# Is Bush's Administration Anti-Science? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 19, 2004, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-bushs-administration-anti-science/230035 "2004-02-19T17:09:37Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![Alan\_Owes\_Bess](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c37758/32.png) [@Alan\_Owes\_Bess](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alan_Owes_Bess)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2004, 12:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-bushs-administration-anti-science/230035/121 "2004-02-26T12:25:52Z")
Re post #62 by **Edwino** > [@](#): > > I can analyze some of the signees. They include people like David Baltimore (considered a complete genius, discovered reverse transcriptase), Paul Berg (invented recombinant DNA technology), Richard Smalley (buckminsterfullerenes), Harold Varmus (former head of the NIH and discoverer of the Ras viral oncogene), E.O. Wilson (father of sociobiology), Paul Ehrlich (preeminent population biologist), Paul Fischbach (neuroscientist), Roger Guillemin (discovered thyroid hormone axis), Eric Kandel (possibly greatest neuroscientist alive right now), Matthew Meselson (as in Meselson and Stahl, the experiment which showed that DNA replicated semiconservatively). These are the names which I recognize off of the top of my head. And I’m only a senior grad student. Not one of the persons you have named has any more standing in environmental science than you or me. Setting aside issues involving David Baltimore, who was cleared of scientific fraud after an inquiry, mostly by his peers, you have one name there that screams out FRAUD! Yes, good old **Paul Ehrlich** Author of The Population Bomb (1968) in which he predicts mass famine in the 1970’s. He has made many predictions and announcements since that time, all based on outputs from the hard substance contained within his skull case, none of which, as far as I’m aware, ever came true. It is unbelievable that anyone still gives the announcements of this pathetic village idiot any credence? If the remaining 19 signatories are happy to have their names associated with this absurd mountebank then they deserve as much respect, in the scientific sense, as Paul Ehrlich himself. That is to say, zero. ---
**Author:** ![Desmostylus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c57346/32.png) [@Desmostylus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Desmostylus)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2004, 1:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-bushs-administration-anti-science/230035/122 "2004-02-26T13:12:59Z")
> [@Alan Owes Bess](#): > > Re post #62 by **Edwino** Not one of the persons you have named has any more standing in environmental science than you or me. No one said that they did, or that they should. **Edwino** clearly stated his recollection of their fields of speciality. Your objection on the grounds of standing in “environmental science” is completely ridiculous. It makes as much sense as saying “well, sure they won Nobel prizes in Biology or whatever, but I can’t pilot the Space Shuttle and I bet they can’t either”. > [@Alan Owes Bess](#): > > Yes, good old **Paul Ehrlich** Paul Ehrlich is an idiot. You have a very strong argument there. > [@Alan Owes Bess](#): > > If the remaining 19 signatories are happy to have their names associated with this absurd mountebank then they deserve as much respect, in the scientific sense, as Paul Ehrlich himself. Sorry, that’s crap. You’re Australian, I’m Australian. But I’m in no way associated with you, and my credibility does not depend on yours. The credibility of Nobel proze winners does not depend on the credibility of Ehrlich. ---
**Author:** ![jshore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/b5e925/32.png) [@jshore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jshore)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2004, 3:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-bushs-administration-anti-science/230035/123 "2004-02-26T15:09:46Z")
> [@Sam Stone](#): > > **jshore:** I must admit, that was an amazing piece of spin. You took a bunch of hard data I offered that shows that by any measure Bush has supported science research to a much greater extent than Clinton, and you try to handwave it away by going through a tortuous calculation to try to come up with ‘percentage of total increase’ as a standard, which doesn’t make any more sense than showing increases in constant dollars, which in any event STILL shows Bush spending significantly more than Clinton. Then you make a wild-assed assumption about where the money is going, without offering any evidence that that is the case, and from all this you conclude that Bush “is no better than Clinton”. Which isn’t true. But even if it were, I don’t recall a lot of handwringing on your part over Clinton’s support for science. Hey, kids, let’s play the **Sam Stone** fun with statistics games, shall we! (Brought to you in part by Heritage Foundation and the WSJ editorial page where our motto is “We’ll always find statistics to show what we want to show, no matter how we have to do it!”) Today, we’ll compare the GDP growth under Presidents Reagan and Clinton with the help of the [historical tables](http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy2005/pdf/hist.pdf) of the U.S. Federal Budget. If we look at GDP under Reagan (1981-1989), we see it went from $3,058 to $5,402 billion for an increase of $293 billion per year. Under Clinton (1993-2001), it went from $6578 to $10,041 for an increase of $433 billion per year. Boy, that Reagan was really sucky for the economy compared to Clinton! “But, **jshore** ,” you might ask, “What about inflation or other factors to consider such as economic cycles? Hell, is it even standard practice to just look at absolute numbers for rise in GDP…I always hear it quoted in percentages.” Ah, you are just trying to handwave it away, my friend…We showed what we wanted to and we’re done! * * * Congratulations, **Sam** …You have learned well at the hands of your conservative brethren at the WSJ editorial page and Heritage. Do they teach the “how to lie with statistics course” formally or did you just pick it up on the fly? Just to point a few things for those who actually want to consider statistics seriously rather than just abuse them: My analysis is only one standard way you could do it. Other things one would probably want to look at is that year-over-year percentage with inflation factored out…i.e., in constant dollars. You might also want to look at the rate of growth relative to GDP growth (although one would have to be careful since there are times when overall government spending outpaces GDP growth and times when the reverse is true). Finally, you might want to look at the spending as a percentage of total discretionary spending and how that changed…which would give you the idea of relative priorities within spending constraints. All in all, it is a complicated problem, which is why the only claim I made at the end was “But, the evidence is that over the long-haul, non-defense and basic research will likely fare similarly under Bush as they did under Clinton. I’ll grant you that defense research is likely to do better.” But, hey, if you are **Sam Stone** , you are not bound to be similarly careful…You can just pop off with bold statements like “In fact, judging by money spent it looks like Bush is about twice as interested in promoting science as was Clinton.” Congratulations, **Sam** , on coming up with a completely misleading way of looking at budget figures, looking over a limited period (where at least preliminary numbers are available that go out further but you ignore because they hurt your thesis) and failing to acknowledge any factors that might account for what you see over this limited period. (And, indeed, the fact that the 2004 and 2005 budget proposal drastically slows the growth of science research spending suggests that my hypothesis about the factors accounting for the rapid growth are quite consistent with the evidence.) Oh, and I am quite sure I could come up with statistics, for example, that show that the U.S. public is much more concerned about terrorist attacks with WMDs now than they were under Clinton. (Not the mention the number of Americans actually killed by terrorists.) That would be proof positive that Bush is making us feel less, not more, secure under Sam Stone logic. [Any note about how 9/11 might have affected this is just “handwaving”.] > [@](#): > > But even if it were, I don’t recall a lot of handwringing on your part over Clinton’s support for science. **Sam** , could you please remind us where in this thread you saw me doing a lot of “handwringing over Bush’s support for science”? You are the one who hijacked the thread to this topic and I explicitly noted that this was not what the beef we had with Bush was about…that it involved the suppression and distortion of scientific results, the stacking of scientific committees that were supposed to give non-partisan analysis, etc. But, feel free to ignore what we say and invent our arguments for us. ---
**Author:** ![pervert](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/bbe5ce/32.png) [@pervert](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pervert)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2004, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-bushs-administration-anti-science/230035/124 "2004-02-26T15:38:57Z")
> [@Measure for Measure](#): > > M4M said, “(I hasten to add that I am sympathetic to having industry-attached researchers on a panel setting lead standards. It’s the elimination of CDC people from the board that raises concerns.)” > The latter. I am concerned that if the administration is eliminating people from its panels that they fear will disagree with them. Replacing somebody from the CDC with an industry-supported researcher looks like you’re trying to stack the deck. > > I was trying to say, however, that I did not have difficulties with a balanced panel. I agree with you. However, I did not see good evidence that this is the only interpretation of what is occuring. I have not seen good evidence that this is the most reasonable interpretation. I’m certainly not claiming that my myopicness is evidence. But when you looked into the reports we have been talking about, which part did you think rose above the simple complaint that the administration is firing board members? Forgive me if this question sounds accusatory. I don’t intend it to be. The documentation we are discussing in this thread is extensive. I have been unwilling to delve into them in great detail. However, the complaints I have looked into seem to me to be open to interpretation. Have you found some which are less so? Thanks in advance. ---
**Author:** ![edwino](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/35a633/32.png) [@edwino](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/edwino)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2004, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-bushs-administration-anti-science/230035/125 "2004-02-26T15:44:35Z")
> [@Alan Owes Bess](#): > > Not one of the persons you have named has any more standing in environmental science than you or me. I never claimed to have any standing in the environmental sciences, and I never claimed that of these people. I am in molecular biology and I just listed the people whose name I remembered at first glance. I made this clear. FTR I can assure you that many of the other 50 signatories are highly accorded environmental scientists. > [@](#): > > Setting aside issues involving David Baltimore, who was cleared of scientific fraud after an inquiry, mostly by his peers, you have one name there that screams out FRAUD! Baltimore was never accused of any scientific wrongdoing. His co-publisher, Thereza Imanishi-Kari, was, and completely exonerated. So why mention it at all? > [@](#): > > Yes, good old **Paul Ehrlich** I listed people whose name I recognized. This is why I probably recognized him. I know of **The Population Bomb** , but I have never read it. I know nothing of his work before or after this book. He does hold a professorship at U Chicago and has a reasonable [publication record](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=pubmed&cmd=search&term=ehrlich+pr%5Bau%5D), so maybe **The Population Bomb** was a one time mistake. I don’t know so I withdraw his name. This doesn’t say anything about any of the other names at all. ---
**Author:** ![5cents](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/5/46a35a/32.png) [@5cents](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/5cents)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2004, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-bushs-administration-anti-science/230035/126 "2004-02-26T16:09:45Z")
> [@Alan Owes Bess](#): > > Re post #62 by **Edwino** > Not one of the persons you have named has any more standing in environmental science than you or me. Two quick points: 1. Nobel prizes in science are awarded in a limited number of fields. In sciences, they are available for Physics, Chemistry, and Medicine. Cite: [http://www.nobel.se/index.html](http://www.nobel.se/index.html). If you are in a different field, you won’t get a Nobel (at least not in science). None of these are directly related to the environmental science. 2. The statement these people signed was in support of a report that was critical of the Bush administration’s handling of science in a wide range of scientific fields, not just environmental science. ---
**Author:** ![pervert](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/bbe5ce/32.png) [@pervert](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pervert)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2004, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-bushs-administration-anti-science/230035/127 "2004-02-26T16:12:48Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > Well, what are my scientific credentials in this hypothetical situation? Am I a president who also happens to be a climate scientist? Do I know more than the agency’s staff about this subject? Do you yourself have to have scientific credentials? Or could you simply rely on another scientist or group thereof? How would you decide? By poll? > [@](#): > > If not, I don’t see why my own personal “belief in the truth”, for which you haven’t suggested any particular factual basis or support, should trump the considered opinions of those who know more than I do My bad. I was trying to elliminate extraneous made up characteristics. If it helps, I am not assuming that it is your own personal belief with no other basis. How about if you simply have scientific information at odds with the report, but cannot get that particular agency to recognize it? Does that make any difference? I guess what I am asking, is what sort of evidence would you need to disbelieve a government science report? > [@](#): > > ? What’s the difference between “distorting the conclusions” and “being dishonest in interpreting the data”? If there is uncertainty you can simply fall in favor of one particular side. for instance the temperature trend graph which was removed by the administration seems to indicate that the recent increase in temperature is unprecedented. However, the recent trend in not very far outside the uncertainty of earlier numbers. Do we say that there is clear and unrefutable evidence that man has increased the global temperature, or do we say that temperatures have increased, but we are not entirely sure why? I’m not sure that either is a complete lie. The data does suggest that temperatures have increased with industrialization. At the same time, there is a range of uncertainty inherent in the measurements being made. > [@](#): > > If, on the other hand, I have no reason to think that anybody has done anything wrong, but their claims simply run counter to my personal “belief in the truth”, where the fuck do I get off interfering with their report? Well, what about the middle ground where the agency has one opinion, and you have evidence to the contrary? > [@](#): > > Why keep a dog and bark yourself? What if the dog won’t bark? Do you kill it? > [@](#): > > There’s certainly nothing stopping from me from using my bully pulpit to say that I personally disagree with the agency’s conclusions. Ok. That’s fair. Let me ask you another question, and then I’ll leave this hijack aside. [Have you seen this sort of discussion of the Global Warming issue?](http://solar-center.stanford.edu/sun-on-earth/glob-warm.html) Can you point me to a good study which refutes some of these claims? Specifically that the surface temperatures are reliable. To reiterate for the record. I am not making tin foil hat claims that no global warming is occuring. I am not trying to say that scientists are conspiring to enslave us all. I am simply saying that my reading of the issue leads me to believe that we have some way to go before we have a definitive answer to the questions surrounding Global Warming. That being the case, it does not seem unreasonable to insist on a few modifiers in an EPA report. The issue with the 2 studies that the administration wanted mentioned may be another issue. Having said all that, I am not letting the administration off of the hook. All I am saying is that there may be another interpretations of the data we have (concerning Bush’s science record). ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2004, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-bushs-administration-anti-science/230035/128 "2004-02-26T17:39:30Z")
> [@](#): > > jshore simply did what was necessary to debunk your golly gosh “SIXTEEN TIMES greater” statement. No, he didn’t. He accused me of statistical dishonesty, without offering any evidence of that. He took issue with my particular choice of statistical measurements, without offering a reason why they were poor choices, and without offering any other ways of measuring the data that come to an opposition conclusion. > [@](#): > > And, as a number of people are trying to point out to you, the level of spending is pretty much irrelevant to this thread. No, the level of spending is only ‘irrelevant’ because it doesn’t support the thesis that Bush is anti-science. If the data showed that Bush was cutting spending for research, something tells me that it would become a critical part of this thread. There’s a difference between a hijack and a message that goes off looking for different pieces of information to prove/disprove the notion that Bush is anti-science. That IS the title of the thread, right? Surely, the amount of money Bush wants to spend on science is a relevant piece of evidence, no? **jshore:** One of the things I’ve always liked about you is that unlike many others on this board, we could have a discussion of issues on which we disagree without it getting all personal and snotty. Your last message seems to indicate that you have decided to abandon that attitude. That’s too bad. And in any event, I was NOT playing games with statistics. Go back to that table, and work your magic on it to show me that Bush is spending less on science than Clinton. In fact, YOU are the one playing games by handwaving the data away by making snap judgements about it, saying it’s not in constant dollars, etc. By the way, on that same cite it has the numbers broken down by area of research, AND in constant dollars. I didn’t bother quoting them all, because they come to the same conclusion. And for what it’s worth, the difference between absolute and constant dollars for the period between 1992 and 2002 is pretty small, since inflation has only been running a couple of percent a year during that period. So maybe the 16x increase under Bush becomes 14x. Big deal. Use constant dollars, yearly averages, projections, I don’t care. You can’t do it. By any measure you want to reasonably come up with, Bush is spending more money on science than Clinton ever did. No matter how much you want to call that a ‘hijack’, it’s a central piece of evidence for the claim that Bush is NOT anti-science. There may be other evidence to the contrary, but that doesn’t diminish this fact. But hey, feel free to go look at whatever data you want, and build up a case for me that science funding has been cut under Bush. Go ahead. I’ll wait. If you can’t, then your cries that I’m making stuff up through fun with statistics just won’t wash. You won’t get an answer from me for a couple of days, though. I’m off to take the family skiing in Jasper. ---
**Author:** ![jshore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/b5e925/32.png) [@jshore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jshore)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2004, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-bushs-administration-anti-science/230035/129 "2004-02-26T18:01:19Z")
> [@pervert](#): > > If there is uncertainty you can simply fall in favor of one particular side. for instance the temperature trend graph which was removed by the administration seems to indicate that the recent increase in temperature is unprecedented. However, the recent trend in not very far outside the uncertainty of earlier numbers. Do we say that there is clear and unrefutable evidence that man has increased the global temperature, or do we say that temperatures have increased, but we are not entirely sure why? I’m not sure that either is a complete lie. The statement by the IPCC that it is likely that most of the warming seen in the latter part of the 20th century is anthropogenic is based on multiple lines of evidence. There are literally hundreds…probably thousands…of papers in the peer-reviewed scientific literature dealing with this one aspect of the climate change science. > [@](#): > > Let me ask you another question, and then I’ll leave this hijack aside. [Have you seen this sort of discussion of the Global Warming issue?](http://solar-center.stanford.edu/sun-on-earth/glob-warm.html) Can you point me to a good study which refutes some of these claims? Specifically that the surface temperatures are reliable. Damn it, **pervert**. I like you and we are trying to be patient with you here but your attitude is beginning to get under my skin a little bit. We are not going to turn this thread into a tutorial on climate science where you find various arguments out there on the web and we work to refute them. That is the same bogus approach that is adopted by creationists in the creation vs. evolution argument. Are you next going to have us refuting the various arguments on [this](http://www.icr.org/) website? There is the full IPCC report available here on the web for you to read. It is usually one of the first references in any peer-reviewed paper on climate change when they cite the current state of knowledge. I am sure you can find there a discussion of the surface temperature record. (You can read either the full report, the technical summary, or the summary for policymakers depending on what level of detail you want and how close to or far removed you want to be from the scientific nitty-gritty. But the real point is that the White House (OMB, CEQ) have absolutely no right to go and edit the scientific presentation in a report from EPA. They can ask questions, they can maybe even make optional suggestions, or, if they really feel strongly, they could ask NAS or some respectable party to adjudicate. But they simply **HAVE NO FREAKIN’ RIGHT** (as a matter of principle and precedent; I don’t know if this aspect is codified into law…although I think it probably ought to be) to say “you will put in this stuff” and “take out that stuff”. Allowing this to occur is a recipe for disaster!!! I don’t think you fully comprehend the enormous damage that could be done if we start allowing the science to get politicized in this way. ---
**Author:** ![jshore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/b5e925/32.png) [@jshore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jshore)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2004, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-bushs-administration-anti-science/230035/130 "2004-02-26T19:18:04Z")
> [@pervert](#): > > Let me ask you another question, and then I’ll leave this hijack aside. [Have you seen this sort of discussion of the Global Warming issue?](http://solar-center.stanford.edu/sun-on-earth/glob-warm.html) Can you point me to a good study which refutes some of these claims? Specifically that the surface temperatures are reliable. Okay, as much as I try to resist the temptation to get drawn into arguments over specific points in climate science, it is hard to resist the desire to know more details particularly with the plot on that site which I have seen a few times before and comes from a reputable source, i.e., a paper in _Science_, albeit going a ways back now (1991). So, [here](http://www.newscientist.com/hottopics/climate/climate.jsp?id=22370800) is a report in the New Scientist from 2000 discussing it: > [@](#): > > A correlation between the sunspot cycle and temperatures in the northern hemisphere seemed to account for most of the warming seen up until 1985. But new results reveal that for the past 15 years something other than the Sun-probably greenhouse emissions-has pushed temperatures higher. > > … > > Now Lassen [one of the two authors on that _Science_ paper -jshore] and astrophysicist Peter Thejll have updated the research and found that while the solar cycle still accounts for about half the temperature rise since 1900, it fails to explain a rise of 0.4 °C since 1980. “The curves diverge after 1980,” says Thejll, “and it’s a startlingly large deviation. Something else is acting on the climate.” > > Although they can’t be sure, they suspect that emissions from the burning of fossil fuels are responsible. “It has the fingerprints of the greenhouse effect,” says Thejll. Other climatologists agree. “It sounds like an actual piece of evidence for greenhouse warming,” says Richard Betts of Britain’s Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research in Bracknell, Berkshire. “Any natural effect would swamp the small early changes, so you’d expect to see the larger changes more recently.” > > Others, however, remain sceptical about this line of research. Tom Wigley at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, who in 1992 criticised Lassen’s initial research, points out that since then no one has provided a convincing physical explanation for the correlation between the sunspot cycle and temperature. Wigley accepts that solar effects may have dominated until about 1950, but certainly not as late as 1980. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Broken\_Column](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9bd4f/32.png) [@The\_Broken\_Column](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Broken_Column)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2004, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-bushs-administration-anti-science/230035/131 "2004-02-26T20:11:13Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > ??? No, no, that’s not how our system works. It’s not even how our system is **supposed** to work. We don’t have a parliamentary system, we have a separation-of-powers system. The president is not answerable to Congress as Tony Blair is answerable to the House of Commons. The president has an independent constitutional office and an independent electoral mandate (such as it is . . .). Congress makes **law** but the president makes **policy** , and is expected to. No, the President does **NOT** make policy…if you don’t know what you’re talking about I suggest you don’t say it, sorry to burst your bubble about the Policy Making process but it doesn’t involve the Executive except particularly in implementation. > [@Squink](#): > > Sure we do. Volcanoes sometimes put out thin strands of glass. It’s called Pele’s hair. Well that’s not what is up there on Mars being that the Rovers are not in a highly volcanic area and that volcanism on Mars ended a long time ago. And Sam, notice how they are shifting the “viewer” so that it only shows what supports their argument? You’ve presented great facts that Bush is Pro-Science … but these guys are falling victim to what they are criticizing Bush for doing…lol HOW IRONIC! ---
**Author:** ![jshore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/b5e925/32.png) [@jshore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jshore)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2004, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-bushs-administration-anti-science/230035/132 "2004-02-26T20:57:39Z")
> [@Sam Stone](#): > > **jshore:** One of the things I’ve always liked about you is that unlike many others on this board, we could have a discussion of issues on which we disagree without it getting all personal and snotty. Your last message seems to indicate that you have decided to abandon that attitude. That’s too bad. **Sam** , I’ll answer you in more detail later. But, in regards to this part, I wanted to respond. I do often enjoy the discussions we have and your contributions to them. And I am sorry about my tone, but [and you knew there would be a “but”] I really did find your previous post very annoying in the way it dealt with the issues and misrepresented what I was saying. When you originally posted your statistical analysis, I found it pretty poor…I couldn’t believe that you would even think of using absolute dollar rises over two different periods and that you would make bold statements without considering possible factors for a funding blip in the first two years of the Bush Administration…But I tried to keep the tone reasonably pleasant and assume it was an honest mistake. (Okay, my tone was a bit annoyed in regards to you hijacking the thread which, despite the title, was clearly directed at one issue…and this point had been clearly delineated within in the first few posts in the thread. Even **pervert** expressed exacerbation over how you were hijacking the argument.) But, when you came back refusing to acknowledge the problems with your analysis and then said lots of annoying things, and completely mischaracterized my arguments, etc., I did lose my temper a little. And, you have to admit that I am not the first person you have angered with this sort of style of being admittedly polite but nonetheless aggressively mischaracterizing what others are saying and twisting their arguments around. The fact that I might have a higher tolerance for it than some before I lose my cool may be why you have found me to be different than others in that regard. And, I will point out that my post comparing the GDP under Reagan and Clinton was completely faithful to your approach in comparing the increases for science funding under Clinton and Bush. (The only way in which it deviated markedly was in using a long enough time period for both records that it couldn’t be accounted for as easily as a blip brought along partly by 9/11 and Bush’s generally free-wheeling ways in the first couple years of his administration, which are supported by the fact that the 2004 budget and 2005 request clearly take a new direction.) Have a good time in Jasper…If I knew you were going off skiing there this weekend, jealousy would likely have made my tone even nastier…So, we can both be glad you left that out of your previous post. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2004, 5:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-bushs-administration-anti-science/230035/133 "2004-02-27T05:58:56Z")
> [@pervert](#): > > But when you looked into the reports we have been talking about, which part did you think rose above the simple complaint that the administration is firing board members?.. The documentation we are discussing in this thread is extensive. I have been unwilling to delve into them in great detail. ## My sympathies. Full disclosure: I have limited my investigation so far to secondary sources, which I believe rise to the level of being, “troubling”. I have not read any indication that board members have been fired with good cause, which is also troubling. I respect your desire to see something more substantial. My curiosity and laziness are deadlocked for the moment. Separately: Those wishing to see a partisan webpage by Waxman (D) on The State of Science under the Bush Administration, can look here: [http://www.house.gov/reform/min/politicsandscience/](http://www.house.gov/reform/min/politicsandscience/) ---
**Author:** ![edwino](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/35a633/32.png) [@edwino](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/edwino)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2004, 6:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-bushs-administration-anti-science/230035/134 "2004-02-27T06:28:41Z")
**Sam Stone** Bush has increased discretionary spending on _all_ fronts. He bumped the friggin’ NEA’s [budget](http://www.arts.gov/news/news04/AmericanMasterpieces1.html)! I’m sorry, but that alone does not make Bush a stunning patron of the arts in my book. Another question is whether NSF funding is a year-by-year thing. I know with the NIH, Congress committed in 1998 to doubling the NIH budget by 2002. They followed through on that. You can of course give credit to Bush on that, or you could give credit to Clinton. Or you could give credit to Congrefs. The funding in 2003 has gone up again, but a lot of money has been shunted from established programs into new bioterrorism initiatives in the NIAID and other Institutes. In effect, of course, this means that for non bioterrorism related research, money has actually been going down for the past 2 years. It all depends on how you look at it, I suppose, but it isn’t as clear cut as you want to make it seem. You have to factor that a good chunk of that Bush bump in NSF funding has come as part of the war on terror as well. Not that that isn’t science funding, but it probably doesn’t increase the per-researcher funding significantly. Spending money is politically expedient. Budget cuts in science, especially when we are facing new threats, are seen as a Generally Bad Thing. As I said in a previous post, I think this thread would be better titled “Is Bush’s Administration Anti-Data?,” because there is no real way to measure “science” as a whole. My hangup has always been that Bush (and the Republican Party) seem to view data as malleable based on political expediency. We have seen example and example of this, and it would be nice to see someone start to defend these things amply cited in the UCS report and in other posts in this thread rather than constantly obfuscating the debate with new details. ---
**Author:** ![jshore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/b5e925/32.png) [@jshore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jshore)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2004, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-bushs-administration-anti-science/230035/135 "2004-02-27T14:53:13Z")
> [@jshore](#): > > Yes…especially since in this case, there is no evidence that the people making these decisions even have the credentials to be able to make an assessment. Who the hell in OMB knows more about climate change than an NAS panel or the scientists in EPA for heaven’s sake?!? Your suggestion that they can be overruled is exactly the attitude that leads to ideology screwing up science. [A variation of this sometimes occurs in the industrial setting where I work and has been dubbed by one of my colleagues as “management by extreme desire”, a parody of the “management by fact” process that they are supposed to be using.] Just a point of clarification (or retraction) that I was thinking about on my way into work this morning. I have realized that this analogy I made here is a poor one. The “management by extreme desire” that has occurred at my workplace is more akin to how the Bush White House has made policy decisions that seem divorced from the scientific data. However, it is not analogous to the more serious charges of active distortion and suppression of science that are given in the UCS and Waxman reports. In fact, thankfully, I have never in my job been told by management that I must alter the scientific content of a presentation or that there are scientific results that I must suppress. Just thought I ought to clear that up. ---
**Author:** ![Zakalwe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zakalwe/32/270_2.png) [@Zakalwe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zakalwe)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2004, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-bushs-administration-anti-science/230035/136 "2004-02-27T15:48:18Z")
> [@The\_Broken\_Column](#): > > No, the President does **NOT** make policy…if you don’t know what you’re talking about I suggest you don’t say it, sorry to burst your bubble about the Policy Making process but it doesn’t involve the Executive except particularly in implementation. Dude, just stop. Please. This is getting ridiculous. From the links found here [The Executive Office of the President](http://www.whitehouse.gov/government/eop.html) _emphasis added to all quotes_ > [@](#): > > **The Council Of Economic Advisors** > The CEA was established by the Employment Act of 1946 to provide the President with objective economic analysis and advice on the \*\*\*development \*\* and implementation of a wide range of domestic and international economic \*_policy \*\* issues_. > [@](#): > > \*\*Council on Environmental Quality \*\* > The Council on Environmental Quality coordinates federal environmental efforts and works closely with agencies and _other White House offices in the **development of environmental policies and initiatives.** _ > [@](#): > > \*\*Domestic Policy Council \*\* > The Domestic Policy Council (DPC) coordinates the \*domestic \*_policy-making \*\* process in the White House_ and offers policy advice to the President. Do I need to go on? That’s the first three offices listed on the main page and **every single freakin’ one** deals with policy-making by the Executive Branch. When you don’t know, don’t make it up and when someone corrects you, you might want to check your position before making idiotic proclamations that have no basis in fact. ---
**Author:** ![pervert](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/bbe5ce/32.png) [@pervert](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pervert)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2004, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-bushs-administration-anti-science/230035/137 "2004-02-27T16:53:00Z")
Ok, **jshore** I typed up a long detailed response to you post and then deleted it. I’d rather focus on 2 points. I should say first, that I cited the wrong website in that post. I was really asking about uncertainties in the surface temperature measurements which are hard to find from there. Specifically, [This nasa cite](http://science.nasa.gov/newhome/headlines/notebook/essd13aug98_1.htm) suggests in part > [@](#): > > The adjusted satellite trends are still not near the expected value of global warming predicted by computer climate models. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) 1995 estimate of average global warming at the surface until the year 2100 is +0.18 deg. C/decade. Climate models suggest that the deep layer measured by the satellite and weather balloons should be warming about 30% faster than the surface (+0.23 deg. C/decade). None of the satellite or weather balloon estimates are near this value. This is mentioned in [the IPCC report (pdf sorry) on page 163](http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/pdf/TAR-02.PDF) as > [@](#): > > Satellite and balloon measurements agree that lower-tropospheric temperatures have increased only slightly since 1979, though there has been a faster rate of global surface temperature increase. Balloon measurements indicate a larger lowertropospheric temperature increase since 1958, similar to that shown by global surface temperature measurements over the same period. Balloon and satellite measurements agree that lower-stratospheric temperatures have declined significantly since 1979. _ **I** _ am not suggesting that either cite is the correct one. Only that there may be legitimate questions. I am only arguing that inserting verbiage as to the legitimaticy of these questions is not as odd a thing as you make it out to be. I would like to point out that we have not been arguing about the 2 studies which the administration wanted mentioned in the report. If you have a good description of those as inappropriate, I’d be interested in hearing it. Secondly, I do understand how serious a charge has been leveled at the administration. That’s why I would have preffered much better evidence than I’ve seen so far. Perhaps I will have to force myself to read and respond to every point in the Waxman or UCS reports. But that seems like a waste of time. I did look into a couple of the points made in those reports and they seemed spurious or at least questionable. Finally, I’m sorry, but science was politicized a long time ago with the aid of scientists, BTW. And your right. It is a tragedy. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Broken\_Column](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9bd4f/32.png) [@The\_Broken\_Column](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Broken_Column)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2004, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-bushs-administration-anti-science/230035/138 "2004-02-27T18:59:59Z")
> [@grem0517](#): > > Dude, just stop. Please. This is getting ridiculous. > > From the links found here [The Executive Office of the President](http://www.whitehouse.gov/government/eop.html) > _emphasis added to all quotes_ > > The Council Of Economic Advisors > The CEA was established by the Employment Act of 1946 to provide the President with objective economic analysis and advice on the development and implementation of a wide range of domestic and international economic policy issues. Note… **IMPLEMENTATION** I said that the President implements policy he does not MAKE policy. Quote: Council on Environmental Quality The Council on Environmental Quality coordinates federal environmental efforts and works closely with agencies and other White House offices in the development of environmental policies and initiatives. [/quote] How does this show that the Executive makes policy? > [@grem0517](#): > > Quote: > Domestic Policy Council > The Domestic Policy Council (DPC) coordinates the domestic policy-making process in the White House and offers policy advice to the President. Policy-making process is not making policy, it is coordination of how policy is made, policy is made by something noted as an “Iron Triangle”. > [@grem0517](#): > > Do I need to go on? That’s the first three offices listed on the main page and **every single freakin’ one** deals with policy-making by the Executive Branch. When you don’t know, don’t make it up and when someone corrects you, you might want to check your position before making idiotic proclamations that have no basis in fact. No please don’t go on, not until you’ve read a book: Public Policy: 10th Edition by Thommas Dye. Ok? Until then, you’re just out of your league, maybe when you’ve read that book you’ll have enough insite to understand what I am saying. None of the listed offices deals with public-policy MAKING, only the process of making public policy (indrectly related to the Executive) or the implementation of policy (directly related to the executive). > [@grem0517](#): > > you might want to check your position before making idiotic proclamations that have no basis in fact. Wrong, I know what I’m talking about, and you’re misinterpreting what you are presenting. I have but 4 words for you. **Good Game No Rematch** Now I have to go to see my Public Policy professor see ya around…hopefully then you’ll know something about how public policy is made. Ok? Good. ---
**Author:** ![Zakalwe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zakalwe/32/270_2.png) [@Zakalwe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zakalwe)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2004, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-bushs-administration-anti-science/230035/139 "2004-02-27T19:38:04Z")
**The\_Broken\_Column** Didn’t actually go to the site, did you? From the CEA page > [@](#): > > to \*\*develop \*\* and \*\*recommend to the President national economic policies \*\* to foster and promote free competitive enterprise, to avoid economic fluctuations or to diminish the effects thereof, and to maintain employment, production, and purchasing power; Or is developing policies somehow different from “public-policy making” too. Care to define what you mean by that term? From the DPC page > [@](#): > > Although the name has changed throughout the years, a domestic policy staff has existed in the White House since the 1960s. A foundation for the current Domestic Policy Council (DPC) was first created in the Johnson White House, when a \*\*senior level aide spent a majority of his time developing domestic policy \*\* and attempting to organize a staff to facilitate that activity. Again, if developing domestic policy is not “public-policy making”, what is? ---
**Author:** ![jshore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/b5e925/32.png) [@jshore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jshore)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2004, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-bushs-administration-anti-science/230035/140 "2004-02-27T20:54:18Z")
**The\_Broken-Column** : Okay, let’s assume just for a moment that we live in “The\_Broken-Column bizarro world” in which development of policy is not the same as making public policy. We still have the fact that you said: > [@The\_Broken\_Column](#): > > First off, wrong, the established debate in this thread is erroneous. It is based on the idea that the President makes or influences policy. He does not. So, does this mean that in your world, “development of policy” is not even “influencing policy”? I’d like a ticket to your world just out of shear wonderment. What’s the price of admission? > [@](#): > > I have but 4 words for you. > > **Good Game No Rematch** A little hint for you: Excessive gloating is probably not looked at too kindly by others on the SDMB but it usually forgiven if the person has really made some pretty smart compelling arguments. If the person does this after making ridiculous silly arguments, it is **really** not looked well upon at all. I have little doubt that my fellow posters here, across the poltical spectrum, would have a near-unanimous verdict on which category your post fell into. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-bushs-administration-anti-science/230035.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-bushs-administration-anti-science/230035.md?page=8)