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August 30, 2005

Chris Mooney and the War on Science

There are nineteen duplicates of complete works in our family library of over 2000 volumes. Of these, six are works by Mark Twain. The others range from the Bible to Great Gatsby to Plato's Republic. I am about to acquire a 20th duplicate, Chris Mooney's The Republican War on Science. Over any long haul, Mooney's work will not stand up well against most of the other duplicate books in our library. But at this time, there is not a more urgent read among them. I wish I could assure you that the importance of Mooney's work will not last five years but my fear is that its importance may last a generation.

The reason I will be acquiring a second volume is that the advanced copy I have lacks an index. The final published volume will no doubt have a great one. For me a nonfiction book without an index becomes increasingly useless everyday that passes after reading it. On the one hand, Mooney's work is so dense with valuable information and so well documented that it would be a shame not to be able to use it as an ongoing reference. On the other hand, it is very readable and I will no doubt read it more than once.

In The Republican War on Science, you will read about the abuses of science by politicians, not just republicans and learn how those abuses have had an extremely negative impact on science, on the public impression of science and on politics. After a couple of compelling context setting chapters, Mooney discusses the history of the relationship between science politics going back to Roosevelt. And then he systematically documents the deterioration of that relationship over the next six decades until it has reached the horrible state that it has acquired with the current administration.

If anyone doubts that there is pervasive abuse of science in the current administration that doubt will be erased by Mooney's many illustrations and extensive documentation. His documentation comes from not only the public statements and writings of the current administration but also from documents and proclamations of various organizations of scientists, documents from previous administrations, international bodies, and extensive interviews with individuals in governments, current and past, with individuals in industry and with scientists. In many ways the interviews are the most valuable pieces of evidence on which he builds because many of the comments that come out of them provide a prospective unavailable anywhere else. In these interviews, Mooney truly displays his journalist's skills.

What is most intriguing about Mooney's work is his analysis of the ways in which science is abused: creating seemingly scientific debates that scientists are not really having, exploiting even the smallest uncertainty and latching onto the views of scientist who are with marginal scientific positions to the exclusion of other positions even when one of those other position reflects the overwhelming dominate view among scientists within a given discipline. Perhaps the most frightening abuse is the current administration's effort to give a political test to scientists who are candidates for scientific positions within the administration or membership on national and international scientific committees.

Mooney helps us understand the impact of the demise of the internationally respected, Office of Technology Assessment. Representative George Brown called the Office Congresses defense against dumb." Another thing that Mooney helps us understand is the Orwellian use of phrases like "junk science" and "sound science." One almost needs a special lexicon to understand what the administration actually means when it uses these expressions.

Mooney traces many of the tactics used by science abusers to the attempts of the tobacco industry to confuse the public and to ward off regulation. He does not mention, or at least I do not recall him mentioning (remember my preview copy lacks an index but if you get your hands on one it will have one), what I think is a more basic underlying tradition of abuse. One that I think the tobacco industry drew on in its own attempt to use science for its own ends. That tradition is the legal tradition of drawing science and scientists into adversarial relationships. Science has its own debates, some of which can be very intense. But once science is drawn into an adversarial context where the issues to be debated are not driven by scientific considerations a "my scientist is smarter than your scientist" situation develops where some part of the scientific community becomes divided on issues other than evidence and theory. Of course, science can inform many of the issues under dispute in an adversarial relationship. The problem comes when it begins to be drawn into the dispute as an advocate for one side or the other.

Mooney ends his treatise with a discussion of what can be done to "strengthen the role of legitimate expertise in informing government decision-making . . . " He has several concrete suggestions ranging from the reestablishment of the Office of Technology Assessment to raising journalistic standards with regard to science. Mooney, in The Republican War on Science and his many essays, provides an excellent example of the highest level of journalistic standards.

I had a little trouble with the title of Mooney's book because of my desire that many Republicans read it without starting off in a defensive posture. But, as an old marketing guy, I do understand how this title will likely maximize readership.

I could say much more about Mooney's informative and readable book. But the goal of this review is to get you to read it. Your time in reading will be well rewarded.

You can visit Chris Mooney's website to learn still more about him and his new book.

Other Voices
Comments, Appraisals, Adaptations, and Interviews (in more or less reverse chronological order, i.e. more recent first):

Crooked Timber (review)

Grains of Sand (review)

Princeton Progressive Nation (review)

Thought Mechanics (interview)

Wired News (review)

Center for Regulatory Effectiveness (review - somewhat mixed)

Crooked Timber (comment at end of longer post)

Leiter Reports (brief comment)

Boston Globe (adaptation)

Campus Progress (interview)

Bulletin of the Atomic Scientist (extended version of chapter 3)

The American Prospect (a version of chapter 11)

The Saint Pleasant and Alma Michigan Morning Sun (review)

Rock Creek Rambler (review)

Contrary Brin (Part I) (Part II) (somewhat mixed reviews)

Butterflies and Wheels (short review)

What's New by Bob Park (comment)

Pharyngula (a detailed review) (also posted on The American Street)

Pharyngula (a passing comment)

Cosmic Variance (Sean Carroll) (comment)

The New Yorker (Hetrzberg) (extended comment at the end of a longer article)

Steve's No Direction (brief comment)

Posted by Duane Smith at August 30, 2005 1:26 PM | Read more on Science - General |

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