DURING the McCarthy era of the 1950s, scientists were blackballed for leftish leanings. And during Nixon鈥檚 reign, the White House science staff were abruptly fired en masse for alleged disloyalty to the paranoid Chief Executive.
Nothing remotely as egregious has occurred under President George W. Bush. But as he begins the third year of his presidency, the science establishment is seething with feelings of injury and neglect in its dealings with the Bush administration.
It鈥檚 not about money for research. Bush has been fairly good on that score, and Congress even better. Rather, at issue are the heartfelt values and socio-political goals of the American science establishment: namely, its presumed rights to 鈥渟peak truth to power鈥�, to foster international collaboration in science, and to promote arms control, environmental purity and egalitarian opportunity in education.
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Leading the chorus of disapproval, Donald Kennedy, the editor of Science, has chastised the administration for a flock of appointments to the advisory committees that counsel the US government on science. He has warned: 鈥淚f you start picking people by their ideology instead of their scientific credentials, you are inevitably reducing the quality of the advisory group.鈥�
On these and related points, the Bush administration, with its unabashed pro-business, anti-regulation ideology and militant foreign policy, has shown scant regard. The administration isn鈥檛 misrepresenting science for political ends. When it sees fit, it is simply ignoring scientific advice that conflicts with its ideological preferences, especially over abortion.
Bush and science got off to a poor start with a nine-month delay 鈥� actually, not a record for a new president 鈥� in appointing a director of the White House science office. Among the mandarins of science, this post is cherished as their link to the presidency.
While the post remained empty, Bush cancelled Clinton-era plans for lowering allowable arsenic levels in drinking water, trashed the Kyoto Protocol, and curbed federal funding of stem-cell research to some 60 cell lines in existence in August 2001. Even after the White House science post was filled, by John Marburger, a respected physicist, major jobs in the federal health bureaucracy remained empty, giving rise to rumours 鈥� never confirmed 鈥� of a 鈥渓itmus test鈥� on abortion-related matters. The directorship of the National Institutes of Health remained vacant for two years, and the top post at the Food and Drug Administration went unfilled for over a year.
For the touchy psyches of the scientific leadership, the long delays in filling these jobs did not suggest high regard for science in the Bush White House. Nor has the revamping of several health-related advisory committees to include outspoken opponents of abortion and a new mandate that reclassifies the fetus as an unborn child 鈥� and thus eligible for various forms of legal protection.
Other grievances have piled up. Contrary to the environmental values prevalent in the scientific community, the administration has sought to expand commercial timbering, to open restricted lands to oil drilling, and to reduce protection of wetlands. Post-9/11 border restrictions for foreign researchers have disrupted lab appointments and attendance at scientific conferences. Meanwhile, the administration is urging the research community to screen papers for information that might aid terrorism, and to curb publications that are 鈥渟ensitive but unclassified鈥� 鈥� a vague category the Reagan administration rejected in 1985 as impractical and inimical to science. The Attorney-General has advised federal agencies that the Justice Department will provide lawyers to fight Freedom of Information requests that might compromise homeland security.
The President鈥檚 stance against affirmative-action admissions to universities directly opposes the practices of many of the nation鈥檚 major academic institutions. To the dismay of the arms-control movement, long a favoured cause of many prominent scientists, Bush has withdrawn from the missile-defence treaty, begun deploying anti-missile defences, and shown opposition to a nuclear test-ban treaty. And then there have been unexplained disappearances of sexually related information on government websites. The missing items include a report that abortions do not increase the risks of breast cancer and a fact sheet describing the effectiveness of condoms for preventing pregnancy and disease.
To the extent that it responds at all to expressions of concern from scientists, as well as others, the administration states that all presidents put their own stamp on government policies and operations. True. However, none has gone so far in upending important matters already settled in the American polity.
Is the scientific community up in arms? No. It is dolefully unhappy, but not politically aroused. Money from Washington is its main concern; that remains plentiful. Alone among major professions in the US, science remains aloof from rallying votes and raising cash in support of its political beliefs.