Washington Post
February 9, 2006
EDITORIAL
The Politics of Science
IT IS A RARE thing for the biography of a 24-year-old NASA spokesman
to attract the attention of the national media. But that is what
happened this week when George C. Deutsch tendered his resignation.
Mr. Deutsch had, it emerged, lied about his (nonexistent)
undergraduate degree from Texas A&M University. Far more important,
several New York Times articles over the past week or so have exposed
Mr. Deutsch as one of several White House-appointed public affairs
officers at the agency who tried to prevent senior NASA career
scientists from speaking and writing freely, especially when their
views on the realities of climate change differed from those of the
White House.
Mr. Deutsch prevented reporters from interviewing James E. Hansen, the
leading climate scientist at NASA, telling colleagues he was doing so
because his job was to "make the president look good." Mr. Deutsch
also instructed another NASA scientist to add the word "theory" after
every written mention of the Big Bang, on the grounds that the
accepted scientific explanation of the origins of the universe "is an
opinion" and that NASA should not discount the possibility of
"intelligent design by a creator."
The spectacle of a young political appointee with no college degree
exerting crude political control over senior government scientists and
civil servants with many decades of experience is deeply disturbing.
More disturbing is the fact that Mr. Deutsch's attempts to manipulate
science and scientists, although unusually blatant, were not unique.
Just before Christmas, the federal Environmental Protection Agency
issued "talking points" to local environmental agencies. These
suggestions were intended to help their spokesmen play down an
Associated Press story that -- using the EPA's own data -- showed that
impoverished neighborhoods had higher levels of air pollution.
At the Food and Drug Administration, the director of the Office of
Women's Health recently resigned because she believed that the
administration was twisting science to stall approval of
over-the-counter emergency contraception. Off the record -- because
they fear losing their jobs -- some scientists at the Department of
Health and Human Services say that Bush administration public affairs
officers screen their appearances and utterances more carefully than
anyone ever did. Scientists at places such as the Agriculture
Department, not a part of the government known for its publicity
hounds, have made the same claim.
In every administration there will be spokesmen and public affairs
officers who try to spin the news to make the president look good. But
this administration is trying to spin scientific data and muzzle
scientists toward that end. NASA's Mr. Hansen was right when he told
the Times that Mr. Deutsch was only a bit player. "The problem is much
broader and much deeper and it goes across agencies," he said. We
agree.
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