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 […]
Archive | Politicizing Science
New Federal Guidelines for “Scientific Integrity”
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. […]
IG Confirms White House Edits of Moratorium Report
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. […]
Politicizing Soda Science
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” […]
Suppressing Oil Spill Science
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 […]
Time to Reform the IPCC
By Jonathan H. Adler on August 31, 2010 10:40 am in Climate Change, Environment, Politicizing Science
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, […]
The “War on Science” Continues
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 […]
ClimateGate Revisited
Last week, the UK Independent Climate Change Email Review (aka the Muir Russell Review) released its report on the alleged scientific misconduct of climate researchers revealed by the disclosure of e-mails from the Climatic Research Unit at East Anglia University. As the NYT reports, the review rejects the claims that the ClimateGate e-mails disclosed scientific […]
Saletan on Kagan, ACOG, and the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban
By Jonathan H. Adler on July 4, 2010 8:10 am in Judicial Nominations, Kagan Nomination, Politicizing Science
Slate‘s William Saletan, author of Bearing Right, writes on “Elena Kagan’s partial-birth abortion scandal,” concluding (as I did) that the events uncovered impugn the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists more than Kagan. But he also thinks there is a broader lesson to be learned here. He writes: Kagan, who was then an associate White […]
Kagan, ACOG and the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban
By Jonathan H. Adler on June 29, 2010 11:26 pm in Judicial Nominations, Kagan Nomination, Politicizing Science
Was “language purporting to be the judgment of an independent body of medical experts devoted to the care and treatment of pregnant women and their children” actually “nothing more than the political scrawling” of then Clinton White House staffer Elena Kagan? That’s the charge made by former deputy Assistant Attorney General Shannen Coffin in this […]
When Good News Isn’t Good News
Yesterday, the New York Times reported on a sharp global decline in maternal deaths. This is good news, right? Not to some. The Times also reported that some activists sought to pressure the Lancet into delaying or downplaying the findings. some advocates for women’s health tried to pressure The Lancet into delaying publication of the […]
Restoring Faith in Climate Science
The NYT reports on various efforts to restore the credibility of climate science and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in the wake of “ClimateGate” and the discovery of a handful false claims and misrepresentation of scientific research in portions of the IPCC reports. The unauthorized release last fall of hundreds of e-mail messages from […]
Weather Is Not Climate
What does the “snowpocalypse” tell us about the likelihood of climate change? Nothing. As Roger Pielke Jr. explains: What happens in the weather this week or next tells us absolutely nothing about the role of humans in influencing the climate system. It is unjustifiable to claim that a cold snap or heavy snow disproves or […]
Still More IPCC Errors
British news organizations are now combing through the IPCC reports, finding more errors and material sourced to non-peer-reviewed material, including student papers and reports by advocacy organizations. Most of these errors continue to relate to the more policy-oriented aspects of the IPCC reports — practical consequences of climate change and potential policy responses. This is […]
Monbiot: Heads Must Roll at CRU
The Guardian‘s George Monbiot is again calling for resignations at the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit. This is a tough time for climate science. The Guardian’s new revelations about the hacked emails from the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia might help to explain the university’s utter failure to […]