[Coral-List] Science and advocacy
Steve Kolian
stevekolian at hotmail.com
Thu Aug 2 16:39:34 EDT 2012
Funny...at leaste I think its funny.
http://youtu.be/PjxtytNaXQQ
Best Regards,
Steve Kolian
225-910-0304 cell
> Date: Thu, 2 Aug 2012 16:07:19 -0400
> To: coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov
> From: eshinn at marine.usf.edu
> Subject: [Coral-List] Science and advocacy
>
> There has been much discussion on the subject
> of "agenda-driven/advocacy" science. Doug Fenner
> pretty much led the discussion with an excellent
> essay revealing its complexities (Vol 47, Issue
> 18). It is indeed difficult to see clear
> distinctions between agenda-driven and
> non-agenda-driven science. It seems every subject
> has an agenda and an advocate. Everyone,
> including business or government agencies, has an
> agenda that may be obvious or disguised. The only
> clear distinctions are between basic unfunded
> science (which in itself usually has its own
> agendas) and applied science, which by its very
> nature must have an agenda. We often hide our
> agendas by calling them "hypothesis testing," but
> of course the hypothesis can be considered
> someone's personal agenda.
> Applied science is usually aimed at solving
> a problem for a client. It's my observation that
> if the problem is environmental, the client
> usually gets what he or she pays for. Interpret
> that anyway you like. But it's usually a clean
> bill of health. In most cases, laws and
> regulations mandated by Federal, State, or County
> agencies require such studies. They are required
> before a person, business, or agency can proceed
> with a proposed project that is perceived to have
> environmental impact. Examples include nourishing
> beaches, building bridges, or drilling wells,
> etc. Who conducts the study usually has to be
> either a state or federally certified operator or
> be employed by a university. The researcher
> conducting the study may also legally do the
> study if employed by a Federal, State, or County
> agency. When the researcher is a government
> employee (whether Federal or State), it is
> usually required that he or she be employed by an
> agency different from the one requiring the work,
> a good way to spread the blame or praise.
> It is generally considered a conflict of
> interest if the researcher is an employee of the
> same agency for which the research is being
> conducted. Unfortunately, such conflicts of
> interest are not uncommon. But the situation can
> become even more convoluted. Even if the
> researcher is not employed by the agency
> requiring the work, the agency can still
> influence research results. For example, suppose
> Agency "A" puts out a request for research (RFP).
> The researcher at Agency "B" (or university) will
> have a pretty good feeling for what will be
> funded and what will not be funded. The way the
> RFP is written usually spells out the needs. The
> agency putting up the money further influences
> what they get by selecting the proposals that
> best suit their needs and rejecting those that do
> not. A committee usually makes the
> determinations. This is simple human nature, but
> the results can still be considered
> "agenda-driven" because Agency "A" still gets the
> results it wants. The results are often used to
> support a perceived problem and/or a resulting
> regulation. For example, if a regulatory agency
> wants to conserve or regulate the taking of a
> fish or bird, it is clearly an agenda. After all,
> regulatory agencies were created to carry out
> such agendas, some of which have popular support
> and some of which do not. Such agencies are
> therefore most likely to support research that
> coincides with their law-given agenda. Legalities
> also come into play. Don't forget that the
> lawyers need their share. No matter how obvious
> it may be that corals are dying, for legal
> reasons a scientific study to prove they are
> dying has to be conducted because there may be a
> lawsuit and the case goes to court. Also for
> public-relations reasons, an agency will look
> better if it can say they use the best science to
> guide their regulatory decisions. The scientists
> often have to pick and choose between being used
> as a pawn or doing something else. Those with
> strong feelings about a particular organism
> (advocating or striving for research funds) may
> willingly do the required science. Others may
> choose to stay clear of such agenda-driven
> science. A person's decision to avoid
> agenda-driven science is simply expressing
> his/her own personal agenda. It is becoming an
> increasingly more complicated situation for
> environmental science as more and more people
> enter the field.
> There is a wonderful old story about how
> science can be manipulated that is repeated
> below. Remember that it was Leo Szilard that
> convinced Albert Einstein to write the letter to
> President Franklin Roosevelt that led to creation
> of the Manhattan Project and thus the Atomic
> Bomb. Now here is the story:
>
> In the April 8, 2002 Chemistry and
> Engineering News (vol. 80, no. 4, p. 42), there
> is a story titled, Politics, Culture, and
> Science: The Golden Age Revisited, by Allen J.
> Bard. The story is his acceptance speech for
> receiving the Priestley Medal for chemistry. As
> the title suggests, he devotes a lot of the
> article to how-it-used-to-be, when kids could
> have Gilbert Chemistry sets and other toys now
> banned for being considered unsafe. Further in
> his acceptance speech he says, and I quote, "The
> situation is approaching that envisioned by Leo
> Szilard in 1948 in his amusing story, The Mark
> Gable Foundation, where the hero, sometime in the
> future, is asked by a wealthy entrepreneur, who
> believes that science has progressed too quickly,
> "what could he do to retard this progress." The
> hero answers:
> "You could set up a foundation, with an
> annual endowment of thirty million dollars.
> Researchers in need of funds could apply for
> grants, if they could make a convincing case.
> Have ten committees, each composed of twelve
> scientists, appointed to pass on these
> applications. Take the most active scientists out
> of the laboratory and make them members of these
> committees. ŠFirst of all, the best scientists
> would be removed from their laboratories and kept
> busy on committees passing on applications for
> funds. Secondly the scientific worker in need of
> funds would concentrate on problems that were
> considered promising and were pretty certain to
> lead to publishable resultsŠ By going after the
> obvious, pretty soon science would dry out.
> Science would become something like a parlor
> gameŠ There would be fashions. Those who followed
> the fashions would get grants. Those who wouldn't
> would not."
>
> That story was written 64 years ago, just 2
> years before creation of the National Science
> Foundation in 1950. NSF currently receives 40,000
> grant applications each year and has an annual
> budget of $7.03 billion.
> One can easily come to the conclusion that
> all science is in some way advocating and or
> agenda-driven. I used to think that social and
> medical research was pure and aimed only at
> curing human ills, but now we often read of
> scandals involving bogus data while lurking in
> the background is Big Pharma. Nevertheless, I
> think we all look up to medical science as an
> honorable profession.
> I conclude that pure non-agenda science is
> generally a myth. Agendas simply come in various
> degrees of social acceptance. Gene
>
> --
>
>
> No Rocks, No Water, No Ecosystem (EAS)
> ------------------------------------ -----------------------------------
> E. A. Shinn, Courtesy Professor
> University of South Florida
> College of Marine Science Room 221A
> 140 Seventh Avenue South
> St. Petersburg, FL 33701
> <eshinn at marine.usf.edu>
> Tel 727
> 553-1158----------------------------------
> -----------------------------------
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