Archive for November, 2004

NYT as NSF Mouthpiece

November 30th, 2004

Posted by: Roger Pielke, Jr.

I must have missed the announcement, but it appears that the New York Times has merged with the public affairs office of the National Science Foundation. In an article in today’s New York Times Robert Pear editorializes rather than reports, “Congress has cut the budget for the National Science Foundation, an engine for research in science and technology, just two years after endorsing a plan to double the amount given to the agency. Supporters of scientific research, in government and at universities, noted that the cut came as lawmakers earmarked more money for local projects like the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland and the Punxsutawney Weather Museum in Pennsylvania.”

The article includes quotes from no less than 5 advocates lamenting the budget cuts to the National Science Foundation, and gets no perspective from any independent voices, such as the AAAS R&D Budget and Policy Program. In a classic strawman argument the article plays the NSF cuts off of earmarks to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame ($350,000) and the Yazoo Backwater Pumping Plant in Mississippi ($12 million). The article attempts to politicize the issue by observing that “Senators Trent Lott and Thad Cochran, both Republicans, defended the project …” while “Melissa A. Samet, a lawyer at American Rivers, an environmental group, said “It’s a horrible project …”.”

The article fails to note that research within NSF actually received small cuts, with the bulk of the cuts coming from “education and human resources.” The article fails to observe that NSF sits in the same appropriations subcommittee as NASA, which received an unexpected and significant 5% increase, along with funding for Veterans Affairs and Housing and Urban Development. Also, the article fails to engage the fact (shown in a graph accompanying the print version) that the NSF budget has already about doubled over the past decade. It also includes various statements about the practical value of NSF research, but does not reconcile this with the NSF’s mission to support science for science sake. The article does not address the fact that earmarks are an issue of science policy, and were discussed in depth by the late Congressman George E. Brown in the 1990s, and more recently by the AAAS.

Lets not mince words here – this article is one of the worst I have ever seen on an issue of science policy. It is all the worse for appearing in one of the nation’s leading newspapers.

Opening up Space Policy Debate

November 30th, 2004

Posted by: Roger Pielke, Jr.

In the early 1980s James Van Allen criticized NASA for taking money from space science in order to shore up spending on the space shuttle program, calling the expected budgetary carnage “the slaughter of the innocents.” Today we see a very similar dynamic going on in NASA with space science once again being threatened. In a report released earlier this month, the American Physical Society characterized the situation as follows, “Very important science opportunities could be lost or delayed seriously as a consequence of shifting NASA priorities toward Moon-Mars.”

The APS recommends that NASA submit it plans to the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) for a review. Of course the APS recommends going to the NAS because the NAS is a very strong supporter of science and has been the source of priority-setting activities for all of space science.

In an editorial yesterday, The New York Times noted, “In most years, there has been a budgetary wall between the manned space program and unmanned scientific programs, thus providing some protection for science when the inevitable cost overruns hit the more costly manned flight programs. Now NASA will have great freedom to pillage its scientific accounts to pay for the shuttle or space station or the president’s Moon-Mars exploration program, or it can raid one manned program to help pay for another, all subject to final approval by Congress.” The New York Times also recommended that Congress consider terminating the Shuttle and the Space Station.

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Budget Woes for NASA

November 30th, 2004

Posted by: admin

One might wonder what woes an agency with a $16.2 billion dollar budget and $800 million increase from last year might have. Well for starters, NASA has $4.3 billion slated for shuttle return to flight, solely to finish construction of the International Space Station. Station is taking up another $1.8 billion this year, and a Hubble rescue mission, robotic or not, may take up to $2 billion more. That’s half the budget before even thinking about the President’s vision for the Moon and Mars. Most of this effort is going into completing 20 years of pyramid building in space; to complete an orbital platform with no clear mission, enormous costs, and uncertain scientific worth. Given NASA’s history of cost overruns, how can we justify spending most of the budget on programs with small returns and big cost uncertainties?

Job Announcement: Post-doctoral Research Assistant

November 29th, 2004

Posted by: admin

The Consortium for Science, Policy, and Outcomes (CSPO) at Arizona State University (ASU) seeks a Post-doctoral Research Associate to assist with an NSF-sponsored 5-year joint project with the Center for Science and Technology Policy Research at the University of Colorado. The project, called Science Policy Assessment and Research on Climate (SPARC), will investigate the relation between science policy and climate policy decisions from two perspectives. First, SPARC explores how climate research agendas are developed and implemented, with a particular focus on understanding how the organization of climate research (“supply”) relates to the information needs of climate policy decision makers (“demand”). Second, SPARC investigates the relative magnitude of various sources of global environmental change in order to better understand the relation between the causes of global change and the priorities of the U.S. climate science portfolio. Key, cross-cutting themes in each of these efforts include the role and behavior of science policy institutions and the influence of ethics and values on science policy decisions.

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Declare Victory and Move On?

November 29th, 2004

Posted by: Roger Pielke, Jr.

The Kyoto Protocol is going to come into force. Yet many countries are failing to meet their emissions reductions targets. Thus, isn’t it a bit premature to be talking about Kyoto in the past tense?

“I don’t want to water it down but (Kyoto targets) were the low-hanging fruits,” Klaus Toepfer, head of the U.N. Environment Programme in a Reuters news story.

Clear Thinking on Climate Change

November 24th, 2004

Posted by: Roger Pielke, Jr.

Oxford’s Steve Rayner is one of the most brilliant minds around on the issue of climate change.  This document, which we are pleased to provide in full, is an invited memorandum to the Environmental Audit Committee of the United Kingdom’s House of Commons.  The title of the memo is “The International Challenge of Climate Change: UK Leadership in the G8 and EU.” Rayner writes,

“In the end, climate policy comes down to a question of values – not science. The decision to proceed with effective climate policies cannot wait for a dramatic precipitating event.  In fact, it’s hard to visualize what such an event might be. But without one it seems that public pressures on government and private sector decision makers may not be sufficient to get them to take and sustain necessary actions. We also know that the public is more likely to be moved by disaster to support emergency relief than it is to offer sustained support for development assistance. Mobilizing public values rather than scientific consensus is the key to successful climate action. These may be good reasons to focus more attention than hitherto on adaptation policies that are more directly linked in the public imagination to the consequences of climate change than is the issue of emissions.”

The entire memo should be required reading for anyone interested in the realities of climate policy and clear thinking in the face of those realities.  The whole memo can be found here.

Ian Axford Fellowships in Public Policy

November 24th, 2004

Posted by: admin

For Study and Travel in New Zealand

The Commonwealth Fund of New York invites applicants for the 2006 Ian Axford (New Zealand) Fellowships in Public Policy.  The deadline for the receipt of applications is March 1, 2005.

The fellowships give outstanding American professionals the opportunity to study, travel, and gain practical experience in public policy in New Zealand, including first-hand knowledge of economic, social and political reforms, and management of the government sector. Two to three Fellowships will be awarded for six months, starting in January/February 2006.

The purpose of the Ian Axford (New Zealand) Fellowship program is:

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Wanted: Honest Brokers

November 23rd, 2004

Posted by: Roger Pielke, Jr.

The Journal of the American Medical Association has published an important set of articles on the drug approval and post-approval surveillance process. In their overview article Fontanarosa et al. characterize the general problem as follows:

“Physicians and patients expect that when medications are prescribed correctly for labeled indications and are used as directed, these medications generally will have beneficial effects and will not cause significant harm. This confidence in pharmaceutical products reflects trust in the effectiveness and integrity of the drug approval and monitoring process… However, the current approval process for drugs and biological agents in the United States has come under intense scrutiny, most notably because of concerns about influence from industry… In addition, an investigation of 18 FDA expert advisory panels revealed that more than half of the members of these panels had direct financial interests in the drug or topic they were evaluating and for which they were making recommendations.

The drug review process has been described as structurally similar to many decisions made by other regulatory agencies, such that it is characterized by high uncertainty, avoidance of observable error, and low (reputational) reversibility, with drug recalls harming the reputation of the FDA for a faulty approval decision, and often severely affecting the manufacturer. Given that new products are the financial lifeblood of pharmaceutical companies, the stakes are raised higher due to intense lobbying by interested parties such as health professionals and patient advocacy groups, as well as pharmaceutical and technology companies, so it is no wonder that, in 2003, the pharmaceutical industry earmarked $4.9 million to lobby the FDA… While these concerns are noteworthy, they pale in comparison to the shortcomings and failures of the current imperfect system for postmarketing surveillance… Yet the major problem with the current system for ensuring the safety of medications is that drug manufacturers are largely responsible for collecting, evaluating, and reporting data from postmarketing studies of their own products. This approach has many inherent problems. For instance, it appears that fewer than half of the postmarketing studies that manufacturers have made commitments to undertake as a condition of approval have been completed and many have not even been initiated. Moreover, despite the mandatory adverse event reporting system for companies subject to the FDA’s postmarketing safety reporting regulations, drug manufacturers may be tempted to conceal available data that may signal the possibility of major risks. In some cases, the FDA and drug manufacturers may fail to act on that information and fail to conduct appropriate studies to examine a potential risk rigorously and promptly.”

The article concludes:

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AAAS on 2005 Science Funding

November 22nd, 2004

Posted by: Roger Pielke, Jr.

As usual, the AAAS is the place to go for up-to-date information on research and development funding. On their website you find a detailed analysis of the 2005 S&T funding reflected in the FY 2005 omnibus spending bill.

Also from the AAAS, in conjunction with the Washington Science Policy Alliance, the AAAS is hosting a panel on Wednesday, December 1, 2004 on the “Impacts of the 2004 Election on Science and Technology.” The panel will be at AAAS headquarters in Washington, DC and while admission is free, an RSVP is required. Details here. If any Prometheus readers attend, we’d welcome a report which we will be happy to post here (with or without attribution, as you’d prefer.)

A False Dichotomy

November 19th, 2004

Posted by: Roger Pielke, Jr.

John E. Porter, chairman of the NAS panel that issued a report earlier this week on presidential appointments to advisory panels noted an important distinction in their guidance that policy/political perspective should not be considered in the empanelment process.

“Policy perspectives are appropriate for those placed on committees for their policy insights, but it is not a relevant criterion for selecting members whose purpose is to provide scientific and technical expertise.”

This perspective suggests that there is independence between one’s political views and one’s views on science. Perhaps on some, largely non-controversial issues this is the case. But if the subject is important enough politically so as to warrant a presidential advisory committee, then it is likely that there will be a diverse set of scientific perspectives on the issues, and these are well correlated with political perspectives.

Chris Mooney provides an excellent example of this dynamic, citing a column by Peter Beinart at The New Republic (subscription required). Mooney quotes him as follows:

“In a diverse democracy, there must be a common political language, and that language can’t be theological. Sometimes, conservative evangelicals grasp this and find nonreligious justifications for their views. (Christian conservatives sometimes argue that embryonic stem cells hold little scientific promise, or that gay marriage leads to fewer straight ones. On abortion, they sometimes cite medical advances to show that fetuses are more like infants than pro-choicers recognize. Such arguments are accessible to all, and thus permit fruitful debate.)”

As different political interests seek to justify their claims in the language of science, putative scientific debates become in effect political debates. Who can possibly believe that the debate about any part of the climate issue is at its core a scientific debate?

To illustrate the difficulties associated with the NRC guidance on advisory panels consider this challenge. Lets say that the president wanted an advisory panel on hurricanes and climate change. Who should be appointed to that panel? In this context the policy and political perspectives of most experts is either well known in advance, or the significance of their stance on hurricanes and climate change for political outcomes is well known. There is no way to isolate “pure” scientific considerations in this case, or many others with similar characteristics across science. One needs to detach from reality to think that a policy forbidding the consideration of policy/political perspectives can be effectively implemented in practice.