By HANNA REGEV

The Suppression of Truth and Scientific Rigor


Who would have thought that NASA, the crown jewel of governmental agencies, would be disgraced and come under severe attacks because of its scientific endeavors? Since its inception in 1958, NASA logged many scientific and technological feats in air and space. It sent 12 men to the Moon and now it takes images of Saturn and its moons. This noble institution has become the latest victim of a morally corrupt government.

Dr. James E. Hansen, the NASA climate scientist who sparked uproar last month by accusing the Bush administration of keeping scientific information from reaching the public, said that officials at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) are also muzzling researchers who study global warming. "It seems more like Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union than the United States," said Hansen.

The Bush government policy of silencing researchers and altering scientific inquiry to pacify ideologues from the far right wing of the Republican Party is a disturbing trend and has reached a level not previously seen in this country. Alarmed by the persistent and sustained effort of the administration to grab power, disregard the US Constitution, suppress freedom of expression at all levels has led some sixty scientists, including 20 Nobel laureates and medical experts to release a statement on February 18 that accuses the Bush Administration of deliberately distorting scientific fact "for partisan political ends."

FAP supports a scientist’s right to communicate and disseminate his or her research findings. This is a form of speech that is no less privy to the protections of the First Amendment than any other type of expression.

The disclosures about NASA’s and NOAA’s ordeal with censorship are of great concern to FAP because they represent erosion of constitutional rights to freedom of speech, inquiry and exchange of ideas. It adds another area of censorship to an already packed caseload that until now was reserved to art and politics. Importantly, Hansen’s public complaint of censorship practices in NASA comes at a time that our world is experiencing serious problems such as exponential population growth, environmental pollution, impending energy shortages, nuclear proliferation, and climatic change.

Why is this government engaged in a “culture war” over climate change? Weren’t the scientific institutions set up to discover new sources of energy and find a silver bullet to eradicate cancer? What if researchers were to discover that stem cells help repair cancerous tissues? After all, climate change and air pollution are by their very nature apolitical. Does the Bush administration ignore or deny mainstream research to please its conservative base? Have business groups and certain religious lobbies helped it do so? Answers to these questions and other pertinent topics are detailed and discussed in, The Republican War on Science by Chris Mooney’s, a former American Prospect writer. http://www.waronscience.com/author.php
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As a super power and proclaimed leader of the free world, the destruction of scientific free inquiry poses a real threat to our national security and dominance. We have become vulnerable and prey to misguided ideologues. Furthermore, we are on a verge of loosing our constitutional rights and guaranteed freedoms.

The bullying of our brightest scientists at present reminds me of the1950s when the political scene was dominated by a fear of communist expansion and influence. The fear was manipulated and exploited by Senator Joseph R. McCarthy, a politician from Wisconsin. The same manipulations and fear tactics are once again evoked in the combat of global terrorism; however, they have become a much more insidious arsenal at the disposal of this president and his cohorts.

Distorting data for ideological purposes has been done before. Acts of censorship and the intruding government practices into the work of scientists is not new either. However, the damage this time and the blatant acts are far-reaching. The Bush Administration -- along with hired guns and conservative think tanks -- are engaged in smear campaigns and suppress science that is arguably unmatched in the Western world since the heliocentrist Giordano Bruno was burned alive in 1600 for the crime of sound science. (http://www.ncac.org/science/)

It might be a total shock to learn that Nazis policy was actually in support of science and medicine and by doing so it minimized resistance coming from the intellectual and scientific community. Robert N. Proctor in the Racial Hygiene: Medicine Under the Nazis dispelled the myths and misconceptions following the end of WWII about Hitler’s irrational regime that destroyed science. On the contrary, Proctor’s definitive study claims that many scientists and physicians embraced the Reich, and that many scientific disciplines actually flourished under the Nazis. Their scientists and engineers developed a V-2 engine, greatly improved television, jet-propelled aircraft (including the ejection seat), guided missiles, electronic computers, the electron microscope, atomic fission, data-processing technologies, pesticides, and, of course, the world's first industrial murder complexes. The first magnetic tape recording was of a speech by Hitler, and the nerve gases Sarin and Tabun were Nazi inventions.

Perhaps the Bush Administration can draw some lessons from the Nazi experience and restore respectability to our patriotic scientists. In the true spirit of scientific inquiry, the debate of climate warming and other scientific endeavors should be open to believers and non-believers, democrats and republicans. Climate change, the environment, contraception and abstinence education, stem cell research, missile defense, energy sources and evolution have no political agenda. Censorship and suppression of scientific inquiry must be regarded as threats to our national security and economy. Some of the cool heads in Washington must prevail and realize that censoring science won’t make this country safer.

Indeed, the Bush Administration witch-hunt has become a sprawling viral infection undermining a very successful scientific enterprise and the health of this nation. Perhaps we should revisit J. Robert Oppenheimer’s quote

“There must be no barriers to freedom of inquiry. There is no place for dogma in science. The scientist is free, and must be free to ask any question, to doubt any assertion, to seek for any evidence, to correct any errors." (Life, October 10, 1949).

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Hanna Regev is a Board memeber of First Amendment Project. Ms. Regev, has an M.A. in Museum Studies and MA in Modern European History from San Francisco State University. She works with a myriad of cultural organizations and art galleries in San Francisco and the Bay Area, producing cultural public programs and developing adult public programs in history, art, and museum practice. Prior to joining FAP, Ms. Regev served on boards, consulted with the African American Museum, Marin Museum Association on a Mobile Museum and was president of the Northern California Council of the National Museum of Women in the Arts.