Some might have wondered why we would make a big deal over the amazing mismanagement and scientific intimidation recently revealed at NASA (for more, go to our search window at top left and type in ‘NASA’). It’s just one agency. Pardon the sarcasm, but must seem absolutely ridiculous to think that the pattern of mismanagement documented at NASA would extend to other government agencies. It’s not as if these people have established a pattern of misbehavior or anything.
Take, for example, the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). NOAA monitors the Earth’s climate and oceans, which some would call a fairly important task. When rightwingers complain that we don’t have enough data and that we need more ‘sound science,’ the responsibility falls on NOAA to do it. It seems safe to expect, then, that an agency whose work lies at the center of such a politically-sensitive controversy is where you’d be most likely to find the administration’s thumb on the scales.
Yep.
James E. Hansen, the NASA climate scientist who sparked an uproar last month by accusing the Bush administration of keeping scientific information from reaching the public, said Friday that officials at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration are also muzzling researchers who study global warming.
Hansen, speaking in a panel discussion about science and the environment before a packed audience at the New School university, said that while he hopes his own agency will soon adopt a more open policy, NOAA insists on having “a minder” monitor its scientists when they discuss their findings with journalists.
For your own entertainment, draw two boxes on a white piece of paper. In the left-hand box write down all the countries from the last 100 years which insisted that academics and other citizens only speak to the press when attended by ‘minders.’ The US goes in that box. In the right-hand box write down all of the countries that let academics speak freely, including unrestricted access to international meetings. Use Google if you must.
Done? Now tell me whether you’re comfortable with the kind of company that we keep. Thus endeth the exercise.
***Update***
Via this diary, TNR reports that NOAA aggressively managed which scientists were and were not permitted to speak about Katrina in order to keep the message ideologically pure.
The main instrument of suppression seems to be noaa’s policy on contact with the press. Since June 2004, noaa, which is part of the Department of Commerce, has had a policy that its employees have to notify a public affairs officer if a member of the press contacts them for an interview. But the policy was often ignored. Then, on September 29, in the midst of growing public debate over hurricanes and global warming, public affairs official Jim Teet issued a memo requiring that “any request for an interview with a national media outlet/reporter must now receive prior approval by DOC [Department of Commerce].
Otto Man
Beautifully said, Tim.
stickler
I’m not comfortable with this kind of meatheaded stupidity. I was so uncomfortable with it that in 2004 I voted against the party in power — the party which governs by secrecy, cronyism, and dogma.
We have another chance this year. “Oh, the other guys would be worse!” is just a lame excuse for more of the same. Think about it.
ChristieS
Glad to see you brought this up, Tim. It needs to be hammered and hammered and hammered until the blockheads can’t avoid it any longer: We are becoming what we made war against.
Pooh
not while we have the Buddy-Christ on our side.
Bob In Pacifica
I hear the Mars project was tabled in order to aim a space ship directly at Heaven. There’s a question whether our rockets have enough thrust to penetrate all the spheres in the sky to reach it, though.
The Other Steve
No, actually it had to do with a dispute between the scientists and the evangelical Minders. The minders apparently were unhappy with the scientists claims that Mars did not revolve around the Earth, but rather both planets revolved around the Sun.
After several cries of heresy, and a threat to have the scientists excommunicated… they finally gave up and resolved to work on Bush’s pet project… whether werewolves really do come out only during a full moon.
Otto Man
I thought they were planning on launching a rocketship into the sun. Bush wanted to launch it at night so it wouldn’t burn up.
neil
There’s a certain irony that the conservative blogosphere is simultaneously championing the freedom of the press to print anything that offends Muslims, while fiercely defending the administration that refuses to let scientists talk to reporters, while cheering on reports that people will get busted for leaking classified information to the press.
Pooh
Irony is dead. 9/11 changed everything.
jc
If I may be so bold, I think caution is appropriate when one’s disgust with politicians begins to foster unexamined trust of government bureaucrats and the press. I urge skepticism in all directions until one knows for sure.
My point has nothing to do with George Bush or whether or not the greenhouse gas theory of global warming is correct. I don’t really know about either one, and I don’t feel bad about that. Almost no else does either. All I ask is that fair minded people at least consider the following:
First, in our system, politicians are accountable to any group of voters that can raise up a 50% +1 vote to throw them out. (I know, I know, give or take the Electoral College.) Conversely, government bureaucrats below the politically appointed level are almost never accountable. Local, state and federal government employees throughout America are usually so protected by union rules and low expectations that the risk of losing one’s government job is incredibly low. Cliche`s about postal employees shooting each other did not form in a vacuum. Many parts of our government are dysfunctional at levels where politicians rarely interact, and those dysfunctionalities have survived through decades of changes in political power. The sad truth is that entrenched bureaucracies probably can not be changed from the top, and my own experience convinces me that individual employees are powerless to change bureaucracies from within.
Second, government scientists are only people just like the rest of us. Some are excellent, some are very good at their jobs, some are lazy, some are dogmatic, some are unreasonable, some are just plain stupid, and some lose their perspective because they do not have to compete in the private sector.
Third, many reporters chose journalism in part because the degree requires very little math and science, if any at all. The verbal side of their brain may be advanced, but the other side has limitations. Reporters often misunderstand scientific explanations and ignorantly mislead the public. The situation is even worse when the reporter’s agenda is playing political “gotcha.” Since politicians are the people who are accountable when a reporter writes BS, it is pretty unfair to blame politicians for wanting to at least hear both sides of the conversation between the scientist and the reporter. I do not accept paranoia about politicians as a suitable reason to demand that they never be allowed first-hand knowledge of interviews. How else can they compare what is said in an interview with what a reporter subsequently writes? Think about it. The politician is really the only person at the interview with anything to lose. Reporters usually gain more professionally by generating controversy than by being correct, and insulated bureaucrats are never going to lose their job because of authorized interviews.
Fourth, criticizing evangelicals for having faith is certainly ironic when the subject is the greenhouse gas theory. Not many believers of human-caused global warming in America today have the actual knowledge and information required to reach that conclusion. Everyone else decided which person they believe and took up the cause as well. Sounds just like a religion to me. If you actually are a person who completely understands every partial differential in the best weather models, if you can explain their interaction in exact terms, and if you have the hard-core statistical skills needed for this pursuit, please accept my apologies for casting doubt. However, if you believe in the greenhouse gas theory and you are asking yourself “what is a partial differential?” — perhaps you should reassess how much you are willing to adopt beliefs solely on faith before criticizing others for doing the same.
Tim F.
If you’re talking to me, jc, I’m a scientist with a relevant masters degree so you don’t need to tell me about taking scientific principles ‘on faith.’ Tossing around jargon catchphrases that you lifted randomly from the scientific literature won’t help either.
First, you dishonestly present my series of posts as “criticizing evangelicals for having faith.” Apparently I have to remind each reader individually, some more than once, that nobody has a problem with evangelicals having faith, and it’s a personal insult to act like I do. The problem, which I have repeatedly made perfectly clear, is the organized effort by some evangelicals to impose their faith on the rest of us. I don’t expect a scientific government agency to present the Genesis account of creation as a viable alternative to the Big Bang and I have every right to take offense when they do so.
Then you basically throw up your hands and declare that we as a society can’t know anything because each of us don’t individually know everything. That’s a fairly mundane version of the logical fallcy of composition, which renders the rest of your point moot.
Otto Man
Can you provide any evidence that the scientists being muzzled here were in anyway dogmatic, unreasonable, just plain stupid, or lacking perspective? Because the only person in these stories to whom those adjectives seem to apply are George Deutsch and the NOAA “minders.”
And by the way, these government scientists are engaged in discussions and debates with scientists employed in the private sector. But it’s the conservatively correct conditions imposed at NASA that are their handicap here. The vast vast majority of private sector scientists are saying exactly what the NASA scientists are trying to say. If they were in the private sector themselves, they’d be in agreement, not conflict.
So we’re agreed — journalism majors shouldn’t be deciding the terms of this discussion, whether it’s the reporter here or Texas A&M dropout turned NASA minder George Deutsch. The scientists should be allowed to say what they think is scientifically valid.
Well, I don’t have a working knowledge of aerodynamics, either, but I trust the scientists and engineers when they saw that scientific principles are keeping the 747 aloft, and not a collection of angels.
jc
Tim,
If you read the comments above mine you will find references to evangelicals and irony. I responded to those comments not to you. If you are offended by big the bang/creation argument, please don’t waste those feelings on me. I won’t join in that fight. My mother always told me not to argue with drunks, damn fools, tired children, or the mentally ill. I always try to follow her advice. I believe in most of modern geologic theory and I won’t waste my time arguing with creationists.
However, I disregard creationists for exactly the same reasons I disregard most of the people I meet with an opinion on global warming. I can’t accept faith placed in “something someone told me” as a good reason for me to quit thinking. I have not taken a position on the greenhouse gas theory because I have not done my homework yet. Unlike many Americans, I have the math skills to do so and some day I may decide to invest the time. Your reference to your Masters Degree is interesting, but I am neither threatened nor convinced by calls to authority. My degree includes studies of math, physics, thermodynamics, fluid mechanics, chemistry, geology, hydrology, sanitary engineering, statistics and computer programming. I am very confident in how little I actually know about the universe and I am perfectly willing to announce it to the world.
Now that we have established our anonymous and unverifiable credentials, let me say they are completely off the point. I am concerned about the triumvirate of politicians, bureaucrats and the press and the damage they can do if the general public is willing to make decisions solely on faith. Even if there is significant expertise available and even if those experts are 100% right, there remains many long steps between accumulating knowledge, augmenting that knowledge with accurate information, and the formation of good public policy.
The rush to convince the public with sloganeering does not fill me with confidence. If statements were limited to the level of “We know that treating the world as an open sewer leads to trouble and we probably should not treat the atmosphere in that manner either,” I would be in full agreement. However, those who feel the need to extrapolate beyond that to make definitive statements about a natural system that is probably past its four-billionth birthday make me skeptical. I wonder why they see our weather data set as statistically significant relative to earth’s history. I wonder why I should not see our weather data as error-prone when considered over more than a few hundred years.
I believe in the cyclical patterns of nature and I know the difference between evidence and proof. I have the hands-on experience to know that every attempt to model the complexities of the universe is always both a noble pursuit and a fine opportunity to make a fool of myself by being precise but not accurate.
So tell me, do you really have a reason to take offense based on what I have written? If so, maybe you are not as confident in your position as you wish to believe. Or maybe I don’t belong at this site because I just don’t follow others well enough. I will be happy to go away if I am spoiling the party.
Otto Man
I don’t feel the need to give you evidence of anything. I write about bureaucracies based on my life experiences and I am confident that my experiences are representative of most of the country. I see no reason to offer judgments about individuals I have never met or to blindly accept their assertions because of their job title. Your decisions in this regard are strictly your own.
BTW, I have done a lot of lab work in fluid dynamics and I find it truly interesting, but I did not need it to believe in aerodynamics. All I needed was to see an airplane fly. The obvious is usually good enough for me. And, I don’t even have to see it to believe it. I read Einstein’s book a few times and I will admit I spent most of my time pretty confused. I can still derive special relativity from kinetic energy, but how that man could see the equation for general relativity is still beyond me. Even so, I don’t have the slightest problem accepting Hiroshima as a very convincing hint.
I accept the obvious readily. I love formal proofs. I will also accept a preponderance of the evidence if I personally study that evidence. I just choose to shy away from bluster, expert worship, and universal agreement as good enough reasons to believe. If what I read in history books is accurate there was a time and place where accepted scientific leaders universally agreed that the barber should bleed people with the flu. Universal agreement does not convince me of anything. I prefer to ask probing questions and do my own work.
JD
And anyone who doesn’t take the GW pronouncements and assumtions as fact is automatically a rightwinger? Humerous logic.
Hansen is the prime example of a political animal. He’s also the best example I’ve seen of the sad old truth that a man can be well educated and still be a self serving dumbass. The prime reason there are “handlers” in the various government agencies is best represented by such men as Hansen. It at least slows down the self promotion and empire building such individuals undertake. If Hansen felt he was to heavily curtailed in his freedoms I’m sure he could move to another venue,away from government employment, and be free to push his agendas to his heart’s content. Why doesn’t he? Perhaps he’s quite happy with the pay and the amount of power/noteriety he recieves in his present position despite the supposed heavy hand of rightwing censors.
Tim F.
jc,
In general a comment that doesn’t mention a specific commenter is assumed to address the post’s author. If that wasn’t the case then there’s no reason for me to take offense.
I think that you’re too eager to dismiss the quality of work that is being done in the climate field. We don’t have consensus on many things but we do have increasing agreement that what we are experiencing goes beyond ‘natural cycles.’
rachel
“Jim Teet?” Why, he almost sounds like some kind of boob.