The Volokh Conspiracy

So-called “Plan-B” contraception is currently available for sale over-the-counter to women age 17 and older. Those younger than 17 may only obtain Plan B with a prescription.
Earlier this week, in response to a petition from Teva Pharmaceuticals, the manufacturer of Plan-B One Step, the Food and Drug Administration decided that the age limitations should be lifted.  A review by the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research concluded that the drug is “safe and effective” for use by adolescents and that younger women of child-bearing age were able to follow the product’s instructions and use it properly.  On this basis, FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg decided to make Plan-B One Step available without a prescription to all women of child-bearing potential.

On Wednesday, Health & Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius overruled the FDA Commissioner. As Secretary Sebelius explained in a statement, “the data, submitted by Teva, do not conclusively establish that Plan B One-Step should be made available over the counter for all girls of reproductive age,” largely because a significant percentage of eleven-year olds are capable of bearing children, and that there “are significant cognitive and behavioral differences between older adolescent girls and the youngest girls of reproductive age.”  Yesterday, President Obama said he supported the Secretary’s decision.

“I will say this, as the father of two daughters. I think it is important for us to make sure that we apply some common sense to various rules when it comes to over-the-counter medicine,” Mr. Obama said. The president’s daughters, Malia and Sasha, are 13 and 10. “I think most parents would probably feel the same way,” he said.

The usual suspects responded to the decision in the usual ways.  Reproductive rights organizations condemned the Administration’s decision.  Anti-abortion groups, which consider Plan-B an “abortifacient” because it can prevent a fertilized egg from coming to term, cheered the action.

Some of those critical of the Administration have characterized this decision as the triumph of politics over science.  So is this part of an Obama Administration “war on science”? No. Medical science should — and apparently did — inform the Administration’s decision, but a decision of this sort is not — and cannot be — a purely scientific one.  Science can illuminate the relevant trade-offs in a policy decision of this sort, but it does not determine how much weight should be placed on which concerns, such as whether it is more important to expand options and sexual autonomy for sixteen-year olds or “protect” girls who are only eleven or twelve.  No amount of scientific research will resolve this sort of dispute.

Reproductive rights groups are not angry because the decision represents the politicization of science, but because it places a limitation on the sexual autonomy of young women.  Similarly, those groups who support the decision are likewise motivated by something other than science.  Insofar as either group frames their objections in scientific terms, they obscure what is really at stake.  How much one values the ability of women and girls to control their own reproductive choices or believes in the ability of parents to influence if not control their daughters’ medical and sexual choices are relevant considerations, as is the weight one believes should be placed on the tail ends of the distributions — those most at risk of adverse effects or those girls of child-bearing age least able to make informed decisions  for themselves — or the relevance that Plan-B contraception can prevent the implantation of an already fertilized egg.  Science is relevant here, but it does not dictate the policy choice.

The NYT on the new release of climate scientists’ emails:

The new e-mails appeared remarkably similar to the ones released two years ago just ahead of a similar conference in Copenhagen. They involved the same scientists and many of the same issues, and some of them carried a similar tone: catty remarks by the scientists, often about papers written by others in the field. . . .

In one of the e-mails, Raymond S. Bradley, director of the Climate System Research Center at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, criticized a paper that Dr. [Michael] Mann wrote with the climate scientist Phil Jones, which used tree rings and similar markers to find that today’s climatic warming had no precedent in recent natural history. Dr. Bradley, who has often collaborated with Dr. Mann, wrote that the 2003 paper “was truly pathetic and should never have been published.”

Dr. Bradley confirmed in an interview that the e-mail was his, but said his comment had no bearing on whether global warming was really happening. “I did not like that paper at all, and I stand by that, and I am sure that I told Mike that” at the time, he said. But he added that a disagreement over a single paper had little to do with the overall validity of climate science. “There is no doubt we have a big problem with human-induced warming,” Dr. Bradley said. “Mike’s paper has no bearing on the fundamental physics of the problem that we are facing.”

Some of the other e-mails involved comments about problems with the computer programs used to forecast future climate, known as climate models. For instance, a cryptic e-mail apparently sent by Dr. Jones, a researcher at East Anglia, said, “Basic problem is that all models are wrong — not got enough middle and low level clouds.”

Gavin A. Schmidt, a climate modeler at NASA, said he found such exchanges unremarkable. He noted that difficulties in modeling were widely acknowledged and disclosed in the literature. Indeed, such problems are often discussed at scientific meetings in front of hundreds of people.

Roger Pielke also comments here, noting that the new e-mails confirm the politicization of decisions about what papers to cite (or omit) from the 2007 IPCC report.

As with the first ClimateGate release, I have yet to see anything in these e-mails that disproves, or even seriously undermines, the basic claim that human emissions of greenhouse gases have contributed to a gradual warming of the climate and will continue to do so in the future. They do, however, further confirm that “mainstream” climate scientists have contributed to the politicization of climate science and allowed political concerns to influence scientific judgments, exaggerating the reliability of climatic projections and downplaying scientific findings that undermine the claim that climate change presents an apocalyptic threat.

Here’s a list of VC posts that mention ClimateGate. For an overview of my views, see here and here.

Last Thursday, at a congressional hearing, Assistant U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Director Gary Frazer said that the Interior Department’s Office of Science Integrity would conduct an independent evaluation of the work of FWS biologists accused by a federal judge of being dishonest with the court and acting in ‘”bad faith.”  As the Los Angeles Times reports, Frazer said the FWS stands behind the work of its scientists but the Department will seek an independent assessment from outside experts nonetheless.

Frazer’s comments were delivered at a House Science Committee Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations hearing on “The Endangered Species Act: Reviewing the Nexus of Science and Policy” at which I was also a witness. In my testimony, I focused on the broader issue of how science is and should be used in under the ESA, and made three basic points.

First, it is important to ferret out genuine instances of scientific misconduct or science politicization.  At the same time, it is essential to recognize that science merely informs, and does not dictate, policy. Species conservation is not – and cannot be – a wholly scientific exercise. Whether a given species is at risk of extinction may be a scientific question, but what to do about it is not. The likelihood that habitat loss or the introduction of an invasive species will compromise a species chance of survival in the wild is a question that can be answered by science. On the other hand, what conservation measures should be adopted to address such threats, and at what cost, are policy questions. Science can – indeed, must – inform such inquiries, but science alone does not tell us what to do. Insofar as debates over conservation policy are dressed up as scientific disputes — or instances of science abuse — we hamper our ability to assess competing policy options and pursue optimal conservation strategies.

Second, the structure of the ESA both undermines our ability to base conservation decisions on the best possible scientific information and creates substantial incentives to manipulate science so as to influence policy outcomes. The former occurs because the ESA makes the presence of endangered or threatened species a liability to private landowners. As a consequence, private landowners are often reluctant to allow government or other researchers to conduct surveys or engage in other species-related research on their land. This means the ESA makes it more difficult to know which species are most in need of help and where they are.

The ESA creates incentives for interest groups and others to try and manipulate science because certain science-based determinations, such as whether a species is “endangered,” are triggers for non-discretionary regulatory measures. This means that if an interest group wants to influence regulatory outcomes, it is in their interest to try and influence the initial scientific determination. This explains why there is so much controversy and conflict over species listing decisions. The Act itself turns what should be primarily a scientific inquiry — whether the best available science indicates that a species meets a given definition of what it means to be endangered or threatened — into a high stakes proxy battle over regulatory policy. This is not good for science, and further complicates the quest for optimal conservation measures.

For those interested, my full testimony is here. Portions of my testimony are based on my chapter in Rebuilding the Ark. An archived webcast and the written statements of the other witnesses should be available here, as are pictures from the hearing.

Today a federal judge threw out portions of the federal government’s plan to protect several fish species, including some salmon and steelhead in California, under the Endangered Species Act for the second time.
The Fresno Bee reports:

U.S. District Judge Oliver Wanger invalidated parts of the U.S. National Marine Fisheries Service’s so-called biological opinion, calling the plan “arbitrary, capricious, and unlawful.”

Wanger still held that pumping operations negatively impact the fish and adversely modify their critical habitat, but his decision means the agency will rewrite its plan again.

In the 279-page decision, Wanger wrote that some of the agency’s analyses relied on “equivocal or bad science” and didn’t clearly demonstrate why the measures it imposed were essential.

The opinion is quite critical of the scientists who helped develop the federal government’s biological opinion. [For those who don't want to wade through the entire opinion (I sure didn't), the concluding summary is posted here.]  But the opinion in this case is nothing compared to what the judge reportedly said from the bench about the federal government’s biological opinion for delta smelt after the federal government sought to stay the judge’s injunction against some of its protective measures. E&E News (subscription required) reports:

“I have never seen anything like what has been placed before this court by these two witnesses,” U.S. District Judge Oliver Wanger said in his ruling on the smelt case, according to a transcript obtained by E&ENews PM. “The only inference that the court can draw is that it is an attempt to mislead and to deceive the court.”

Wanger did not use the term “scientific misconduct,” or “lying,” but he used nearly every other adjective that describes deception by scientists as he built the record in his ruling for a finding of “bad faith.” He called their testimony “false,” “outrageous,” “incredible,” “unworthy of belief” and more. . . .

Wanger called a Fish and Wildlife Service scientist who had testified in the case a “zealot” who did not let facts get in the way of her goals.

“She may be a good scientist. She may be honest, but she has not been honest with this court,” he said.

He called a Bureau of Reclamation scientist “untrustworthy as a witness.”

“And I will note that he is a government agent,” Wanger said. “And the United States, as a sovereign, has a duty not only in dealing with the court, but in dealing with the public to always speak the truth, whether it’s good or bad.” . . .

“Protecting endangered species is crucially important,” Wanger said. “But when it overwhelms us to the point that we lose objectivity, we lose honesty, we’re all in a lot of trouble. Serious, serious trouble.”

Despite these conclusions, Judge Wanger still upheld large portions of the government’s plan.  Here is another link to the transcript, and here and here are some more background on the judge’s prior finding in the delta smelt case.

UPDATE: In my original post I accidentally conflated the judge’s opinion in one case — involving the biological opinion for salmon, steelhead, and other fish species — and the judge’s comments in another case, involving the biological opinion for the delta smelt.  I’ve revised the post to correct this error.

Going on the offensive against Texas Governor Rick Perry for issuing an executive mandate that young girls receive a vaccine against HPV, Rep. Michele Bachman embraced the fringe (and thoroughly discredited) claim that vaccination can cause mental retardation.  Details here and here.  It is understandable that a parent whose child experiences difficulties will be distraught and search for answers, but to give credence to the claim that vaccination causes mental retardation, autism, or other disabilities is thoroughly irresponsible.  It is one thing to debate whether a state government should mandate that children are vaccinated against something like HPV, and whether a voluntary opt-out provision is protective enough of parental prerogatives.  It is quite another to suggest that mandated vaccination creates serious health risks when there is no evidence to support such a claim.

For what it’s worth, I criticized Senator John McCain for a similar offense in 2008.

UPDATE: Henry Miller reports some additional things Rep. Bachmann should know about the HPV vaccine.  Even if Gov. Perry was wrong to order the vaccinations, there’s absolutely no basis for suggesting the vaccine is a threat to children.

Grist reports on a class-action suit that is being filed against ConAgra for allegedly deceptive marketing of its various vegetable oils.  The core of the complaint seems to be that some ConAgra products, such as Wesson corn oil, are labeled as “100% natural” even though they contain oil from genetically modified corn. If something comes from a GMO (genetically modified organism), they complainants allege, it cannot be “natural.”  It’s an interesting argument, particularly as the federal government has not issued guidelines as to how companies may use the word “natural” in their marketing.

It’s somewhat ironic that the plaintiffs in this litigation have elected to go after corn oil, however.  If the charge is that it is misleading to call something “natural” if it cannot occur naturally in nature, then no corn products would qualify, ever.  This is because corn itself does not “occur naturally” in nature.  Rather, it is the product of human cross-breeding and hybridization, albeit hybridization that occurred thousands of years ago.  Indeed, nearly all crop varieties, so-called “GMOs” or otherwise, are human-modified strains that would not occur naturally in nature.  Corn is simply a more extreme example in that it is farther removed from its natural cousins than other crops.

I don’t know whether the history of corn and other crops will affect the outcome of this suit.  Even if it’s hard to argue (as a scientific matter) that “GMO corn” is less natural than “non-GMO corn,” other types of oil are also part of the suit and words like “natural” have common colloquial meanings quite apart from the scientific reality.  But whatever the legal outcome, the suit illustrates how the conventional use of terms like “natural” to modern crops has little relationship to how those crops were actually developed.

Until last week, many conservatives considered New Jersey Governor Chris Christie a hero. Some were even clamoring for him to enter the presidential race. Now, however, some of the same conservatives are branding him a heretic, even as he embraces policy decisions they support. What’s going on?

Last week, Christie vetoed legislation that would have required New Jersey to remain in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), a multi-state agreement to control greenhouse gas emissions through a regional cap-and-trade program. The bill was an effort to overturn Christie’s decision earlier this year to withdraw from the program. Given conservative opposition to greenhouse gas emission controls, the veto should have been something to cheer, right? Nope.

The problem, according to some conservatives, is that Christie accompanied his veto with a statement acknowledging that human activity is contributing to global climate change. Specifically, Christie explained that his original decision to withdraw from RGGI was not based upon any “quarrel” with the science.

While I acknowledge that the levels of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in our atmosphere are increasing, that climate change is real, that human activity plays a role in these changes and that these changes are impacting our state, I simply disagree that RGGI is an effective mechanism for addressing global warming.

As Christie explained, RGGI is based upon faulty economic assumptions and “does nothing more than impose a tax on electricity” for no real environmental benefit. As he noted, “To be effective, greenhouse gas emissions must be addressed on a national and international scale.”

Although Christie adopted the desired policy — withdrawing from RGGI — some conservatives are aghast that he would acknowledge a human contribution to global warming. According to one, this makes Christie “Part RINO. Part man. Only more RINO than man.” ["RINO" as in "Republican in Name Only."]

Those attacking Christie are suggesting there is only one politically acceptable position on climate science — that one’s ideological bona fides are to be determined by one’s scientific beliefs, and not simply one’s policy preferences. This is a problem on multiple levels. Among other things, it leads conservatives to embrace an anti-scientific know-nothingism whereby scientific claims are to be evaluated not by scientific evidence but their political implications. Thus climate science must be attacked because it provides a too ready justification for government regulation.   This is the same reason some conservatives attack evolution — they fear it undermines religious belief — and it is just as wrong.

Writing at MichelleMalkin.com, Doug Powers warns that ” if some politicians think they can swim in the waters of AGW without getting wet or soaking taxpayers, they should think again.” In other words, once you accept that human activity may be contributing to global warming, embracing costly and ill-advised regulatory measures is inevitable. Yet it is actually Powers, not Christie, who is embracing a dangerous premise. As Christie’s veto shows, he understands that the threat of climate change does not justify any and all proposed policy responses. One can believe the threat is real, and still think cap-and-trade is a bad idea. Christie’s critics, on the other hand, seem to accept that once it can be shown that human activity may be having potentially negative environmental effects, this alone justifies government intervention. Yet the environmental effects of human behavior are ubiquitous. Human civilization necessarily entails remaking the world around it. So if recognizing negative environmental effects leads inevitably to governmental intervention, there is virtually no end to what government needs to do, global warming or no.

How inconvenient, then, that even the vast majority of warming “skeptics” within the scientific community would agree with Governor Christie’s statement that “human activity plays a role” in rising greenhouse gas levels and resulting changes in the climate.   The Cato Institute’s Patrick Michaels, for instance, has written several books acknowledging human contributions to global warming.  In Climate of Extremes: The Global Warming Science They Don’t Want You to Know (co-authored with Robert Balling, another “skeptic”) for example, he explained that there is an observable warming trend and that human activity shares some of the blame.  Michaels and Balling are labeled “skeptics” because they don’t believe the warming is likely to be as severe or as disruptive as most other climate scientists, but they readily accept the reality of anthropogenic global warming.  (See, e.g., p. 27.) Their rejection of a climate apocalypse — and not a denial of human contributions to climate change — is actually the view of most climate “skeptics,” and nothing Christie said is incompatible with that view.

As I’ve written before, it would be convenient if human activity did not contribute to global warming or otherwise create problems that are difficult to reconcile with libertarian preferences. But that’s not the world we live in, and politicians should not be criticized for recognizing that fact.  Further, even if one accepts the “skeptic” perspective on climate change, there are still reasons to believe climate change is a problem, as I explain here. This does not require endorsing massive regulatory interventions or cap-and-trade schemes; there are alternatives.  In the end, politicians should be evaluated on their policy proposals — and commended for the courage to acknowledge politically inconvenient truths.

Population growth and climate change demand increases in agricultural productivity — increases that can only be achieved through the use of modern biotechnology. Yet excessive and scientifically unjustified regulatory restrictions hamper the development of more productive crop strains, particularly where they are needed most.  So argues Penn State biology professor Nina Federoff in today’s NYT, and she’s right.

In 2010, crops modified by molecular methods were grown in 29 countries on more than 360 million acres. Of the 15.4 million farmers growing these crops, 90 percent are poor, with small operations. The reason farmers turn to genetically modified crops is simple: yields increase and costs decrease.

Myths about the dire effects of genetically modified foods on health and the environment abound, but they have not held up to scientific scrutiny. And, although many concerns have been expressed about the potential for unexpected consequences, the unexpected effects that have been observed so far have been benign. Contamination by carcinogenic fungal toxins, for example, is as much as 90 percent lower in insect-resistant genetically modified corn than in nonmodified corn. This is because the fungi that make the toxins follow insects boring into the plants. No insect holes, no fungi, no toxins.

Yet today we have only a handful of genetically modified crops, primarily soybeans, corn, canola and cotton. All are commodity crops mainly used for feed or fiber and all were developed by big biotech companies. Only big companies can muster the money necessary to navigate the regulatory thicket woven by the government’s three oversight agencies: the E.P.A., the Department of Agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration.

Conservatives are often criticized for adopting ideologically or politically motivated positions on scientific questions — and they should be. But the Right has no monopoly on the politicization of science. As the debate over agricultural biotechnology shows, progressives can be just as guilty, and the effects can be just as grave.

It has been clear for decades that the means through which a crop strain is developed has no bearing on the health or environmental risks such a crop could pose. The scientific consensus here is broader and more stable than on climate change and other contentious environmental questions. The National Academy of Sciences, British Royal Society and EU have all concluded that modern biotech techniques are no more dangerous than traditional crop modification methods. Nevertheless, due to progressive environmental activism and fear campaigns, crops developed with modern biotechnology are subject to greater regulatory scrutiny. As Federoff notes, a reactive precautionary stance may have been justified years ago when biotechnology was new, but there is no scientific justification for such a position today. Yet progressive environmentalists continue to oppose modern agricultural biotechnology — and the supposed defenders of scientific integrity have little to say about it.

UPDATE: Chris Mooney thinks I sideswiped him unfairly with the final link of this post.  I disagree, and have responded in the comments to his post.  My comment is reproduced below.

Chris –

I’m sorry you thought it was a sideswipe, but I think the charge was justified. I ran a search on your blog for “biotechnology” on your blog and little of substance comes up. While you acknowledged the problem of anti-science anti-biotech activism in your book, you’ve had very little to say about it since. Why is this a problem? Because the anti-scientific anti-biotech view has very real consequences. You may like to think that liberals are open to science on this issue, but why do we see no evidence of this in actual policy? Why are GMOs subject to greater regulatory scrutiny than their non-GMO equivalents? Why has no “liberal” administration done anything about this? Sure, the anti-Greenpeace activism hasn’t prompted a broad social movement, but it hasn’t had to. As the article to which I linked discusses, the current regulatory process adopts the precise anti-GMO bias that the NAS and its foreign equivalents have warned against. Given this fact, I think it’s fair to find your relative quiet on this issue rather conspicuous.

The Guardian reports on a scenario analysis conducted by several scientists considering possible scenarios resulting from contact with alien life forms. The analysis covers many basic scenarios, such as basic communication or the possibility of disease transmission from physical contact, but also suggests global warming could give aliens an excuse to attack.

The authors warn that extraterrestrials may be wary of civilisations that expand very rapidly, as these may be prone to destroy other life as they grow, just as humans have pushed species to extinction on Earth. In the most extreme scenario, aliens might choose to destroy humanity to protect other civilisations.

“A preemptive strike would be particularly likely in the early phases of our expansion because a civilisation may become increasingly difficult to destroy as it continues to expand. Humanity may just now be entering the period in which its rapid civilisational expansion could be detected by an ETI because our expansion is changing the composition of the Earth’s atmosphere, via greenhouse gas emissions,” the report states.

“Green” aliens might object to the environmental damage humans have caused on Earth and wipe us out to save the planet. “These scenarios give us reason to limit our growth and reduce our impact on global ecosystems. It would be particularly important for us to limit our emissions of greenhouse gases, since atmospheric composition can be observed from other planets,” the authors write.

Somehow, I don’t think an alien race capable of interstellar space travel would consider humanity much of a threat — we have yet to put people on Mars — but the authors do characterize these scenarios as “highly speculative.”   If we’re willing to accept the premise that aliens come to earth and care about what we’re doing, why should we assume the alien race embraces contemporary environmental ideology? It seems to me the scientists are engaged in a bit of projection.

We could just as easily speculate about an advanced alien race seeing things quite differently. Perhaps the aliens would come from a planet with a much warmer temperature and see global warming as our invitation for them to colonize the planet. Or maybe they’d see gradual warming as a sign that we are a productive civilization that has been able to conquer and subdue our natural environment and is therefore worth trading and cooperating with. Or maybe this race would follow something like the “Prime Directive” and see our expansion as a reason to just leave us alone. Or maybe they would watch cable television and conclude we are a primitive, debased species not worth their time.

[Note: Extra links added.]

I have my share of disagreements with Jonathan Zasloff, particularly on matters of environmental law and policy (see, e.g., here), but his attack on Fox News’ alleged climate “expert” Joe Bastardi hits the mark. There are reasonable bases upon which to question some aspects of global warming, including some of the more dire computer model projections, but Bastardi’s claims (as reported by Media Matters) are woefully ignorant. Indeed, I can’t think of many so-called climate “skeptics” who would endorse some of his “arguments.” It’s the climate equivalent of creation “science.”

A new paper in Nature has sparked a firestorm of debate over species extinction rates. The paper, by two ecologists, shows how the use of the species-area curve produces inflated projections of species extinction rates. As an accompanying article in Nature explains:

The most common method of predicting extinction rates relies on the species–area curve, the mathematical relationship showing that larger areas tend to contain greater numbers of species.

Researchers typically extrapolate backwards from this curve to calculate how many extinctions can be expected from a given amount of habitat loss. But that is inaccurate, say the study authors, because the area that must be removed to cause extinction is always larger than the area needed to encounter a species for the first time.

“Extrapolating backwards makes a hidden assumption that any loss of population, regardless of how small, commits a species to extinction — which is not reasonable,” says Stephen Hubbell, a theoretical ecologist at the University of California, Los Angeles, and co-author of the paper.

As you might expect, the paper has sparked substantial criticism and debate, as noted in Greenwire and on Dot Earth, even though there have been concerns about the reliability of the species-area curve for some time. One reason for the intense debate is the well-intentioned fear that research of this sort will dampen concerns about biodiversity loss. If, as the study suggests, expected extinction rates are far lower than conventional estimates, will this lessen the urgency of biodiversity conservation? Perhaps, but that would not justify relying upon erroneous extinction estimates. Moreover, even if projected species extinction is only half of conventional estimates, it is still a serious concern.

Yesterday I appeared on NPR’s Dianne Rehm Show to discuss the Endangered Species Act.  The show was prompted by Congressional passage of a budget rider removing gray wolves in the northern Rockies from the endangered species list.   This was the first time Congress ordered a species delisted, and prompted complaints that Congress was intruding into science’s domain.  Such complaints have some merit — it would have been preferable for Congress to enact a rider removing the wolves’ regulatory protections than altering their endangered status — but they also fail to acknowledge how the structure of the ESA puts science in the crosshairs.

Listing a species as “endangered” or “threatened” under the ESA triggers a host of regulatory protections.  The Act’s prohibitions kick in automatically, so landowners and others take actions that could harm listed species at their own risk.   Both as written and as interpreted by the courts, the ESA affords the Fish & Wildlife Service with relatively little discretion.  Further, the Act authorizes private enforcement through citizen suits, which can further ties the FWS’s hands.  This structure was intended to ensure vigorous protection and prevent agency shirking, but it has also encouraged the politicization of species science and discouraged reliance on non-regulatory conservation strategies.

Congress delisted the wolf less because members doubted the scientific justification for the wolves’ listing than because relevant constituencies objected to the regulatory constraints imposed by the wolves’ endangered status.  Yet the Act does not give the FWS much ability to regulate less, or rely upon non-regulatory conservation strategies, so opponents focus on whether a species should be listed at all.  By the same token, activist groups seeking to trigger extensive regulatory controls seek to have species listed so as to force the government’s hand.  In passing the wolf rider, Congress simply followed the lead of those interest groups that fight over listing decisions so as to alter the incidence of species regulation.

Whether gray wolves merit regulatory protection in the northern Rockies is a question of policy, not science.  It is a question of what we should or should not do, not a question of what is.   Scientific research can (and should) inform this decision.  It is useful to know how many wolves there are, whether  the population is stable and has a critical mass, what sorts of things disrupt or degrade wolf habitat, and so on.  There are also judgments to be made about the costs and consequences of different conservation strategies.  Science may illuminate the extent of the trade-offs, but it cannot tell us which option to choose.

Because  whether to regulate on wolves’ behalf is a question of policy, it is precisely the sort Congress should make.  But it is also a decision Congress should make candidly, as a policy decision.  Neither supporters or opponents of the relevant regulatory measures should hide behind the science — nor should the ESA.  The scientific judgment that a species is in danger of extinction should be separate from the policy judgment of what to do about it, yet the ESA’s structure precludes such an approach.  Environmentalists fear, with some justification, that decoupling regulatory controls from the listing decision would result in a significant loss of protection for some species.  Yet as I explain in my contribution to my forthcoming book, Rebuilding the Ark: New Perspectives on Endangered Species Act Reform, imposing prescriptive regulations does not always help conserve endangered species, and in some cases likely does more harm than good.  Listing alone does not improve a species status, and yet millions are spent fighting over listing decisions in an effort to influence listing decisions.  This is not a rational way to conserve endangered species.

In 2005, the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) predicted that there would be 50 million refugees in 2010 due to climate change. An enterprising reporter wondered what happened to UNEP’s prediction, and found that those areas UNEP claimed were most at risk have actually gained population. How did UNEP respond? According to Anthony Watts, UNEP tried to erase the evidence of its initial claim — without success. It seems folks at UNEP were unaware of Google caches.

The original UNEP claim was ridiculous on its face, and UNEP’s subsequent effort to rewrite history is farcical. Regrettably, we’re unlikely to hear much about this story from the environmentalist community or those who allegedly police the politicization of science. And this is part of the problem. Climate change is real, and the evidence of a human contribution to the gradual warming of the atmosphere is strong. There’s no need to conjure fantastical projections of an impending climate apocalypse. But UNEP and various organizations insist on doing so nonetheless — indeed, UNEP is now claiming there will be 50 million climate refugees by 2020 — and the climate community raises not a peep. In the end, this ends up doing more to discredit legitimate concerns about climate change than to encourage action.

Ronald Bailey reports that the New York State Department of Education is muzzling the state’s “top geologist,” Langhorne “Taury” Smith, because he dared to question environmentalist attacks on the use of hydraulic fracturing (aka “fracking”) to extract natural gas from shale deposits.  This prompted a green backlash which, in turn, cause the state education department to bar Smith from talking with reporters.  As the Albany Times Union editorialized:

One might reasonably assume that the state’s top staff geologist would have some relevant thoughts about drilling for natural gas. But good luck finding out what’s on Langhorne B. Smith Jr.’s mind, now that the state has muzzled him.

If only irony were an alternative energy source. Here’s the state Education Department ­— an agency responsible for fostering knowledge — barring Mr. Smith from talking to reporters after his comments on gas drilling caused a backlash among environmentalists — who normally are the first to cry out when politics takes precedence over science.

We don’t particularly agree with Mr. Smith on a few key points, either. But shutting down an informed voice is absolutely the wrong thing for the government to do, and for environmentalists to support, if only in their failure to denounce it.

This editorial is particularly notable because the Times Union has also been critical of fracking.  I must admit I’m not up-to-speed on the fracking debate, and have no opinion on whether environmentalist charges are well-founded or exaggerated.  But I am of the opinion that limiting the ability of state experts to discuss the matter publicly is no way to find the truth.

The Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project was launched to conduct a re-evaluation of the surface temperature record in order to resolve persistent debate over the reliability of prior analyses and provide an open record that could form the basis for future scientific research.  The effort is led by several respected scientists, including UC Berkeley physicist Richard Muller, and funded by a wide variety of sources, ranging from the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation to Bill Gates’ Fund for Innovative Climate and Energy Research to the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. While not a climate “skeptic,” Muller has previously raised concerns about the reliability of conventional climate assessments and warming projections.

The project was not created to confirm the reliability of the existing temperature record, but it appears that is what it is doing.  As today’s Los Angeles Times reports:

Muller unexpectedly told a congressional hearing last week that the work of the three principal groups that have analyzed the temperature trends underlying climate science is “excellent…. We see a global warming trend that is very similar to that previously reported by the other groups.”

The hearing was called by GOP leaders of the House Science & Technology committee, who have expressed doubts about the integrity of climate science. It was one of several inquiries in recent weeks as the Environmental Protection Agency’s efforts to curb planet-heating emissions from industrial plants and motor vehicles have come under strenuous attack in Congress.

Muller said his group was surprised by its findings, but he cautioned that the initial assessment is based on only 2% of the 1.6 billion measurements that will eventually be examined.

The preliminary findings, and a link to Muller’s testimony, are here.  It bears repeating that these findings are preliminary, but it is also significant that they are confirming prior claims that the earth has experienced significant warming in recent decades, a conclusion also supported by the satellite record (which goes back to 1979).

The reality of global warming may not justify the expansion of federal regulation under the Clean Air Act and other existing statutes, but it does merit a serious policy response.  Even less-than catastrophic warming projections justify action to address climate change.  Indeed, some of the things that would set the nation on a more climate-friendly course — such as shifting the tax-burden away from income and wealth creation toward consumption — would be a wise thing to do even if climate change were no concern at all.

The NYT summarizes a new report in Science that finds a majority of high school biology teachers skimp on their teaching of evolution to avoid controversy and a sizable percentage explicitly teach creationism.  One of the study’s authors believes the answer is more and better science education for teachers.

“Students are being cheated out of a rich science education,” said Dr. [Eric] Plutzer, a professor of political science at Penn State University. “We think the ‘cautious 60 percent’ represent a group of educators who, if they were better trained in science in general and in evolution in particular, would be more confident in their ability to explain controversial topics to their students, to parents, and to school board members.”

Perhaps, especially if this education helps teachers explain that a belief in evolution does not require rejecting religious understandings of the world, let alone atheism. Creationism and “intelligent design” aren’t science, and it’s wrong to present them as such. But evolutionary theory is not a comprehensive explanation of human existence and doesn’t disprove the existence of God. Science educators would have an easier time teaching evolution if some of evolution’s advocates were not so strident in suggesting that belief in evolution disproves a belief in God. A frontal assault on someone’s worldview is not the best way to get them to listen.

This recent TV performance by Rep. Jack Kingston (R-GA) is quite embarrassing. The worst part is, I doubt he’s embarrassed by it.

Salon has withdrawn a 2005 article by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (aka “America’s Most Irresponsible Public Figure®“) alleging a link between vaccines and autism.  The article, co-published with Rolling Stone, had an “explosive premise,” according to Salon‘s editors.  Too bad it was scientifically bogus and completely irresponsible.  Salon was forced to publish several corrections to the article, but has now decided to remove it from their website altogether.  A better step would have been to leave it online with a bolded header explaining the article has been thoroughly discredited and never should have been published in the first place.

At an American Association of Law Schools panel that I took part in at this year’s annual conference, we briefly discussed the question of whether scholars’ motives for writing an article should be relevant to our evaluation of its quality. Often, people make claims such as the following: “Professor X only wrote that article to rationalize his left-wing [or right-wing] views. He knew the answers he wanted to get ahead of time, and just reasoned backwards from them.” Or, alternatively: “Professor Y wrote that article in order to ingratiate himself with the administration of President _________ so that he can increase his chances of getting a job in government or a judicial appointment.” The implication of such remarks is that the presence of disreputable motives on the part of the author somehow discredits the article or at least diminishes its scholarly value.

In my view, the implication is false. In evaluating scholarship, the only thing that should matter is whether it uses sound logic and evidence, and whether it makes an original contribution to the relevant scholarly literature. If the article is original and well-reasoned, it should make no difference that the author wrote it to promote his ideology or to get a judicial appointment, or for any other reason. The article’s contribution to scholarship in its field is independent of the author’s motives. If we can definitively prove that John Stuart Mill wrote On Liberty in order to justify his ideology (which was indeed probably part of his motive), that in no way diminishes the book’s intellectual value. Indeed, its value would not be diminished even if we can prove that Mill secretly believed that the book’s argument was wrong, but pretended otherwise out of some ulterior motive. Similarly, a flawed article should not be evaluated more favorably if the author’s sole object in writing it was disinterested truth-seeking.

In the real world, few works of scholarship are written purely for truth-seeking purposes. At the very least, the writer usually also has the additional motive of advancing his career. No one holds it against a scholar if one of his motives for writing an article was to cater to the interests of other scholars in the field in order to increase his chances of getting tenure. We should take the same approach with scholars who have other non-truthseeking motives. Most writers usually have multiple reasons for producing an article or book. Even if they consciously believe that their sole objective is disinterested truth-seeking, that doesn’t mean that their evaluation of their motives is correct. Few people ever fully understand the reasons why they do what they do.

The above analysis applies to the evaluation of scholarship by academics assessing works in their own field. As experts on the subject, they should be able to evaluate scholarship on the merits without resorting to consideration of motives. Matters are more complicated when nonexperts try to form opinions about the validity of scholarship and its implications for various public policy issues. Nonexperts often don’t have the knowledge needed to evaluate scholarship directly, and therefore must rely on “social validation“. In many instances, they have to take the experts at their word merely because they are experts. For example, I don’t really understand modern physics. So I accept the view that Einstein’s theories are closer to the truth than Isaac Newton’s because that’s what the overwhelming majority of physicists believe.

In situations where a layperson has deferred to expert opinion because of the experts’ superior knowledge, it is rational to show less deference if there is strong evidence the many of the experts in question have non-truthseeking motives for reaching their conclusions, or have manufactured an “expert consensus” by suppressing opposing views within academia. I explained why in more detail here. Even in such a scenario, however, it would be a mistake to discount the experts’ views completely. Truth-seeking may still be part of their motivation, even if it was not the sole motive. Moreover, expert analyses produced for non-truthseeking purposes may still contain valuable insights that laypeople should not simply ignore.

Whatever the difficulties facing laypersons, it is almost never defensible for we academics to evaluate scholarship in our field based on the authors’ real or imagined motives. As experts ourselves, we should be knowledgeable enough to judge the work of fellow experts on the merits, without resorting to speculation about their motives.

On Friday the White House issued a memorandum for the heads of all federal departments and agencies on “Scientific Integrity.” The NYT reports:

Under the guidelines, government scientists are in general free to speak to journalists and the public about their work, and agencies are prohibited from editing or suppressing reports by independent advisory committees.

And the agencies are instructed that when communicating a scientific finding to the public, they should describe its underlying assumptions. For instance, they are told to describe “probabilities associated with both optimistic and pessimistic projections” — a guideline that, had it been in place last summer, might have helped the administration avoid overly optimistic estimates of the BP oil spill.

A draft report of the Department of Interior Inspector General has confirmed what many suspected: High-level White House officials edited an Interior Department report to create the false impression that Interior Secretary’s Ken Salazar’s decision to impose a deep-water drilling moratorium in the Gulf of Mexico had been peer reviewed and approved by outside experts.  It had not been.  The NYT‘s Green Blog reports:

Mary L. Kendall, the Interior Department inspector general, interviewed all the officials involved in preparing and editing the report and reviewed the e-mails between Interior and the White House in the final hours before the report was issued. She found that officials in the office of Carol Browner, the White House coordinator for energy and environment, had changed some wording and moved around some of the report’s findings in a way that made it look as though the independent scientists had endorsed the moratorium recommendation. Officials from the White House and Interior told Ms. Kendall that they had not intended to do so.

The original report said that the recommendations in the report had been reviewed by the panel of seven experts identified by the National Academy of Engineering. That statement was moved in the final report to come directly after the announcement of the six-month drilling ban, rather than after the safety recommendations. Ms. Kendall said that the placement of the sentence “implied that the experts had also peer reviewed and supported this policy decision.”

More from Politico and the AP.

This is not the only instance of misrepresenting science in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon blowout, further demonstrating that politicization of science is not a partisan phenomenon.

UPDATE: More from Greenwire and Dot Earth.

[Note: Post edited in response to a comment below.]

Today’s NYT reports on how New York City’s health commissioner pressured his staff to create a scary anti-obesity ad campaign, featuring this ad, even if it meant stretching the available scientific evidence on the potential health consequences of drinking a can of soda per day.  In the end, they produced an ad that was “defensible” because, as one participant in the discussions  put it, the ad’s language was “broad enough to get away with.”

UPDATE: Althouse: “The government can’t get the science right. It can’t even get the English usage right.”

The AP and NYT report on draft reports from National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling critical of the federal government’s response to the spill.  Among other things, the reports accuse Administration officials of suppressing and misrepresenting scientific assessments of the spill and its potential consequences.

From the AP:

The Obama administration blocked efforts by government scientists to tell the public just how bad the Gulf oil spill could become and committed other missteps that raised questions about its competence and candor during the crisis, according to a commission appointed by the president to investigate the disaster. . .

Citing interviews with government officials, the report reveals that in late April or early May, the White House budget office denied a request from NOAA to make public its worst-case estimate of how much oil could spew from the blown-out well. . . .

The report shows “the political process was in charge and science really does not have the role that was touted,” said Christopher D’Elia, dean of environmental studies at Louisiana State University.

From the NYT:

In August, top administration officials said that 75 percent of the oil had evaporated, dissolved or been collected, implying that their efforts had been largely successful and that ecological damage had been limited. Carol Browner, the White House coordinator for energy and climate change, declared on Aug. 4: “I think it’s also important to note that our scientists have done an initial assessment and more than three-quarters of the oil is gone. The vast majority of the oil is gone.”

But the commission staff members said the government’s own data did not support such sweeping conclusions, which were later scaled back. A number of respected independent researchers have concluded that as much as half of the spilled oil remains suspended in the water or buried on the seafloor and in coastal sludge. And it will be some time before scientists can paint an accurate picture of the ecological damage.

More from FDL.

Yesterday the Inter-Academy Council, a consortium of the world’s leading national academies of science, issued a report highly critical of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).  (Full report here.)  The report does not challenge the IPCC’s central findings about the science of climate change, but strongly criticizes the IPCC’s procedures and management structure, and urges fundamental reform.  Among other things, it urges the IPCC to acknowledge the degree of uncertainty and controversy surrounding certain aspects of climate science, to respond more fully to reviewer comments, and to make the entire IPCC process more transparent.  It also suggests that current IPCC head Rajendra Pachauri should step aside lest a single individual oversee the IPCC process for too long. (More here.)  Institutional reform, the Inter-Academy Council report concludes, is necessary to ensure the IPCC’s “credibility and independence.”

Over the past year the IPCC has been under siege.  The release of e-mails from the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit and the discovery of several errors in the IPCC’s Working Group II report have reinforced the perception that the IPCC’s review of climate science is overly politicized.  The resulting decline in the IPCC’s credibility has fed skepticism about the likelihood of anthropogenic climate change.  Ironically, efforts intended to enhance the case for action have actually set climate policy back.  Only if the IPCC reforms itself, and confronts the biases and errors that have plagued prior reports, will it be perceived as an honest broker in climate science debates.

Here’s more coverage from the NYT, Ron Bailey, Roger Pielke, Jr., and RealClimate.

The Bush Administration was often accused of waging a “war on science” because of various instances in which government officials sought to alter, spin, suppress, or manipulate scientific inquiries or findings for political purposes.  Some of the charges were exaggeraged, but some were real enough.  My favorite was the effort by a political hack at NASA to muzzle James Hansen and edit the discussion of the “Big Bang” on the agency’s website.

Per the “war on science” meme, science politicization was predominantly (if not exclusively) a conservative or Republican enterprise.  So a “pro-science,” Democratic Administration would change things, right?  Not really.  As the Los Angeles Times reports, allegations of science politicization persist.  “We are getting complaints from government scientists now at the same rate we were during the Bush administration,” says Jeffrey Ruch of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility.  According to the Times:

interviews with several scientists — most of whom requested anonymity because they feared retaliation in their jobs — as well as reviews of e-mails provided by Ruch and others show a wide range of complaints during the Obama presidency:

In Florida, water-quality experts reported government interference with efforts to assess damage to the Everglades stemming from development projects.

In the Pacific Northwest, federal scientists said they were pressured to minimize the effects they had documented of dams on struggling salmon populations.

In several Western states, biologists reported being pushed to ignore the effects of overgrazing on federal land.

In Alaska, some oil and gas exploration decisions given preliminary approval under Bush moved forward under Obama, critics said, despite previously presented evidence of environmental harm.

The most immediate case of politics allegedly trumping science, some government and outside environmental experts said, was the decision to fight the gulf oil spill with huge quantities of potentially toxic chemical dispersants despite advice to examine the dangers more thoroughly.

And the Union of Concerned Scientists, a Washington-based organization, said it had received complaints from scientists in key agencies about the difficulty of speaking out publicly.

This should not surprise.  The “GOP War on Science” argument was always overstated and sought a partisan explanation for a phenomenon generated by broader institutional pressures and incentives.  There were also early signs that the Obama Administration would replace science politicization of the Right with that of the Left.  Congress has also played along.

That science politicization has continued under President Obama doesn’t exonerate Republicans.  They’ve done their share, including some Republicans’ indulgence of anti-evolution nonsense.  But it helps show (as I argued here) that the “war on science” is a political and institutional problem, rather than a partisan one.