{"id":10454,"date":"2013-04-11T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2013-04-11T04:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/thenewatlantis.com\/publications\/the-record-of-our-scientist-in-chief"},"modified":"2020-09-28T22:16:37","modified_gmt":"2020-09-29T02:16:37","slug":"the-record-of-our-scientist-in-chief","status":"publish","type":"article","link":"https:\/\/www.thenewatlantis.com\/publications\/the-record-of-our-scientist-in-chief","title":{"rendered":"The Record of Our \u201cScientist-in-Chief\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

At a recent press conference proposing the launch of a federally funded brain-mapping initiative, President Barack Obama embraced the title of \u201cscientist-in-chief<\/a>\u201d bestowed on him in an introduction by Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health. \u201cGiven my grades in physics, I\u2019m not sure [I\u2019m] deserving,\u201d said the president \u2014 before going on to note that \u201cI hold science in proper esteem, so maybe that gives me a little credit.\u201d This was an echo of his inaugural promise<\/a> to \u201crestore science to its rightful place.\u201d Four years into his administration, with another four years to go, we are now well positioned to revisit that promise \u2014 to reconsider its meaning and to see whether the scientist-in-chief has lived up to the pledge even on its own terms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Politicians, journalists, and academics regularly throw around the terms \u201cpro-science\u201d and \u201canti-science\u201d to denigrate their opponents and to advance their own views. This rhetoric is often effective because the American people hold science and scientists in great regard: for decades, surveys show<\/a>, Americans have had more confidence in the leadership of the scientific and medical communities than in that of lawmakers, organized religion, the press, and most other institutions. So posing as a defender of science and attacking its supposed enemies is an easy way to score political points; the president\u2019s inaugural promise is an instance of this political strategy, as we noted in these pages four years ago<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Americans\u2019 high esteem for the scientific enterprise is rooted in our gratitude for the advances in medicine and technology that it makes possible, as well as for the insights into the wonders of nature \u2014 from the structure of the atom to the history of the cosmos \u2014 that science alone can reveal. Unfortunately, the good standing of science is all too often abused by those who invoke its authority as a way to shut down policy debates. The usefulness of new technologies and the promise of new medical treatments are routinely exaggerated to deflect needed consideration of the moral and social controversies arising from innovation. Policymakers simplistically speak of increasing government spending on scientific research and ramping up the role of science, technology, engineering, and math in our educational system as solutions to our economic woes. And scientific knowledge, which can be an essential tool for policymaking, is frequently used as a cover for political and ideological agendas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An examination of President Obama\u2019s first four years in office shows that, unsurprisingly, his administration has followed the advice of science only insofar as it has supported or justified his political agenda.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since the Second World War, the U.S. government has invested a great deal of money \u2014 over $4.5 trillion in constant 2005 dollars<\/a> \u2014 on scientific research and development, following a bipartisan consensus that scientific knowledge is an important foundation for economic growth, rising standards of living, and national security. But in much of his rhetoric and policymaking, President Obama has twisted that rationale, treating science as a symbol of the need for more government spending.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For instance, at the April 2013 press conference announcing his proposed brain-mapping initiative, the president repeated a claim that he had made in his most recent State of the Union address<\/a>: \u201cevery dollar we invested to map the human genome returned $140 to our economy \u2014 every dollar.\u201d This figure can be traced to a study<\/a> published by the research firm Battelle Technology Partnership Practice. But the economic modeling used to generate that figure has been criticized<\/a> for including as benefits<\/i> of the Human Genome Project some things that were actually costs<\/i>, such as the salaries of the scientists and technicians involved in the project. The study also unrealistically claimed that economic activity across the entire genomics industry could be counted as \u201cinduced impacts\u201d of the Human Genome Project \u2014 including, again, expenditures that might be better considered costs than benefits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Few would dispute that basic scientific research of the sort performed in the Human Genome Project \u2014 or, for that matter, the proposed brain-mapping project \u2014 can be a worthy way for the government to spend taxpayer dollars. But exaggerating the promise of these endeavors can undermine the value of science in the long run, when overhyped projects fail to deliver. (As one commentator told the journal Nature<\/i><\/a>, the lack of noticeable practical benefits flowing from the vaunted Human Genome Project in the decade-plus since its completion has led some of the lawmakers who supported the $3.8 billion<\/a> project to wonder, \u201cwhere are the goodies?\u201d) But President Obama still seems unafraid to overpromise, claiming of the new brain project that the knowledge of the human mind it seeks not only \u201ccould be\u201d but \u201cwill be transformative.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The president\u2019s expression of unqualified high hopes for this project fits his rhetorical pattern of invoking science to justify his broader political agenda \u2014 in this case, his aim of increasing the government\u2019s role in the economy. During the same press conference, he paused twice to criticize the \u201carbitrary, across-the-board cuts\u201d imposed by the recent budget sequestration, and explicitly tied the proposed brain-mapping project to \u201cother grand challenges like making solar energy as cheap as coal or making electric vehicles as affordable as the ones that run on gas.\u201d The talk of \u201cgrand challenges\u201d has been another hallmark<\/a> of the Obama administration\u2019s approach to science and technology funding, although it seems to have resulted less in serious scientific accomplishments than in cronyism and corporate welfare \u2014 the kind of politically motivated venture capitalism that led to the disastrous loan guarantees for green-energy companies like the solar-panel manufacturer Solyndra.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Obama administration\u2019s handling of two prominent issues relating to energy and the environment \u2014 the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository and the Keystone XL pipeline \u2014 merit particular attention. These cases highlight the administration\u2019s lack of transparency and demonstrate the limited extent to which scientific advice can be expected to influence controversial policy decisions, while revealing the difficulty of sticking to the president\u2019s 2009 promise<\/a> to \u201cbase our public policies on the soundest science.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yucca Mountain was the site designated by federal law for the long-term storage of spent nuclear fuel, a project that faced persistent opposition from both Nevadans and anti-nuclear activists ever since the site was first suggested in the mid-1980s. Despite widespread scientific consensus that underground storage is the safest approach for disposing of nuclear waste, and billions of dollars and decades of research demonstrating the safety of the Yucca facility, the Obama administration used every tactic it could devise to halt the project. The administration even went so far as to start dismantling the project while still legally required to continue it<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, the Keystone XL pipeline controversy also demonstrates the limits of using science to dictate policy. An exhaustive study<\/a> of Keystone\u2019s potential environmental impact by the State Department found that the construction and operation of the pipeline would cause \u201cno significant impacts\u201d to nearby habitats and communities. But opposition to Keystone is not only based on concerns over the environmental impact of the pipeline itself, but also on the threat of climate change posed by the use of petroleum from the Canadian oil sands. In a 2011 open letter<\/a>, several activists described the pipeline as a \u201c1,500-mile fuse to the biggest carbon bomb on the continent,\u201d quoting climate scientist James Hansen<\/a>\u2019s claim<\/a> that Canadian oil sands must be \u201cleft in the ground\u201d if we are to have any chance of \u201cstabiliz[ing] earth\u2019s climate.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of course, no matter how much President Obama \u2014 or any other president faced with the choice of whether to build the pipeline \u2014 might want to base his decision only on the \u201csoundest science,\u201d the decision is an unavoidably political one. Some scientists report that the pipeline is a comparatively safe way to transport oil, but others contend, not incompatibly, that building and using the pipeline will contribute devastatingly to climate change. Meanwhile, the existence of the global marketplace suggests that if the pipeline is not built, Canada will export its oil-sands resources to some other country. And all this must be weighed against the U.S. economy\u2019s ever-growing energy needs. Politics cannot be reduced to science or avoided by invoking the authority of science.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Obama administration may not have distorted scientific evidence to suit its political agenda in the Yucca and Keystone cases \u2014 indeed, the State Department study on Keystone has drawn fire from the president\u2019s environmentalist supporters for not condemning the pipeline. But the administration has not acted in accordance with the president\u2019s 2009 statement<\/a> that \u201cpromoting science isn\u2019t just about providing resources\u201d but about \u201clistening to what [scientists] tell us, even when it\u2019s inconvenient \u2014 especially when it\u2019s inconvenient.\u201d Instead, when science has confronted the administration with its own inconvenient truths, the administration has pursued a strategy of misdirection, delay, and inaction. We may disagree with the administration\u2019s policy decisions in these cases and we certainly disapprove of its political tactics, but casting these issues as conflicts between science and politics would be a mistake \u2014 the same sort of mistake made by those critics who wrongly accused<\/a> the Bush administration of waging a \u201cwar on science.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In spite of the claims made by our scientist-in-chief and his allies that they, unlike their conservative political opponents, hold science in the \u201cproper esteem,\u201d the politicization of science is in many ways a greater temptation for the left than for conservatives. The Obama administration\u2019s simplistic equation of government-funded scientific research with innovation appeals to the left\u2019s impulse for economic collectivism; in his infamous \u201cyou didn\u2019t build that<\/a>\u201d campaign speech, President Obama said that it was the government \u201cinvesting\u201d in \u201cbasic science\u201d that \u201ckeeps us as a leading-edge economy.\u201d (Never mind that the private sector spends twice as much on R&D<\/a> as the federal government.) And the conceit of putting science in its \u201crightful place\u201d above politics, although drawing from many motivations, also neatly matches the progressive desire to shift the policy process away from democratic oversight and toward the centralized control of government agencies which can implement technocratic reforms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Science is a vital part of American democracy and rightly enjoys a special position of trust and, on questions about the natural world, of epistemic authority. But this authority is based in no small part on the perception that science is an objective, disinterested means of pursuing the truth. Elevating science to a position of political<\/i> authority is bound to change that perception, and indeed to corrupt the scientific spirit of disinterested objectivity. At this halfway mark in his presidency, we continue to disagree with President Obama\u2019s implication that restoring science to its \u201crightful place\u201d means putting it above politics. Rather, preserving the rightful place of science means remembering that its indispensable contribution to the crafting of policy must be balanced by the contributions of ethics, culture, economics, religion, and other sources of wisdom, and that science, like the rest of society, must be governed democratically.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2014 Adam Keiper<\/a> and Brendan P. Foht<\/a><\/i><\/i><\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

How has President Obama\u2019s inaugural promise to \u201crestore science to its rightful place\u201d fared? The president\u2019s record on issues from energy to bioethics to R&D budgeting shows a failure to put science above politics. But is it ever possible for such policy debates to escape politics?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20101,"template":"","article_type":[18],"noteworthy_people":[],"topics":[2264],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thenewatlantis.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/article\/10454"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thenewatlantis.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/article"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thenewatlantis.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/article"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thenewatlantis.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.thenewatlantis.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/article\/10454\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thenewatlantis.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20101"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thenewatlantis.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10454"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"article_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thenewatlantis.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/article_type?post=10454"},{"taxonomy":"noteworthy_people","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thenewatlantis.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/noteworthy_people?post=10454"},{"taxonomy":"topics","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thenewatlantis.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/topics?post=10454"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}