Nature looks hopefully at US election-season technopolitics
DOI: 10.1063/PT.4.0148
A long news feature, an editorial, and two commentaries enlivened the 27 September issue of Nature with partially optimistic election-year thoughts and reporting about the mixing of science and US politics.
The long news story , a comprehensive review of Obama-era federal science, crystallizes its message in its final line: In ‘sharp contrast to the soaring rhetoric and bold plans of 2008,’ it asserts, President Obama in his recent Democratic convention speech ‘didn’t make any big promises’ when it comes to science. But Nature credits him with some successes and almost praises him outright for his active interest and efforts. The story quotes Michael Lubell of the American Physical Society: ‘This guy likes science.’
The piece emphasizes, in part with a full-page sidebar, that Obama appointed a ‘dream team'—'a star-studded science team'—of ‘stellar scientists’ to important positions: physicist John Holdren as presidential science adviser, physics Nobel laureate Steven Chu as secretary of energy, geophysicist Marcia McNutt at the US Geological Survey, marine ecologist Jane Lubchenco at the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, geneticist Francis Collins at the National Institutes of Health, and chemical engineer Lisa Jackson at the Environmental Protection Agency.
The piece declares that in response to those appointments, scientists and environmentalists ‘swooned,’ for ‘they had spent 8 years complaining that the administration of President George W. Bush had overly politicized science,’ and now they ‘would finally have a president who not only said the right things but actually appointed the right people. Even journalists drooled.’
But the next paragraph begins, ‘The love affair would soon cool, however, as the Obama administration started to hit a number of obstacles.’ The piece reports on
- Chu’s struggles with clean-energy ventures including Solyndra,
- the failures in climate-war politics that led to the president’s having to fly to the Copenhagen global-warming summit ‘empty-handed,’
- the elimination of NASA’s big-rocket Constellation program, contributing to making NASA ‘an agency adrift,’ and
- the setbacks that accompanied the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, which was said to be ‘Obama’s Hurricane Katrina’ in that it ‘raised questions about the president’s commitment to scientific integrity’ in federal agencies.
In a sidebar on scientific integrity, the article laments that a ‘drive to put science above politics has hit some rough patches.’
The article comes back to Chu and calls the Advanced Research Projects Agency–Energy ‘one of the success stories.’ And it reports the view of science-policy observer Roger Pielke Jr that Obama has ‘proved himself to be a policy pragmatist who is more interested in achieving modest goals than in shooting for the Moon.’
Nature‘s editorial and two commentaries dwell on the theme of scientists’ involvement in politics, as introduced on a general overview page :
Science and politics are uneasy bedfellows. The first is built on evidence and objectivity; the second thrives on opinion and persuasion. Nowhere is that relationship more fraught than in the United States, where the need to win votes can trump scientific evidence on issues such as climate change and public health—and where scientists may have little sympathy for political give and take.
The editorial wonders whether a reelected President Obama would ‘have the energy to tackle climate':
Given the toxic political atmosphere surrounding the November elections, it is perhaps understandable that the administration, Democrats and even some environmentalists are saying little about global warming. But by failing to speak out, they have often ceded the airwaves to deniers. Although polling shows that almost two-thirds of US citizens support some kind of action on global warming, law-makers in Washington DC are back to debating the validity of climate science. The United States needs leadership that is willing and able to uphold and act on the science.
If Obama wins a second term, he will need to take on the political opposition and bring apparently disparate interests together.
Both commentaries are by politics-minded scientists. Physicist-congressman Rush Holt (D-NJ) writes under the headline ‘Politicians should think like scientists. ’ He explains:
Scientists, engineers and technologists are not necessarily smarter or wiser than others, but we have many habitual practices of mind that would be valuable in the sluggish legislative process. ‘Scientific thinkers'—and to be clear, not all such thinkers are professional scientists—have a deep appreciation for evidence. They have a realistic understanding of technology’s promises and pitfalls. They work comfortably with estimates and data. They use statistical reasoning. They are more alert to the mental tricks that they, like all humans, play on themselves. Most importantly, they understand that the path towards good solutions is paved with uncertainty, trial and error; that conclusions should be tentative; and that alternative views should be entertained.
Holt goes on to narrate examples. One addresses the challenges of voting technology, where he sees some politicians’ judgment limited by technological unawareness. Another involves scientists’ natural readiness to take the long view that could improve political decisions concerning infrastructure and education. In still another, Holt tells a brief story about the need for basic statistical reasoning:
[My political] colleagues were disregarding the fact that terrorists are exceedingly rare. Since 2001, Muslims have boarded planes in the United States perhaps 50 million times. If officials had screened each of these travellers using a protocol that could detect terrorists with, say, 99.9% accuracy, about 50,000 people would have been wrongly accused of terrorism. Billions of dollars would have been wasted in profiling and detaining innocent people, creating profound distrust among targeted communities. Statistical reasoning would lead one to recognize that this money would be far better devoted to on-the-ground intelligence gathering.
For scientists, Holt prescribes ‘meetings with members of Congress, letters to editors, town halls and other public forums.’
In Nature‘s other commentary , Lawrence Goldstein, a stem-cell biologist at the University of California, San Diego, prescribes much the same. He begins with an anecdote about scientists’ patient, long-term persistence that led to a congressman’s becoming a staunch supporter of biomedical research funding.
‘Developing relationships with potential allies takes surprisingly little time and effort,’ Goldstein asserts. ‘A couple of visits a year to the capitol or a legislator’s local offices, reinforced by the occasional letter, can go a long way towards building a long-lasting rapport.’ He offers what he calls ‘a few simple principles’ for scientists who engage legislators:
It is important to be friendly and informative, and to avoid jargon. People will not care about your message if they cannot understand it: for example, say ‘blood-forming’ instead of ‘haematopoietic’. Also, focus on science during meetings; do not stray to other issues. To avoid seeming parochial, keep conversations in the context of what is good for the nation and society at large; do not talk only about what is good for science and scientists. Bring promising statistics—such as estimates that every dollar the NIH spends on research creates $2.20 in local economic growth, or that gains in average lifespan due to scientific research have added $3.2 trillion a year to the US economy since 1970.
Do not focus solely on lawmakers. Interact also with their staff members, who are usually bright and motivated and can be relied on for information and informal communication throughout the year. Finally, remember that you do not have to be a well-known senior scientist to make an impact. An educated and concerned approach to scientific issues is the most important credential you can bring to a meeting.
Goldstein’s closing caps not just his own piece, but the collection of articles:
As scientists, it is a mistake for us to say we are too busy to reach out to lawmakers. If we do not try, science funding will continue to decrease in the coming years; lawmakers will enact restrictive policies that are not informed by the best scientific information available; and society will be poorer for our absence.
Steven T. Corneliussen, a media analyst for the American Institute of Physics, monitors three national newspapers, the weeklies Nature and Science, and occasionally other publications. He has published op-eds in the Washington Post and other newspapers, has written for NASA’s history program, and is a science writer at a particle-accelerator laboratory.