Scientific evidence becomes politically fashionable again | Blessed are the geeks, for they shall inherit the Earth | The Economist

Blessed are the geeks, for they shall inherit the Earth
Jan 8th 2009From The Economist print edition
Barack Obama is making good his promise to welcome scientists into his administration
Illustration by David Simonds
ONE of the stranger beliefs of some politicians is that if they treat nature like a troublesome opponent and ignore it, it might go away and stop botheringthem. In the opinion of many scientists George Bush, America’s retiring president, was just such a politician. It would be one thing, for example, to arguethat it is too expensive to stop climate change and that adapting to such change is a better course of action. It is quite another, as White House officialshave done in the past, to describe climate change as a liberal cause without merit.
Mr Bush’s administration also stands accused of suppressing the publication of research he did not like. In 2007, for example, Richard Carmona, then surgeongeneral, testified to Congress that Mr Bush’s officials had delayed and tried to “water down” a report which concluded that even brief exposure to cigarettesmoke could cause immediate harm. It has been criticised, too, for preferring AIDS-prevention techniques based on abstinence (which don’t work, but havea moral appeal to Mr Bush and his supporters) to those that use condoms (which do work). His attitude to research on embryonic stem cells did not endearhim to many scientists, either, and although the disagreement in this case was about a matter of principle rather than one of scientific truth, the decisionto stop funding such research was seen as yet another example of how low the stock of science had fallen in the government.Click here
Well, it is rising now. On December 15th Barack Obama, the incoming president, announced that he was nominating Steven Chu, a Nobel-prize-winning physicist,to be his energy secretary. At the moment, Dr Chu is head of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, where he has built up a big solar-energy-researchproject. He is also a strong advocate of research into nuclear power and foresees a world in which fossil fuels are largely replaced by other sources ofenergy.
On December 20th the president-elect followed Dr Chu’s appointment by nominating Jane Lubchenco, a marine biologist at Oregon State University, as headof the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. This is the government agency responsible for studying the climate, and also for keeping an eyeon marine life. Dr Lubchenco has been critical of the Bush administration’s lack of respect for climate science, and for its inaction on greenhouse-gasemissions. She is also concerned about marine pollution and the appearance in the ocean of oxygen-depleted dead zones caused by such pollution.
On the same day John Holdren, a physicist at the John F. Kennedy School of Government in Harvard, who is an expert in the fields of energy, the environmentand nuclear proliferation, was appointed as the new presidential science adviser, and he will enjoy higher authority in that position than his Republicanpredecessor did. In 2007, when Dr Holdren was president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), he argued publicly for swiftaction on climate change.
Geneticists, too, get a look in. Two of them—Harold Varmus, a former director of the National Institutes of Health, and Eric Lander, of the MassachusettsInstitute of Technology—will be co-chairmen of the president’s council of advisers on science and technology. All in all, as Alan Leshner, chief executiveof the AAAS, puts it, “we’ve never had a president surrounded in close proximity with so many well-known, top scientific minds.” All of them, he predicts,will have access to the president and influence on policy, or else they would have refused the jobs. Dr Leshner says that Dr Varmus has “no interest inbeing a potted plant. He is a very competent and smart person with tremendous judgment who would not waste his time.”
Obamology
These appointments, therefore, mark a shift in political attitudes towards scientific advice. When he announced his selections Mr Obama said that promotingscience is not just about providing resources (though he has promised to double the budget for basic science research over the next decade), but also aboutpromoting free inquiry and listening to what scientists have to say, “especially when it is inconvenient”. Remarks such as this are causing excitementamong researchers, particularly those who have had difficulty making their voices heard over the past few years.
And it is not only attitudes that are changing. As these appointments suggest, shifts in policy on global warming, energy and the protection of the oceansare also on the way. A straw in the wind here is the administration-to-be’s attitude to NASA, America’s space agency.
Mr Obama has said he will give NASA an extra $2 billion to close the gap between the space shuttle, which is due to be withdrawn from service in 2010, andits successor. That sounds like good news for the agency. But according to documents obtained by Space News, a specialist newspaper, his people are alsoasking NASA some ticklish questions.
They want to know how much money could be saved by cancelling parts of the shuttle’s successor. They have also asked for an estimate of the cost of carryingout all 15 missions that were recommended in a recent review of the agency’s Earth-science programme, which looks at things like the planet’s climate.At the moment, there is no money in the kitty for these missions, nor is much progress expected before 2020. The unstated implication of these questionsis that someone is considering moving these missions up NASA’s priority list.
It is also clear that lifting restrictions on embryonic-stem-cell research will be high on the agenda of the new administration. Democrats are already debatingwhether to overturn those restrictions through executive order or by legislation when they assume control of the government.
The stem-cell question was one that particularly disturbed Dr Carmona when he was surgeon general. In his evidence to Congress, he reported that he wasnot allowed to speak, or issue reports, on stem cells. Nor on emergency contraception, sex education, mental health, the health of prisoners or globalhealth. The thousands of scientists who, in 2006, signed a petition calling for the restoration of scientific integrity to federal policymaking will alsofeel vindicated. “See no evil, hear no evil and speak no evil” may sometimes be a good prescription for day to day life, but it is no basis for policymaking.Mr Bush did not seem to realise that. So far, Mr Obama looks as though he does.