Union of Concerned Scientists bashes Bush
Earlier this year, the Union of Concerned Scientists issued a report attacking the Bush administration:

The Bush administration has distorted scientific fact leading to policy decisions on the environment, health, biomedical research and nuclear weaponry, a group of about 60 scientists, including 20 Nobel laureates, said in a statement on Wednesday.

The Union of Concerned Scientists, an independent organization, also issued a 37-page report, "Scientific Integrity in Policymaking," detailing the accusations. The statement and the report both accuse the Bush administration of distorting and suppressing findings that contradict administration policies, stacking panels with like-minded and underqualified scientists with ties to industry, and eliminating some advisory committees altogether.

That's a serious charge, something the UCS describes as "unprecedented." But is it true?

Not suprisingly, the White House doesn't think so:

President Bush's science adviser, John Marburger, said he was disappointed in the report, and called it biased.

He said he was troubled by the fact that some very prestigious scientists signed the statement.

"We have to find a way to reach out to them and try to come to an understanding, because this administration has in fact been very supportive of science," Marburger said. He noted the administration has doubled the National Institutes of Health budget and increased the National Science Foundation budget....

"I think there are reasonable explanations for nearly all the things in the report, and rather than look for what those explanations might be, I think the (researchers were) somewhat biased in favor of a sweeping opinion of what this administration is all about, and I just don't think that's justified."

So what is the truth? If the UCS statement is over-zealous, why would a bunch of "independent" scientists go out of their way to attack the Bush Administration?

I did about 10 minues of research into UCS to see what this group might be about.

The first thing I noticed on their website was that all of their policy initiatives were pretty much in line with or to the left of the Democratic Party. So while they may be "independent", so is Ralph Nader. One might expect this on environmental issues such as drilling for Alaskan Oil, Mileage Requirements and Global Warming, but what about Missile Defense and even the War in Iraq?

Yes, UCS seems to have organized resistance to the Iraq invasion before the war, leading a letter-writing campaign:

Urgent: Tell President Bush To Give the Inspectors the Time They Need.

Next week the United Nations' inspectors in Iraq will give a preliminary report to the UN Security Council on their findings. At the same time, the Bush administration is amassing a huge military force in the region and seems prepared to go to war unilaterally no matter what those findings are.

The only real solution to the problem of weapons of mass destruction -in Iraq and around the globe - is to establish strong international controls based on the rule of law, supported by the international community, and enforced by the UN Security Council. Unilateral, preemptive US action against Iraq would undermine the prospects forsuch controls and could lead to still graver proliferation problems.

They even provided a sample letter for the convenience of like-minded subscribers:

Dear President Bush:

I am writing to ask you to respect the decisions of the UN Security Council on how best to ensure that Iraq's programs to develop weapons of mass destruction are eliminated, and to allow the inspectors to do their work. I strongly oppose any US military action against Iraq without prior consideration and explicit approval by the UN Security Council....

So what does this have to do with science? uh, Nothing?

I take this as pretty clear evidence that the UCS is willing to cross the line from science into politics, exactly as it accuses the Bush administration of doing.

With a little further digging, I found that others have already looked at the UCS and the quality of their reports. The Consumer Freedom Network does background work on independent non-profits:

This site, a part of the ConsumerFreedom.com network, is committed to providing detailed and up-to-date information about the funding source of radical anti-consumer organizations and activists.....

As you read through the site, you may be surprised by some of the connections between these groups and individuals, forming a web of anti-consumer activism -- promoting false science, scare campaigns, inflated public health causes, and sometimes even violent anti-consumer "direct actions."

They say:

UCS embraces an environmental agenda that often stands at odds with the “rigorous scientific analysis” it claims to employ. A radical green wolf in sheep’s clothing, UCS tries to distinguish itself from the Greenpeaces of the world by convincing the media that its recommendations reflect a consensus among the scientific community. And that’s what makes it so dangerous. Whether it’s energy policy or agricultural issues, UCS’s “experts” are routinely given a free pass from newspaper reporters and television producers when they claim that mainstream science endorses their radical agenda.... [ed. It wasn't hard for me to find this criticism of UCS. Shouldn't the Wired reporter Kristen Philipkoski have provided this perspective to her readers?]

More recently, UCS pulled a partisan, election-year stunt in 2004 aimed at the Bush Administration. The group rounded up 60 scientists to sign a statement complaining that “the administration is distorting and censoring scientific findings that contradict its policies; manipulating the underlying science to align results with predetermined political decisions.”

On issue after issue, UCS insists, the White House fails to embrace global scientific “consensus” -- and that automatically means it has “politicized” science. But UCS itself is frequently guilty of that exact sin. For instance, it works overtime to scare Americans about a whole host of imagined environmental problems associated with genetically modified food. But every authoritative regulatory agency, including the Environmental Protection Agency and the World Health Organization, declares that biotech food crops are perfectly safe.

UCS routinely abuses and politicizes science....

hmmm, so what is the truth behind all of this?

I don't know, but I can say that UCS seems to be a generally leftist association of scientists that often strays into the political arena. That isn't necessarily bad. What is bad is the extent to which they portray themselves as something they're not, some sort of general "scientific concensus." That misrepresentation, in itself, detracts from their credibility.

But that doesn't mean they're necessarily wrong on this issue. Even if I, generally a Bush supporter, said that John Kerry is tall and lanky, that should not be taken as evidence that he is short and fat. And if UCS says that the Bush administration politicizes science, just because they lean to the left, it doesn't mean they're wrong.

So what is the truth? As Agent Moulder would say, "The Truth is Out There". But what is it? The truth is that I don't know, and I can't know without devoting hours and hours of more research investigating the UCS's charges, which like most people, I don't have time to do. That is ultimately the sad result when scientific groups or the media take political angles and don't tell us the whole truth -- they lose their credibility, and nothing they say can be taken at face value.

Both sides of this debate have a political agenda, and without more information, I don't believe it's possible to say what the truth is. And because I believe in "innocent until proven guilty" beyond a "reasonable doubt", for now I am giving George W Bush a pass on this accusation.


- posted by The Dutchman @ 4:30:00 PM