Political Interference with Scientific Committees by Bush Administration
[The Bushies are playing politics with science in an unprecedented fashion. The backlash is only beginning. -Thomas]
>Delivered-To: dfarber+@ux13.sp.cs.cmu.edu
>Date: Mon, 13 Oct 2003 09:42:31 -0500
>From: Don Norman
>Subject: Political interference with scientific committees
>To: dave@farber.net
>Organization: Nielsen Norman group
>
>Dave
>
>Four colleagues of mine, all members of the National Research Council’s
>Committee on Human factors, have written an article to be published in the
>Bulletin of the Human factors and Ergonomics Society, critical of the way
>that the current government is interfering with the selection of scientific
>experts on study panels. I think it deserves the wide circulation and
>discussion your list generates. Alas, the article is really long, much
>longer than the normal material you circulate. And it is not available on a
>website. (I do have their permission to forward it to you.)
>
>I have pasted article from the Word file below. Do with it as you will.
>
>Don
>
>Donald A. Norman
>Nielsen Norman Group http://www.nngroup.com
>norman@nngroup.com http://www.jnd.org
>Prof. Computer Science and Psychology
>Northwestern University, norman@northwestern.edu
>—————————
>
>Defending the Independence of the
>Science of Human Factors and Ergonomics
>
>By Raja Parasuraman, Peter Hancock, Robert Radwin, and William Marras
>
>
>This article continues the occasional series of reports on the activities of
>the National Research Council (NRC) Committee on Human Factors (CoHF). The
>CoHF is a standing committee of the National Academy of Sciences established
>to advise the federal government on various policy matters involving Human
>Factors and Ergonomics (HF/E). In this report we discuss recent developments
>concerning the imposition by the current administration of a political
>agenda upon the deliberations of science in general, and HF/E in particular.
>These disturbing developments raise a number of serious concerns that
>threaten the independence of the science of HF/E.
>
>The goal of politics is the pursuit of justice through the exercise of
>shared power. The goal of science is the search for empirical truth. In
>principle, politics shares that goal. In theory science informs public
>policy decisions that are legislated; in practice, politicians often focus
>on the exercise of shared power. As a result, many feel that science and
>politics should be kept separated as much as is feasible, as in the
>separation of Church and State. Yet, in the past there have been political
>decisions that were made contingent upon information derived from the
>scientific state-of-the-art. At the same time, scientific study is not
>possible without drawing on the popular purse-the taxpayer’s dollar-which is
>under the control of politicians. Much as some would like to maintain a
>pristine separation between science and politics, therefore, there is
>inevitable interaction, which must as a consequence, be monitored carefully.
>As scientists we are often loath to do this, for it means leaving the ivory
>tower of academia to sample the perceived muddy waters of politics.
>
>Recent events indicate that we must do so. The events are disturbing because
>they seriously threaten the independence of the science and practice of
>HF/E. Our purpose here is not simply to apprise the membership of these
>developments but to solicit their active response to this situation, which
>we believe represents a dangerous trend that must be systematically opposed.
>
>In science, the degree to which one’s opinion is influential is (or at least
>should be) contingent upon how one’s ideas and notions conform to testable
>reality. Politicians sometimes create the reality for themselves and the
>power of opinion is contingent upon just that-power. Over the centuries, we
>have collectively observed the disastrous outcome when power seeks to
>impress its opinion on reality. From the inquisition of Galileo, through the
>famines of Lysenkoism, to the more recent pithy observations of Richard
>Feynman on the ‘Challenger’ disaster, we know that when political expediency
>triumphs over scientific knowledge we have trodden the first steps along the
>road to failure. It is not up to politicians to recognize this (after all,
>they are politicians). It is up to scientists to continuously bring this
>recipe for disaster before the public eye and this we seek to do here.
>
>
>A Dangerous Trend
>
>As described in the 15th November, 2002, issue of the journal Science
>(Ferber, 2002), the current administration has engaged in political
>screening of appointees to peer review study sections that are charged with
>evaluating the scientific merits of research proposals on HF/E issues in the
>workplace. One of the primary funding sources for research in HF/E is the
>National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH). Scientific
>proposals are reviewed by their different study sections which include those
>that examine occupational injuries. The Department of Health and Human
>Services which oversees these efforts has been accused of partisan actions.
>Specifically, “the department has rejected three people who were proposed by
>science administrators at the National Institute of Health (NIH) which
>manages the study section - “at least one” for her support of an ergonomics
>rule that was overturned last year by the Bush Administration.” The article
>goes on to indicate who these individuals were and further discusses the
>process of ’screening’ whereby potential study section members were quizzed
>as to their political opinions prior to appointment-or not. Of course, these
>activities go to the very heart of scientific independence. However, if this
>were only one case it might be an individual outlier and represent an
>exception. Unfortunately, this is not so (Rosenthal et al, 2002). There is
>now mounting evidence of systematic attempts to infiltrate political opinion
>into scientific deliberation.
>
>As one might imagine, this has become an extremely controversial issue with
>the standard fare of accusations and counter-accusations whirling around the
>political scene (see Weiss, 2003). However, when prestigious scientific
>journals such as Science, Nature, and the New England Journal of Medicine
>express significant concern, we can see the HF/E issue as only one amongst
>many threats to the impartiality of scientific information. The editors of
>the Lancet are quoted as warning against the “growing evidence of explicit
>vetting of appointees to influential [scientific] panels on the basis of
>their political or religious opinions.” In part response to this concern,
>the CoHF, of which one of us (R.P.) is Chair, recently prepared a letter to
>Bruce Alberts, the President of the National Academy of Sciences, in order
>to express the present concerns. It reads, in part “Science must not be
>contaminated by politics. Our concern is with the precedent that such
>actions set. If these trends are allowed to continue, it is clear that
>science in our country will not be influenced by appropriate evaluations
>that are consistent with the scientific process and an essential search for
>truth, but rather will evolve to become an appendage to the opinion of
>whatever political faction temporarily holds sway” (Parasuraman, 2003).
>
>When political pressure infiltrates the peer review process by excluding
>otherwise qualified scientists because of their political views, by
>”stacking the deck” with only those scientists who support the current
>Administration’s political agenda, the scientific process becomes
>contaminated. Such single-sided bias in the selection of scientific juries
>inhibits the greater good of the pursuit of knowledge and suppression of
>scientific inquiry in certain areas by making political agendas part of the
>scientific review.
>
>The poet W. H. Auden wrote that, “The belief that politics can be scientific
>must inevitably produce tyrannies. Politics cannot be a science, because in
>politics theory and practice cannot be separated, and the sciences depend
>upon their separation…. Empirical politics must be kept in bounds by
>democratic institutions, which leave it up to the subjects of the experiment
>to say whether it shall be tried, and to stop it if they dislike it,
>because, in politics, there is a distinction, unknown to science, between
>Truth and Justice.”
>
>In this short article we cannot examine all the ramifications of the issue,
>but we wished first to bring the seriousness of the situation to the
>membership. Simple protest may be insufficient. One important question that
>emerges is “What can we as a professional Society do in the face of these
>developments?” The corollary is to examine what individual concerned
>scientists can do about such growing infringements.
>
>A Path Ahead
>
>Our aim in this article has been simply to point out the threat to the
>independence of the science of HF/E. We wish to allay the fears of any
>members by categorically stating that we are not engaged in a partisan
>effort. Our concern here is not with one particular administration as
>compared to another. Rather, our defense of science is without concern for
>specific incumbents since we would expect to protect the independence of
>science regardless of the stripe of those who held political power. Whenever
>this threat arises, which it does quite frequently, it is our responsibility
>for the greater good to protect the purity of process as much as is
>possible. Not in response to the momentary vagaries of any one political
>situation but for the fundamental betterment of all. In large part
>politicians come from a background in law where precedent holds significant
>sway and all is open to dispute. Science shares some of these
>characteristics. However, in respect of certain fundamental properties of
>reality, our knowledge is sufficiently sure that disputes, while always
>still possible, are largely puerile. An argument in science is not judged by
>its polemic qualities but by the degree to which it accords with empirical
>evidence. If certain politicians believe they can judge the issues of
>science from their own reference frame, they are sadly misinformed and our
>whole Society will pay a bitter price for such misjudgments.
>
>Our Society and all HF/E professionals in general would do well to monitor
>how other organizations, including scientific societies are addressing this
>matter. For example, the Public Policy Office of the American Psychological
>Association has examined some of the issues concerning the appointment of
>scientists to advisory boards and study panels. There is also an ongoing
>investigation of the issues surrounding appointments to advisory councils
>that is being conducted by the Government Accounting Office (GAO). The GAO
>has defined 3 researchable questions that will guide their investigation:
>(1) What is the role of advisory councils government-wide in helping shape
>policies and regulations? (2) What policies and procedures are in place to
>ensure that advisory councils provide balanced advice? (3) Are there any
>improvements to be made in those policies and procedures? The GAO report,
>due in January 2004, will provide recommendations pertaining to the
>questions and may identify some of the actions that could be taken to avoid
>future allegations of inappropriate vetting of scientific advisors seeking
>appointment to advisory panels. Individuals who may have information
>relevant to this issue may wish to contact the GAO as they conduct their
>investigation. As these and other organizations look at the issues more
>closely, procedures for assuring that future scientific appointments are
>made in a fair and politically neutral way may emerge (Kennedy, 2003).
>
>In Conclusion
>
>The suppression of empirical truth in any form is anathema to science. When
>science is invoked in any fashion to inform public decision making, the
>critical premise is that no such suppression has occurred. Attempts to
>pervert scientific input and promote partisan interests may succeed on a
>very brief time scale. This could accrue through the control or banning of
>dissenting opinion (see Michaels et al, 2002). However, the long-term costs
>of such a strategy are catastrophic. History tells us that the Empires of
>the past have fallen in ever shorter time frames. The current world
>leadership of the United States is predicated upon its technical superiority
>founded upon its pre-eminence in scientific achievement. Political
>interference to the process of scientific arbitration, whilst possibly
>viewed by certain politicians as a pragmatic necessity, is a sure recipe for
>disaster. There is no quicker way for America to lose its status in the
>world than to poison the wells of Science. The actions that have been taken
>by the present incumbents and noted here are sadly evident of this
>miscalculation. Hopefully, our collective voice can dissuade those presently
>in power from this tragic course.
>
>References
>
>
>Auden, W. H. (1970). “Tyranny,” A Certain World, New York, Viking Press.
>
>Ferber, D. (2002). HHS intervenes in choice of study section members.
>Science, 298, 1323.
>
>Kennedy, D. (2003). “Well they were doing it too.” Editorial, Science, 302,
>17.
>
>Michaels, D., Bingham, E., Boden, L., Clapp, R., Goldman, L.R., Hoppin, P.,
>Krimsky, S., Monforton, C., Ozonoff., & Robbins, A. (2002). Advice without
>dissent. Science, 298, 703.
>
>Parasuraman, R. (2003). Issues of scientific integrity and political
>interference. Letter prepared to Bruce Alberts, President of the National
>Academy of Sciences, Washington, DC.
>
>Rosenthal, M.B., Berndt, E.R., Donohue, J.M., Frank, R.G., & Epstein, A.M.
>(2002). Promotion of prescription drugs to consumers. New England Journal of
>Medicine, 346 (7), 498-505.
>
>Weiss, R. (2003). Bush misuses science, report says. Washington Post, August
>8th, 2003, A15.
>
>Raja Parasuraman, Ph.D. is Professor of Psychology at the Catholic
>University of America, Washington DC.
>
>Peter Hancock, Ph.D. is Professor of Psychology at the University of Central
>Florida, Orlando, FL.
>
>Robert Radwin, Ph.D. is Professor of Biomedical Engineering at the
>University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI.
>
>William Marras, Ph.D. is Professor of Industrial Engineering at Ohio State
>University, Columbus, OH.
>
>All four authors of this article are members of the NRC Committee on Human
>Factors. Thanks to Anne Mavor, Staff Director of the CoHF, and Geoff
>Mumford, Director for Science Policy of the Public Policy Office of the
>American Psychological Association, for their helpful comments.
