Politics vs. Integrity

John McCain has been a huge disappointment with his support for Bush, but I was glad to see this article. At least someone on the right side of the aisle understands the need for science in making sound policy. In this article he discloses how scientists have been pressured when they published politically incorrect papers. Maybe someone at the White House can read the article and explain it to George.   POINT OF VIEW Politics vs. the Integrity of Research By U.S. SEN. JOHN MCCAIN and PETER LIKINS Global warming is happening now. Many of us can intuit that from our personal experience. And we have come to know it the same way people learned that E=mc2: based on compelling scientific evidence, arrived at through objective, transparent scientific inquiry. In this case, science is sounding a drumbeat of hard evidence to reinforce what we feel in our everyday lives -- our world is getting warmer. Median temperatures are rising. Ice caps are melting. Glaciers are in what geologists call "catastrophic retreat." Weather patterns are changing. And a large body of evidence shows that all those changes may be linked to the greenhouse gases created by human activity, which are accumulating in our atmosphere. We need solutions to the problems caused by global warming, and to find the solutions, the government and scientific establishments need to work together. Each possesses unique abilities to help the other: The government can finance research and use the results to shape public policy; scientists can discover new truths. But each must be able to rely on the other, or the partnership will not work. Scientists must be allowed to conduct their work unfettered by political or commercial pressures. (We have only to look at the failures of biological science in the former Soviet Union to understand the scientific and political costs of interference.) And the government cannot craft sound policy unless it can count on scientists to provide accurate data on which to base its actions. (The consequences of spinning or withholding facts can be seen in the lives lost to disease because tobacco companies withheld evidence from Congress and the Food and Drug Administration.) When members of Congress recently began pressuring scientists who have offered evidence of global warming, they broke that crucial covenant. The chairman and another member of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, in an apparent effort to discredit the findings reported by three distinguished scientists from respected universities, demanded that the scientists send Congress all of the scientific data they have gathered in their entire careers, even data on studies unrelated to their publications on global warming. The message sent by the Congressional committee to the three scientists was not subtle: Publish politically unpalatable scientific results and brace yourself for political retribution, which might include denial of the opportunity to compete for federal funds. Statements that such requests are routine ring hollow: Asking for scientific information may be routine, but asking for all of the data produced in a scientist's career is highly irregular. It represents a kind of intimidation, which threatens the relationship between science and public policy. That behavior must not be tolerated Read more: The Chronicle of Higher Education