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Policy

Scientists' Discontent With Bush

by Rudy Baum, Editor-in-chief
May 8, 2006 | A version of this story appeared in Volume 84, Issue 19

Many scientists are becoming increasingly frustrated by and critical of the Bush Administration. Their reasons are myriad: paltry support for many science funding agencies, inaction on climate change, and political considerations overriding science on a range of policy matters.

Two stories in C&EN focus on scientists' critiques of Bush Administration policies regarding science and technology. In this week's issue, Assistant Managing Editor David Hanson reports on the recent Forum on Science & Technology Policy presented by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) (see page 29). Last week, Senior Editor Glenn Hess reported in C&EN Online on a letter published in the April 30 New York Times from 19 prominent scientists and mathematicians, all members of the National Academy of Sciences, criticizing the treatment of prisoners at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and other sites.

Scientists' dissatisfaction with Bush Administration policies has been building for some time. In February, James E. Hansen, director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, complained publicly about Administration attempts to prevent him from speaking about global warming (C&EN, Feb. 13, page 5). Since then, a number of other climate researchers have echoed Hansen that the Administration is distorting research findings on climate change.

Also in February, at the AAAS meeting in St. Louis, numerous scientists criticized Administration policies during a session organized by the Union of Concerned Scientists. Among the speakers was Susan F. Wood, former assistant commissioner of the Food & Drug Administration, who resigned from FDA in protest over the agency's refusal to follow its scientific advisory board's recommendation to make the Plan B emergency contraceptive available to adult women over the counter.

Hanson's story makes clear the frustration. "Declining federal funding, political interference with science, and government inaction on global climate change were areas where the Bush Administration was battered by science policy leaders" at the AAAS forum, Hanson writes.

Even initiatives the Administration has received positive marks on—the American Competitiveness Initiative (ACI) and the Advanced Energy Initiative (AEI)—came under fire at the forum. Observers suggested that the $910 million increase for physical sciences promised by ACI likely would not materialize in the difficult budget climate the Administration's budget deficits have created. And the Administration's energy policies cannot be separated from its inaction on climate change, several speakers argued. One, Joseph Romm, founder and executive director of the Center for Energy & Climate Solutions, said the government's "energy and climate policy is immoral."

The scientists' letter to the Times deserves broad circulation. "We are deeply concerned that without serious debate, the United States has crossed the limits of acceptable practices in the treatment of prisoners at Guant?namo Bay, Cuba, and other sites," they write. "The secrecy and the disdain for international law and opinion are contrary to the very ideals that our country has long stood and fought for.

"We are told that our country is being protected by locking up dangerous terrorists in isolated facilities in order to make us accept a breakdown of our own laws. But we do not know-indeed, we have not been allowed any way of finding out-if the individual prisoners are enemy combatants, al Qaeda suspects, or innocents unlucky enough to have been caught in a blind sweep.

"It is one of the most fundamental principles of a democracy that all accused should be tried without unreasonable delays and freed if innocent. In no case do our moral principles permit humiliating and degrading treatment.

"The Administration has cynically used fear to justify behavior that the civilized world has long considered criminal."

The signers of the letter include Walter Kohn, a chemistry professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and the winner of the 1994 Chemistry Nobel Prize; and Richard N. Zare, chair of the chemistry department at Stanford University. They conclude: "Although this is not a scientific issue in the usual sense, we feel that to ignore it would be to abdicate our responsibility to the truth. Therefore, we have felt compelled to speak out against human rights violations, including those committed by Americans. We are asking all people of good will to join us in demanding a quick return to our country's great traditions."

Thanks for reading.

Editor-in-chief

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