Bush's scientific relativism.

• Author: Ayres, Ed
• Position: Note from a Worldwatcher

Humans have had a stake in technology from the beginning. In fact, you might argue that technology--the ability to use materials and energy outside our own bodies to greatly multiply our bodily powers--is a large part of what defines us. We've gone from spear points to nuclear warheads, and somewhere along the line we've gone from being successful hunters of woolly mammoths and ducks to devastatingly effective killers of other humans. We have also known, since the first performances of Aeschylus and Sophocles, that our greatest strengths are often our greatest flaws.

We think of technology as something that can be either used for good purposes or terribly abused, but we generally assume that the underlying science is incorruptible. Technology can be made grotesque by political fiat. Scientific findings can't. At least, that's what we were given to understand by our science teachers. The current U.S. president, however, seems not to have paid any attention to such teachers, and is now under the impression that what scientists discover can, if politically unhelpful, be changed by executive order.

On a range of fronts, the Bush administration has attempted to have scientific findings altered or suppressed. When a Department of Interior cartographer posted a DOI website map revealing that the administration's proposed drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge would disrupt caribou calving grounds, the cartographer was fired and his map was pulled from public view. When a committee of experts at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration produced findings (on genetic testing) that the administration didn't like, the administration had the committee dissolved before a final report could be issued. When a Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) group produced findings that the Christian right didn't like, it too was dissolved. When another HHS group began finding disturbing evidence of the effects of environmental chemicals on human health, 15 of its 18 members were replaced. One of the replacements was Dennis Paustenbach, who had played a role in the trial that made Erin Brockovich famous; he had testified on behalf of Pacific Gas & Electric, the company found guilty of poisoning drinking water. Similar ideological cleansing is under way at the U.S. Department of Education.

It's in the area of climate change, however, that the Bush denial of science has been most consequential. Climate scientists began presenting evidence of global...