Push for Kerry by Scientists Draws Republican Ire

Physicist Burton Richter was in his office at SLAC, both growling and laughing as he was read a comment from powerful Michigan Republican Congressman Nick Smith that described the Nobel laureate as a “passionate liberal ideologue.” Representative Smith, chairman of the House Research Subcommittee, released a statement attacking Richter as part of the Republican response to a 21 June letter from 48 Nobel Prize winners highly critical of the Bush administration’s science policies. The Nobel letter went on to endorse Senator John Kerry (D-MA) for president.

But Richter was in good company. Smith, trying to blunt the impact of the letter, went on to say that although the “Nobel Prize winning endorsers” claim to be “speaking on behalf of the welfare of science and discovery itself,” it is “clear that these scientists are, collectively, also passionate liberal ideologues with an extensive record of support for the Democratic Party.”

“It’s unfortunate,” Richter said, “that [Smith] reads ideological differences into some rational opposition to the administration’s policies.” Richter went on to say that the last time he had dinner at the White House was at the invitation of President Ronald Reagan. He also noted that he’d published an opinion piece supporting Bush’s withdrawal from the Kyoto accords on global warming—hardly the action of a liberal ideologue.

Richter, the former head of SLAC, has spent years in Washington’s corridors of power encouraging lawmakers to support SLAC, particle physics programs in general, and, more recently, the Department of Energy’s Office of Science. He is one of a handful of politically savvy, elite scientists who, having grown so alarmed at the administration’s handling of just about every aspect of science and science policy, are trying to mobilize the broader science community into a political movement.

Administration officials have responded by saying that science is flourishing and the scientists are simply wrong. The activist scientists have countered by intensifying their criticism and, recently, urging colleagues to vote for Kerry. And that, in turn, has triggered the charges of partisanship and the use of “liberal” as a dirty word by Smith and other Republicans to describe scientists.

The 48 Nobelists’ signatures on the Kerry endorsement letter were gathered over 10 days by a small group of scientists including Richter, former National Institutes of Health Director and Nobel winner Harold Varmus, Nobel laureate and MIT chemist Mario Molina, Federation of American Scientists (FAS) President and former Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) Deputy Director Henry Kelly, and MIT physicist and former DOE Undersecretary Ernest Moniz.

The Nobel laureates’ endorsement of Kerry is one part of the movement against the administration; the other is the recent Union of Concerned Scientists reports attacking the administration for what the UCS sees as systematic abuse of the scientific process. (The Nobelists and UCS officials are not working together, Richter said.) The first UCS report, released in February, claimed that the Bush administration had, “among other abuses, suppressed and distorted scientific analysis from federal agencies, and taken actions that have undermined the quality of scientific advisory panels.” A letter supporting the UCS, signed by 62 “preeminent scientists,” including 20 Nobel laureates, accompanied the report (see Physics Today, April 2004, page 30 ).

Charges disputed

OSTP Director John Marburger dismissed all of the UCS allegations and issued a report to Congress disputing the charges (see Physics Today, May 2004, page 29 ). On 8 July, about four months after its first report, the UCS released another one renewing and expanding its attacks on the administration. More than 4000 scientists, including dozens of Nobel laureates and National Medal of Science recipients, have signed a UCS statement of concern.

Marburger responded essentially as he had the first time, saying the latest UCS report made “sweeping generalizations based on a patchwork of disjointed facts and accusations that reach conclusions that are wrong and misleading.” He noted, as he has many times, that Bush has increased federal R&D spending by 44% since fiscal year 2001 to a record $132 billion in the FY 2005 budget request. Richter, UCS officials, and many other scientists point out that most of that money is going into defense, particularly weapons development. With the exception of the doubling of the NIH budget, a process that began in the last two years of the Bill Clinton administration, much basic research funding—particularly for the physical sciences—has barely kept pace with inflation.

As the passions increase, the substance of the arguments is becoming almost beside the point, as evidenced by Smith’s response to the July UCS report. He said the report was “funded by liberal foundations such as the Barbra Streisand Foundation,” then went on to link the scientists with the singer. “Just as Barbra Streisand is a liberal activist who also happens to be a famous singer, those that have signed onto these [UCS] accusations are nothing more than liberal activists who also happen to be famous scientists.”

For Varmus, two themes pervade the political mobilization of scientists. The first concerns “the undermining of a tradition … in which the government has sought nonpartisan advice to formulate policies,” Varmus said. “What we’ve applauded through a series of administrations, either Republican or Democratic, including the administration of Mr. Bush’s father, was a process in which scientific advice was sought independent of political leanings.” That isn’t happening in the current administration, he added.

The other theme, Varmus said, “is the support of Mr. Kerry, which is based both on our concern about the way in which science is being dealt with, but more importantly for a lot of us, includes the way in which this government has gone to war in Iraq, and the way in which many social and economic issues are being presented.” In this argument Varmus is going beyond the comfort level of some of his colleagues, who want to keep the discussion focused strictly on science. But for Varmus, “this election is so important for science and for the whole nation that we’ve got to be taking a stand if we have any influence over others. I feel strongly enough that I don’t care what other people think.”

Like Varmus, Kelly cites the role of science policy advice in the administration as a critical problem. “It has declined,” he said. Kelly is also concerned about the funding of science, particularly the administration’s projections for the next few years (see accompanying story on page 32). Kelly’s list goes on and includes the visa problems faced by foreign scientists trying to enter the US and the intrusion of politics into stem-cell research. “Taken together,” he said, “these are things where even the person most determined to stay out of politics is drawn in.”

Of the prominent scientists who have publicly criticized the administration, Kelly said, “for things to get bad enough for them to come out and not only make public statements but be politically active and support a political candidate, I don’t know of any precedent for it. Many of these people are active scientists who are in the middle of their careers, and this is a gutsy thing for these guys to do.”

At the center of the storm is Marburger, who has been defending an administration record that Kelly, Richter, and many others say is indefensible. “I haven’t been particularly impressed by the content of the reply,” Kelly said of Marburger’s blanket rejection of the UCS charges.

Varmus was sympathetic to what many scientists see as Marburger’s plight. “I think he’s fighting a losing battle,” Varmus said. “He’s the guy with his finger in the dike, and his finger isn’t big enough.”

Richter was both amused and annoyed by charges from Vice President Dick Cheney’s office that of the 48 Nobel laureates who signed the Kerry endorsement letter, 16 had contributed to Democratic candidates at some point in their lives. “I observed that you didn’t have to be a Nobel laureate to figure out that 32 of them didn’t contribute to Democrats,” Richter said, “which didn’t make it sound to me like it was a very partisan group.”