Bush, Jesus and Darwin: In Defense of Good Science

During the last few decades, the U.S. has seen increasing conflicts between good science and two special interest groups. The first group is composed of the American industries that are opposed to all environmental regulations and restrictions that reduce corporate profits. The second group is composed of right-wing religious fundamentalist sects that oppose science in general.

Charles Darwin was an environmentalist, a naturalist, a biologist, a geologist, an ecologist and a botanist. He grew Orchids in his flower garden. He spent most of his life at his country home, Down House (Downe village, England) studying the mysteries of nature. His books include: The Voyage of the Beagle, The Origin of Species, The Fertilization of Orchids, The Domestication of Plants and Animals, The Descent of Man, The Expression of Emotions in Man and Animals, The Movement and Habits of Climbing Plants, The Effects of Cross and Self Fertilization in Plants, Different Forms of Flowers, The Power of Movement in Plants, The Formation of Vegetable Mould and the Structure and Distribution of Coral Reefs.

Darwin took the time to behold the Lilies of the field. He was a meticulous scientist that loved nature. He studied and understood the ecological interaction between plants, animals and their environment. When the balance of nature is upset, many species of plants and animals may become extinct. Natural Selection is an inescapable law of nature. Those species that carelessly destroy their own environment, destroy their own future.

There is now a general consensus among scientists and environmentalists that human activities are upsetting the balance of nature. Darwin acknowledged this. George W. Bush has denied this.

The Bush administration’s concerted effort to undermine good science has had a very negative effect on almost all aspects of American society. It has resulted in increased pollution by industries (because of decreased regulation and lax enforcement of laws), decreased safety of consumer products (because of unsafe imports and lax enforcement of safety standards), a decline in research and development in important areas of biology (especially university research funding), restrictions on government recognition and protection of endangered species (decrease in funding for wildlife sanctuaries and natural habitats), a general anti-science attitude that is discouraging many gifted young students from studying or majoring in science, and very importantly, postponing any legislative action designed to combat global warming. This is an issue of extreme urgency.

All of these actions or in some cases, lack of actions are harmful to everyone in our nation and detrimental to the whole world. The administration has ignored or blocked all environmental legislation created to reduce industrial pollution. This has been done solely to appease the demands of industry. The whole nation has suffered because of the greed of a few wealthy corporate owners and selfish short sighted politicians.

This anti-science policy has been supported and developed by special interest groups who have little concern for well being of the rest of the nation. These anti-science politicians are solely concerned with pleasing their wealthy political donors. Continued pressure by lobbyists on K Street in Washington D.C. benefit’s the corporations and the politicians, but not the general public. Industrial lobbyists oppose all governmental regulations that reduce corporate profits. Politicians who side with industry receive the most financial support. This disgraceful corrupt system apparently can’t be changed because too many politicians are participating in it. The U.S. Congress is becoming more and more like the British Parliament in which there is no one to represent the people.

The public’s awareness of the effects of increasing industrial pollution began or at least increased dramatically, in the 1960’s. During that nationally divisive decade, many best selling books, such as Rachel Carson’s “Silent Spring”, helped to establish many environmental groups and inspired an increase in anti-pollution legislation.

This pro-environmental ecological movement resulted in a backlash among the industrial companies that were producing the most pollutants or harmful consumer products. The newly enacted environmental regulations created unwelcome manufacturing expenses and reduced corporate profits. The environmental groups have almost always been strongly supported by the scientific community. There was general consensus on all of the research data which was being used to substantiate the environmental goals and the dire warnings about the future. This initially resulted in Congressional approval and legislative adoption of new industrial regulations and restrictions. But this soon faced fierce opposition by corporate lawyers and lobbyists.

One of the consequences of increasing the U.S. environmental regulations was to inspire corporations to move their manufacturing operations out of the country. This was a very selfish action by American companies. This move thwarted the efforts by environmentalists to clean up the environment. Corporate profit was placed above public health and a cleaner environment. By avoiding U.S. regulations (environmental, safety and labor laws), corporations could continue make unprecedented profits and carelessly pollute and exploit other nations. These corporate moves out of the country may help pollution within the U.S. but it only increases it worldwide. This Globalization has also increased unemployment for U.S. workers by moving jobs out of the country. These company relocations boost corporate profits, but help no one else.

To combat these increasing pollution restrictions (for the companies that remained within the U.S.) industry developed an organized plan to block further prohibitive or restrictive environmental legislation. This right-wing plan adopted the Orwellian code name “Sound Science”. This misleading name was chosen to win public approval and not to promote responsible science. This same Orwellian tactic has been used in naming all industry sponsored panels, study groups, think tanks or advisory boards which actually thwart good science. These deceptive groups have all adopted names that sound very pro-science, but this is only double-talk to hide their real motives which are very anti-science.

THE REAL GOALS OF ‘SOUND SCIENCE’ GROUPS: This plan had only one objective and that was to block all legislation that was unfriendly to industry.

This strategy was to be accomplished by (1.) reducing or eliminating any government science advisor group or committee which produced unbiased evaluations of scientific data, (2.) infiltrating all government committees and groups by pro-industry scientists to produce favorable rulings, (3.) forming as many as possible independent think tanks or (industry funded) institutions (staffed with pro-industry personnel) to create biased alternative scientific evaluations, (4.) whenever possible, all pro-industry legislation should be characterized and labeled as “Sound Science”, even when it does not agree with the majority of qualified scientists, (5.) all opposing legislation should be characterized as “Junk Science” especially in the news media, (6.) anti-science politicians must ensure that the “Sound Science” groups receive equal representation at all Congressional hearings, even when their view is a minority.

Bush has used the code name “Sound Science” in several speeches to obtain support for legislation which in reality only had the goal of restricting or delaying good science polices. Conservative science reform legislation usually has the goal of either eliminating or blocking good science.

The goal of all of these right-wing-industry actions is to create ‘uncertainty’ in the scientific data. By presenting (industry) biased scientific data, Congressional legislatures (who are not scientists) can be sufficiently confused so that they will be unable to agree on any immediate legislative action. This will result in postponing any action on the legislation. This is exactly the outcome that is the most beneficial to industry. The goal is to create the false appearance that there is no consensus among scientists, when in fact there is often substantial agreement, especially on pollution and global warming issues.

Albert Einstein once jokingly said “ If the data doesn’t agree with your theory, change the data”.

Unfortunately this is actually done too often by unscrupulous individuals for the benefit of special interest groups. This is not “Good Science”.

There is usually not complete consensus on any science theory. Physical theories are never completely proven. It is also very difficult to accurately predict the future, especially with respect to the long term effects of pollution and global warming. Different scientists have different testing methods, different mathematical models and arrive at different conclusions. Theories are only tentatively accepted when the majority of scientists accept the conclusions as being based on the best available information. There is usually a minority that disagrees with the majority. Believe it or not, there are many adults today that believe the Sun rotates around the Earth and that the Earth is flat and it’s a waste of time to argue with them. There will always be some people who will change the facts to fit their theories. Sometimes these people are in the U.S. government.

The problem with the right-wing-industry “Sound Science” program is that it demands that the minority (no matter how small) be given equal representation in Congressional legislative hearings. If the same number of “consensus” scientists are confronted with “Sound Science” groups, this gives the false impression (to the legislators) that the two opposing opinions are equally divided among all scientists in that profession. This is often a false conception because the “consensus” group, on some issues, may represent 95% of the professionals, and the “Sound Science” group may only represent 5%. This is presenting biased opinions and misrepresentations to the legislators, when it should be unbiased. Good judgments require good scientific research data.

However this ’uncertainty” tactic has exactly the outcome desired by the worst industrial polluters. It confuses the legislators and prevents any immediate action on the proposals. The goal of the “Sound Science” group is to advocate additional studies (many years) before recommending any legislative action. They misleadingly claim that there is insufficient data to make “sound” judgments, when in fact there often is sufficient data to make immediate responsible decisions on many urgent issues. This is the mistaken logic that is used in naming the policies “Sound Science”. The word ‘sound’ implies that the policy is based on good sense and valid reasoning. This deceptive tactic is neither good nor valid. Postponing legislative decisions only prolongs the detrimental effects of the environmental problems. On environmental issues it is always better to be overly cautious than to be too permissive. The environment can never be “too clean” or “too healthy”.

For the benefit of society as a whole, legislators are often required to act on legislation immediately. This requires prompt decisions that should be unbiased and based on the consensus of the majority of professionals in a specific field. Postponing action for further study may result in harm or death to many in society who are effected immediately by the legislation. When proposed legislation has serious consequences (health wise or otherwise), legislators must make factual judgments based on a correct representation of scientific opinions. When a minority viewpoint such as a “Sound Science” group represents only a small percent of the total scientists, the legislators must honestly be given these facts so that they can make appropriate judgments and give more weight to the majority opinions.

When a think tank or industry sponsored scientific organization gives testimony before legislators, this financial relationship between the industry and the advisory group should be clearly recognized. This relationship almost always biases the research data and test results. This is a conflict of interest which is detrimental to the health and safety of our nation. When legislators pass legislation that benefit’s special interests, the public should be aware of this, before the next general election. These legislators are not representing the public interest.

For years, the Bush administration ignored and ridiculed any attempt to connect human activities with global warming. This attitude has continued up to the present day, even though the scientific community has been almost unanimous in their opinion that humans are contributing to the world wide temperature increases. This global warming trend is having serious consequences in the U.S. Gulf region and costal areas. Warming temperatures in the Atlantic Ocean Gulf stream are producing stronger hurricanes annually, such as hurricane Katrina and they will probably continue to increase in strength and frequency. The devastation that occurred in New Orleans may soon be an annual coastal event. The consequences to the entire world of global warming should raise the national security defense warning system to it’s highest level. This threat by natural forces is greater than any threat by any foreign power. Instead of listening to consensus scientific warnings about global warming, the Bush administration has been deleting these warning, or altering their finding to suit their own purposes. For the U.S. government to cherry pick data or censor information that agrees or disagrees with Republican-industrial-religious ideology is disgraceful and contemptuous. Is shows complete disregard for honest scientific research.

The present government opposition to science has been supported by two special interest groups. The anti-science industries and the anti-science religious groups.

While the industries generally opposes good science only when it effects their profits, the fundamentalist religious groups are opposed to almost all science for dogmatic ideological reasons. Some of the fundamentalist right-wing religious sects believe that the world is about to end and they ridicule those who are concerned about environmental issues. Because some religious dogmas proclaim that the Earth is only about 6000 years old, their proponents cannot accept modern geological estimates of 4.5 billion years. Consequently they simply reject all science. (If the facts don’t fit their theories, they reject the facts).

The turbulent 1960’s era also produced a backlash from organized religion. Religious groups exploited the national division that was created by the Vietnam War, to try to acquire more political power and unite religion and state. Many of the youthful excesses of the 1960’s era ended when the Vietnam War ended. Most of the young anti-war protesters went back to school, got jobs and rejoined society. But the religious fundamentalists continued up to the present day to try to unite religion and state. This national religious agenda is composed of many unrelated issues, but the general attitude has continually been to promote pro-faith based issues and oppose all science programs. To these fundamentalists, religious ideologies (or unnatural theories) have always been far more important than an honest search for scientific truth.

The goal of science has always been to increase human understanding of nature. In order to do this, the scientific method relies on mathematics, physics, empirical studies and experimental testing. These rigorous research methods have historically produced an increase in human knowledge and understanding of the universe. Science has never intentionally had the goal of opposing religious moral values. (Science only opposes unnatural theories and superstitions). Every nation needs some communal moral values and these have nothing to do with scientific developments. The primary goal of science is to discover the laws of nature. Galileo, Copernicus, Bruno, Darwin and countless other scientists, astronomers and biologists have been attacked by organized religion for making discoveries which contradicted the dogmas of religion. Because the discoveries of science may threaten some sectarian religious beliefs or creeds, there still exist many religious fundamentalists who vehemently oppose all science and depict it as evil. Tolerance unites people and nations. Religious sectarian division and intolerance ultimately destroys nations. Peace makers are tolerant. War makers are intolerant. There are many contradictory opinions in every religion. There are many fundamentalists who believe that (traditionally) Jesus was a Peace maker, but there are many who believe the opposite.

For decades, these anti-science religious right-wing fundamentalists have used the power of the ballot box to influence politicians into supporting sectarian religious agendas. Politicians need money and votes to stay in office. By opposing good science, they are receiving both, money from industries and votes from religious organizations. These policies by industry and religion are not good for the future of our nation. They result in bad national and international policies, they are divisive, they retard the growth of knowledge, research and development, and cause a general corruption of American democracy. In a true democracy, the government should be controlled by the people, not industrial corporations or sectarian religious organizations.

The nationwide demonizing of science by the religious right-wing fundamentalists is having a very negative effect on the U.S. ability to maintain world leadership in research and development and science in general. In the U.S., only a small percent of University Batchelor degrees are currently being awarded to engineering majors. In stark contrast, in China a very large percent of engineering degrees are being awarded annually. If this trend continues, the U.S. will soon be left far behind other nations such as China, Japan and Taiwan in all scientific knowledge and technology. An increasing amount of electronics products are being imported into the U.S. and a decreasing amount are being exported. The U.S. government continues to oppose good science while simultaneously wasting billions of dollars on useless military adventures (Vietnam, Iraq, Iran etc). Most other industrial nations are not wasting even a small percent of what the U.S. is spending on it’s bloated military budget. Instead, other wiser nations are investing a large percent of their national budget in education, health care, and economic and scientific research and development.

Since the nationwide buildup of the U.S. military-industrial-complex during the second world war, the U.S. has become increasingly aggressive in foreign policy. The world doesn’t like aggressor nations. The U.S. is rapidly losing it’s former respected position as a great world leader and promoter of peace. The U.S. has developed misguided priorities and lost it's former moral values. These unwise, un-peaceful national policies are leading the entire nation in the wrong direction.

George W. Bush, Jesus Christ and Charles Robert Darwin. A war maker, a peace maker and a naturalist. Sometimes the people of the world must choose between war and peace, between survival and human extinction.

Science obviously cannot solve all of the nation’s complex problems and the U.S. has many. But undermining and blocking good science only makes everything worse. Our nation needs a new direction. A good beginning would be to allow the legislators to have complete access to all of the available honest scientific research in order to make the best judgments possible on all of the critical issues facing our nation and the world. Suppression of accurate research data for temporary corporate or sectarian religious gain pleases special interest groups, but hurts the nation as a whole. Better leadership requires better information, more tolerance and unselfish decisions that are beneficial to all citizens of the world. Government, industry and religious organizations should just let scientists freely and honestly do their jobs.