Mooney - The Republican War On Science (2005) - Synopsis

UFPPC (www.ufppc.org) Digging Deeper XXXIII: July 9, 2007, 7:00 p.m. Chris Mooney, The Republican War on Science (New York: Basic Books, 2005). Acknowledgments. Author a journalist, not a scientist. “I believe that journalists, when approaching scientific controversies, should use their judgment to evaluate the credibility of different sides and to discern where scientists think the weight of evidence lies, without presuming to critically evaluate the science on their own” (vii). Thanks to Arthur Caplan (bioethicist) and Sydelle Kramer (agent), inter alia, and readers of his blog, www.ChrisCMooney.com. PART ONE—WHERE IT BEGINS Epigraph: Steven Pinker Ch. 1: The Threat. Bush’s stem cell research decision in August 2001 (2-4). Republican Party’s reliance on “industry and the religious Right” to blame (4-6). The Left sometimes abuses science (6-9). But the Right’s “systematic, and often far cruder, war on science” is worse (9). It poses a danger to public health, the environment, and democracy (10-13). Ch. 2: Political Science 101. Science is not facts, but a process (14-15). Mooney’s focus is on how science provides “input into decision-making” (16). Interference with the process of science means undermining science itself, suppression, targeting individual scientists, and rigging the process (1719). Interference with results means misstating facts, distorting scientific work, magnifying uncertainty, relying on the fringe, ginning up contrary “science,” dressing up values in scientific clothing (19-23). Ch. 3: From FDR to Nixon. Denunciation of Republicans by Russell Train, EPA director under Nixon and Ford (25-27). Respect for science from FDR to Nixon (27-29). Barry Goldwater’s campaign first brought together

conservative activists who would ultimately win (29). Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring (1962) activated corporate opponents of science (30-31). Business began funding intellectuals and think tanks in the 1970s (32-34). Ch. 4: “Creation Science” and Reagan’s “Dream.” Reagan “brewed a political concoction—equal parts big business and religious conservatism— that proved highly toxic to the role of science in government” (35). Reagan’s antievolutionism (36-39). Pro-industry (39-43). Promotes Star Wars (SDI=Strategic Defense Initiative) (4346). Anti-abortion & and anti-sex education (46-48). Ch. 5: Defenseless against the Dumb. Newt Gingrich as “conundrum” (49). Subverts the Office of Technology Assessment, despite its excellent work (50-54). OTA’s demise began an era of “freewheeling politicization of expertise” (54). E.g. absurd hearings on “Scientific Integrity and the Public Trust” held by the Republican-controlled Energy and Environment Subcommittee of the House Committee on Science; chaired by Dana Rohrbacher (R-CA 46th [Orange County]), who called global warming “liberal claptrap” and waged a campaign against environmental science, but who showed a complete misunderstanding of what science is when he claimed that “scientific truth is more likely to be found at the fringes of science than at the center”; in fact, “Scientific knowledge is the intellectual and social consensus of affiliated experts based on the weight of available empirical evidence, and evaluated according to accepted methodologies,” in the words of historian of science Naomi Oreskes of UC San Diego [Environmental Science & Policy 7 (2004), pp. 369-83] (54-56). Hearings on

ozone depletion brought this priceless gem from John Doolittle (R-CA 4th [Mother Lode foothills of the Sierra]): “I’m not going to get involved in a mumbo-jumbo of peer-reviewed documents” (59; 5659). The Gingrich [104th] Congress’s role in obscuring understanding of the greenhouse effect (59-64).

document required by the 1992 U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change that was submitted to the U.N. in May 2002 (95-100). Republicans do not openly oppose science, but rather claim it’s on their side (100-01). Harm caused: “tragic,” “incalculable,” “stunning,” “shocking” (101).

Ch. 6: Junking “Sound Science.” Republicans made an anti-scientific catchphrase of the expression “sound science” (64-66). Big Tobacco’s use of it (66-69). Interference with regulatory work (69-71). The Orwellian phrase, too often used by those unaware of its connotations, misunderstands the nature of science; it remains “a core component of the conservative science agenda today” and has been endorsed by Republican tactician Frank Luntz (73; 7174). The phrase “junk science” is used by companies to trash unwanted results (74-75).

Ch. 8: Wine, Jazz, and “Data Quality.” Jim J. Tozzi, a character— Ph.D. economist, jazz cornettist, and party animal (102-05). By drafting the Data Quality Act (which draws “both independent scientists and government agencies within the range of industry’s snipers” [120]), he “has managed to change the very rules of the regulatory game itself” (103). It “saddles agencies with a new workload while empowering businesses to challenge . . . scientific information that could potentially lead to regulation” (104). Tozzi’s work at the Office of Management and Budget (10507). The Data Quality Act (107-08). Data Quality Act at work in the herbicide atrazine case (108-13). The advantage it gives to corporations, which are working to expand it (113-15). John Graham, head of the OMB Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, has worked to amplify the act’s effects by overextending “peer review” in order to slow down the regulatory process; it took effect on Jun. 16, 2005, with almost no media notice (115-19).

PART TWO—THE BUSINESS OF SCIENCE Epigraph: William Kovacs, U.S. Chamber of Commerce Ch. 7: “The Greatest Hoax.” Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK), former Tulsa mayor and small businessman, is a master of the abuse of “sound science” rhetoric (78-80). With the 2001 assessment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the consensus on global warming has become very strong, but Inhofe (whose “greatest hoax” speech on Jul. 28, 2003, is “sure to live on in infamy” [86]) and ExxonMobil have continued to promote skepticism (80-90). The National Academy of Science’s 2001 report on climate science was attacked through the technique of “magnifying uncertainty” (90-93). Misrepresentation of the report (93-95). Inhofe has also worked to suppress a U.S. govt. publication entitled Climate Change Impacts on the United States: The Potential Consequences of Climate Variability and Change, a State Dept.

Ch. 9: Eating Away at Science. Attack on Shiriki Kumanyika of the U. of Pennsylvania School of Medicine in 2003 for her “eat less” recommendation in a WHO/FAO report (121-32). The Bush administration subsequently told the WHO that requests for participation cannot go directly to scientists, but must be submitted to the U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services (132-35). The issue of mercury contamination of fish due to coal-burning power plants led to Republican efforts to distort science both on health risks and the role of U.S.

industrial emissions (135-39). Willie Soon, a Harvard astrophysicist who played a role in the climate science debate, argued that U.S. emission were an insignificant contributor to the mercury problem (139-41). Ch. 10: Fishy Science. Klamath River basin water dispute in Oregon, in which Endangered Species Act decision to cut off water to farmers was reversed in 2002(142-61). [NOTE: On Jun. 27, 2007, Jo Becker & Barton Gellman of the Wash. Post revealed that Vice President Dick Cheney was personally involved in politicizing this dispute.] PART THREE—SCIENTIFIC REVELATIONS Epigraph: Dr. W. David Hager Ch. 11: “Creation Science” 2.0. In The Party That Lost Its Head (1966), Bruce K. Chapman and George Gilder attacked the anti-intellectual extremism of Goldwater conservatism, but the party continued in that direction, and Chapman and Gilder are now “everything they once criticized” (166; 164-66). Bruce Chapman’s migration to the antievolutionary right; he now presides over Seattle’s Discovery Institute, promoter of “intelligent design” (ID) (166-68). Roots of ID (168-69). ID’s tactics, and attempt to infiltrate academia (170-72). ID is “all religion and no science,” as Barbara Forrest and Paul Gross have demonstrated in Creationism’s Trojan Horse: The Wedge of Intelligent Design [Oxford UP, 2003] (172). ID produced “the Wedge Document”—a seven-page paper arguing that ID could be used as a “wedge” to “split the trunk [of scientific materialism] . . . at its weakest points” as part of the attempt to undermine mainstream climate science (172-75). The inspiration of ID’s main players— Phillip Johnson, Jonathan Wells, William Dembski, Stephen C. Meyer, Michael Behe—and its funders—C. Davis Weyerhauser (Stewardship Foundation),

Howard F. Ahmanson, the Maclellan Foundation (175-77) is demonstrably religious. ID has failed to produce scientific research (178-82). But it has garnered strong Republican support, esp. Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA) [defeated in 2006, winning only 41% of the vote, the worst defeat ever of an incumbent Republican Pennsylvania senator] (18283). “Science abusers never [claim an animus against science]. Rather, the movement seeks to redefine the very nature of science to serve its objectives” (184). Ch. 12: Stemming Research. The stem cell research debate (185-86). Scientific background (186-88). Limitations of Bush’s 2001 approach (188-91). Opponents also claim stem cell research has been “hyped” (191-93). The claim that adult stem cells can be used (193-99). The politicization of the President’s Council on Bioethics, formed in 2002 (199-204). Ch. 13: Sexed-Up Science. Joel Brind, scientist turned evangelist, believes God chose him to demonstrate a connection between abortion and breast cancer (205-07). David Reardon’s attempt to show that abortion causes mental illness (208-11). Dr. Joe S. McIlhaney tries to prove that condoms don’t stop STDs (211-15). Dr. W. David Hager, anticontraception (215-20). PART FOUR—THE ANTISCIENCE PRESIDENT Epigraph: Union of Concerned Scientists Ch. 14: Bush League Science. On Feb. 18, 2004, sixty scientists, including twenty Nobel laureates, denounced the Bush administration’s abuse of science (224-29). Detailed criticism of the response of John Marburger, the president’s science adviser (229-39). Comparison with the Clinton administration (240-42). The Bush administration’s abuses are so bad they

“push the issue of science politicization to the point of crisis” (242; 242-47).

Interviews. 8 pp. Several hundred interviews.

Epilogue: What We Can Do. Warnings are not enough, safeguards like a new Office of Technology Assessment, a raised stature for the president’s science adviser, safeguards for scientific advisory committees, are needed (24851). The “sound science” regulatory reform movement must be rolled back (251). Laws like the Endangered Species Data Quality Act must be opposed (251). The treatment of science in the media must be improved, jettisoning the notion of “balance,” in particular (252-54). Science-abusing corporations and religious conservatives must be confronted (254). “We must also mobilize the natural defenders of Enlightenment values: scientists themselves” (254). And the right wing of the Republican Party must be opposed politically (255).

Credits. Eight articles by the author on related subjects, published 2003-2005. Notes. 66 pp. Index. 14 pp. [On the Author. First book. Journalist; Seed magazine. Has just released 400page Storm World: Hurricanes, Politics, and the Battle Over Global Warming (Harcourt, 2007). Named by Wired one of the ten “sexiest geeks.” Born in Mesa, AZ; grew up in New Orleans; graduate of Yale (1999); wrote a column in the Yale Daily News. Speaks frequently; has spoken at Seattle Town Hall. Was opening plenary speaker in 2007 at the World Conference of Science Journalists in Melbourne, Australia. Has appeared on “The Daily Show,” CSPAN’s “Book TV,” Terry Gross’s “Fresh Air” on NPR.]