy makers at all levels of government, wrote that 'the administration is distorting and censoring scientific findings that contradict its policies [and] manipulating the underlying science to align results with predetermined political decisions.'

The accusation is not made lightly, nor is it fired off from the fringes. On the contrary, the list of signatories to the statement include 20 Nobel Laureates and 19 National Medal of Science winners, including a former chief scientist at IBM, the Dean of the Faculty of Medicine at Columbia University, a former Science Advisor to the President, and a former president of the California Institute of Technology.

The organization received numerous reports from scientists working at federal government institutions alleging that 'the Bush administration has suppressed or distorted the scientific analyses of federal agencies to bring these results in line with administration policy.' The USC investigated the charges by reviewing the public record, obtaining government documents, and interviewing the parties involved, including many current and former government officials.

The resulting 46-page report entitled Scientific Integrity in Policymaking: An investigation into the Bush Administration's Misuse of Science, makes for bedtime reading more frightening than anything Stephen King has ever dreamt up. The four main findings are these: 'There is a well-established pattern of suppression and distortion of scientific findings by high-ranking Bush' officials in the critical fields of air pollutants, heat-trapping emissions, reproductive health, drug-resistant bacteria, endangered species, forest health, and military intelligence.

There is 'a wide ranging effort to manipulate the government's scientific advisory system' including the appointing of under-qualified people to important advisory posts, and even putting non-scientists in senior positions in the president's scientific advisory staff, and 'dismissing highly qualified scientific advisors.'

Furthermore, 'There is evidence that the administration often imposes restrictions on what government scientists can say or write about 'sensitive' topics,' which is typically any topic that might 'provoke opposition from the administration's political and ideological supporters.'

And, finally, 'there is significant evidence that the scope and scale of the manipulation, suppression, and misrepresentation of science by the Bush administration is unprecedented.'

On the topic of global warming, the report is particularly damning of the Bush administration. 'Since taking office,' the report says, 'the Bush administration has consistently sought to undermine the public's understanding of the view held by the vast majority of climate scientists that human-caused emissions of carbon dioxide and other heat trapping gasses are making a discernible contribution to global warming.'"