Olivia Judson, evolutionary biologist and NY Times blogger, reviews some of the damage that the Bush administration has caused over the past 8 years:
The most notable characteristic of the Bush administration’s science policy has been the repeated distortion and suppression of scientific evidence in order to fit ideological preferences about how the world should be, rather than how it is.
In his disturbing book “Undermining Science: Suppression and Distortion in the Bush Administration,” the journalist Seth Shulman describes case after case of intimidation of scientists in government posts, the suppression of scientific evidence and the perpetuation of misinformation.
The fields affected range from climate change to public health. Although some incidents are small in and of themselves, the cumulative effect is horrifying. Shulman also catalogs a long list of established government scientists who, during the course of the Bush administration, resigned their posts in despair.
Why does this matter?
The distortion and suppression of science is dangerous, and not just because it means that public money gets wasted on programs, like abstinence-only sex “education” schemes, that do not work. It is dangerous because it is an assault on science itself, a method of thought and inquiry on which our modern civilization is based and which has been hugely successful as a way of acquiring knowledge that lets us transform our lives and the world around us. In many respects science has been the dominant force — for good and ill — that has transformed human lives over the past two centuries.
When data can’t be accessed or trusted, when “facts” are actually illusions — well, this threatens the nature of knowledge itself. And a society without knowledge is steering blind.
The rubbishing of science is far more serious than any particular decision over whether to fund research into stem cells, the sexual behavior of fruit flies or the quarks and quirks of particle physics. Undoing the damage of the past eight years may take another eight. But it must be done. We are probably one of the last generations that will be able to use our knowledge and methods to guide human civilization to a sustainable future. This is our time.
I cannot overemphasize how important it is for our country to get its science "mojo" back. Not only does stem cell research hold promise for curing diseases like Parkinson's, paralysis and diabetes, but research in the areas of clean energy, aging, cancer, heart disease, among others, will radically improve our lives and the world. All we need is the political will and the money to do it.
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