How concerned are visitors to this site about this issue, given the recent publicity surrounding James Hansen, the prominent NASA climate scientist ?
In January it was reported that the NASA public affairs staff had been ordered to review Hansen’s public statements and control journalist access to him, with the effect of altering or suppressing his findings.
After some quick internet searches I learned that such events are far more widespread than I thought. Information available at sites including the American Association for the Advancement of Science and National Academy of Sciences reveals numerous similar occurrences. In fact Bill McKibben’s The End of Nature describes an attempt by the White House in 1989 to alter Hansen testimony on climate change.
1 comment
April 11th, 2006 at 4:43 pm
Richard
Update:
I seem to have understated the case. The main investigative committee in the U.S. House of Representatives released a report on political interference in science in 2003, which details scores of such incidents.
In a 2003 editorial on the subject in the journal “Science”, its editor-in-chief wrote “What is unusual about the current epidemic is… the way it now invades areas once immune to this kind of manipulation”.
And the Union of Concerned Scientists has scientific integrity as one of its main initiatives.