Lately, I’ve become more and more concerned with the current trend this country has been seeing towards science and scientists. In particular, those who happen to work for a governmental agency or those who happen to receive federal funding. Just a couple of weeks ago, a climatologist working for NASA claimed that he was “silenced” by the Bush administration for speaking on his viewpoint on global warming. He said things that contradicted the White House’s current policies and stance on the global warming issue, and he apparently got the muzzle. Or at least, the attempt to muzzle him was made. Whether or not that’s true, I don’t know, I haven’t read enough, nor know enough, about that situation, other than about the accusation itself. Personally, it doesn’t seem all that far fetched to me.
More recently, funding was cut to a study that was “going against” the White House’s policies on logging. Supposedly, the Bureau of Land Management cut their funding to a group at Oregon State University after they started coming up with findings that didn’t jive with the White House and their goals on logging policies.
The study had found that “salvage logging” ended up killing seedlings and increased the amount of fuel on forest floors (fuel on forest floor=fire). Seeing as there is a bill in the House to speed up salvage logging in national forests, these findings would obviously not helpful for getting the bill passed. After these findings were, well, found, the BLM decided to cut their funding because there was a “a question of whether researchers had followed the terms of their contract.”
Basically, the people working on this research at Oregon State University found scientific evidence that conflicted with the White House’s “scientific” evidence, and they were silenced. At least, that’s how I see it, plus many people looking in from the outside. The timing of the funding cut seems a wee bit suspicious, and considering the White House’s inability to deal with science in the past that doesn’t fit their agenda, it’s a little more suspicious.
Interestingly enough, on Tuesday, Representative Jay Inslee of Washington (a Democrat) had asked that the “Interior Department’s inspector general to examine whether the bureau was punishing the researchers for their findings.” A day later, the BLM decided to lift their suspension of the funding, just only one day after a call was made to investigate the funding cutoff. This only adds more stench of suspicion over the whole ordeal.
There have been several instances since Bush took office of science being misused, blatantly ignored when it didn’t support the president and just plain tampered with. From the EPA claiming that air was safe at ground zero at the WTC site (despite their scientific methods being highly suspect and independent groups finding otherwise) to having government employed scientists lie to the American public, I’m getting somewhat disgusted and even worried.
In a sense, Bush does not seem to realize how the scientific process works in the world. Apparently, he does not understand how, in science, you don’t decide what data fits your agenda and what doesn’t, throw out the data that doesn’t fit and then come to your conclusion. No, science isn’t supposed to be a tainted process. Science is based on studies, and when more studies and more data are found that end up disproving you, you accept that new conclusion with open arms. I wouldn’t expect someone who thinks intelligent design is a science to understand this. Science is not based on faith and your opinion, it’s based on fact, even if that fact disproves your opinion. Accept it, be happy you found the truth and move on.
