"From now on, you scientist types will find only results which confirm
what the Administration has already decided."


---
New publishing rules restrict scientists

By JOHN HEILPRIN, Associated Press WriterWed Dec 13, 7:37 PM ET

The Bush administration is clamping down on scientists at the U.S.
Geological Survey, the latest agency subjected to controls on research
that might go against official policy.

New rules require screening of all facts and interpretations by agency
scientists who study everything from caribou mating to global warming.
The rules apply to all scientific papers and other public documents,
even minor reports or prepared talks, according to documents obtained by
The Associated Press.

Top officials at the Interior Department's scientific arm say the rules
only standardize what scientists must do to ensure the quality of their
work and give a heads-up to the agency's public relations staff.

"This is not about stifling or suppressing our science, or politicizing
our science in any way," Barbara Wainman, the agency's director of
communications, said Wednesday. "I don't have approval authority. What
it was designed to do is to improve our product flow."

Some agency scientists, who until now have felt free from any political
interference, worry that the objectivity of their work could be
compromised.

"I feel as though we've got someone looking over our shoulder at every
damn thing we do. And to me that's a very scary thing. I worry that it
borders on censorship," said Jim Estes, an internationally recognized
marine biologist in the USGS field station at Santa Cruz, Calif.

"The explanation was that this was intended to ensure the highest
possible quality research," said Estes, a researcher at the agency for
more than 30 years. "But to me it feels like they're doing this to keep
us under their thumbs. It seems like they're afraid of science. Our
findings could be embarrassing to the administration."

The new requirements state that the USGS's communications office must be
"alerted about information products containing high-visibility topics or
topics of a policy-sensitive nature."

The agency's director, Mark Myers, and its communications office also
must be told prior to any submission for publication "of findings or
data that may be especially newsworthy, have an impact on government
policy, or contradict previous public understanding to ensure that
proper officials are notified and that communication strategies are
developed."

Patrick Leahy, USGS's head of geology and its acting director until
September, said Wednesday that the new procedures would improve
scientists' accountability and "harmonize" the review process. He said
they are intended to maintain scientists' neutrality.

"Our scientific staff is second to none," he said. "This notion of
scientific gotcha is something we do not want to participate in. That
does not mean to avoid contentious issues."

The changes amount to an overhaul of commonly accepted procedures for
all scientists, not just those in government, based on anonymous peer
reviews. In that process, scientists critique each other's findings to
determine whether they deserve to be published.

From now on, USGS supervisors will demand to see the comments of outside
peer reviewers'

"From now on, you scientist types will find only results which confirm
what the Administration has already decided."


---
New publishing rules restrict scientists

By JOHN HEILPRIN, Associated Press WriterWed Dec 13, 7:37 PM ET

The Bush administration is clamping down on scientists at the U.S.
Geological Survey, the latest agency subjected to controls on research
that might go against official policy.

New rules require screening of all facts and interpretations by agency
scientists who study everything from caribou mating to global warming.
The rules apply to all scientific papers and other public documents,
even minor reports or prepared talks, according to documents obtained by
The Associated Press.

Top officials at the Interior Department's scientific arm say the rules
only standardize what scientists must do to ensure the quality of their
work and give a heads-up to the agency's public relations staff.

"This is not about stifling or suppressing our science, or politicizing
our science in any way," Barbara Wainman, the agency's director of
communications, said Wednesday. "I don't have approval authority. What
it was designed to do is to improve our product flow."

Some agency scientists, who until now have felt free from any political
interference, worry that the objectivity of their work could be
compromised.

"I feel as though we've got someone looking over our shoulder at every
damn thing we do. And to me that's a very scary thing. I worry that it
borders on censorship," said Jim Estes, an internationally recognized
marine biologist in the USGS field station at Santa Cruz, Calif.

"The explanation was that this was intended to ensure the highest
possible quality research," said Estes, a researcher at the agency for
more than 30 years. "But to me it feels like they're doing this to keep
us under their thumbs. It seems like they're afraid of science. Our
findings could be embarrassing to the administration."

The new requirements state that the USGS's communications office must be
"alerted about information products containing high-visibility topics or
topics of a policy-sensitive nature."

The agency's director, Mark Myers, and its communications office also
must be told prior to any submission for publication "of findings or
data that may be especially newsworthy, have an impact on government
policy, or contradict previous public understanding to ensure that
proper officials are notified and that communication strategies are
developed."

Patrick Leahy, USGS's head of geology and its acting director until
September, said Wednesday that the new procedures would improve
scientists' accountability and "harmonize" the review process. He said
they are intended to maintain scientists' neutrality.

"Our scientific staff is second to none," he said. "This notion of
scientific gotcha is something we do not want to participate in. That
does not mean to avoid contentious issues."

The changes amount to an overhaul of commonly accepted procedures for
all scientists, not just those in government, based on anonymous peer
reviews. In that process, scientists critique each other's findings to
determine whether they deserve to be published.

From now on, USGS supervisors will demand to see the comments of outside
peer reviewers' as well any exchanges between the scientists who are
seeking to publish their findings and the reviewers.

The Bush administration, as well as the Clinton administration before
it, has been criticized over scientific integrity issues. In 2002, the
USGS was forced to reverse course after warning that oil and gas
drilling in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge would harm the
Porcupine caribou herd. One week later a new report followed, this time
saying the caribou would not be affected.

Earlier this year, a USGS scientist poked holes in research that the
Interior Department was using in an effort to remove from the endangered
species list a tiny jumping mouse that inhabits grasslands coveted by
developers in Colorado and Wyoming.

Federal criminal investigators are looking into allegations that USGS
employees falsified documents between 1998 and 2000 on the the movement
of water through the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump in
Nevada. The USGS had validated the Energy Department's conclusions that
water seepage was relatively slow, so radiation would be less likely to
escape.

At the Environmental Protection Agency, scientists and advocacy groups
alike are worried about closing libraries that contain tens of thousands
of agency documents and research studies. "It now appears that EPA
officials are dismantling what it likely one of our country's
comprehensive and accessible collections of environmental materials,"
four Democrats who are in line to head House committees wrote EPA
Administrator Stephen Johnson two weeks ago.

Democrats about to take control of Congress have investigations into
reports by The New York Times and other news organizations that the Bush
administration tried to censor government scientists researching global
warming at NASA and the Commerce Department.
---

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/bush_scientists




---
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/bush_scientists
--
John Hachmann aa #1782

"Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities"
-Voltaire

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