Tuesday, December 19, 2006

"New publishing rules restrict scientists"

Read the full article by JOHN HEILPRIN, ASSOCIATED PRESS via SeattlePI.com, December 13, 2006.

Excerpts:
The Bush administration is clamping down on scientists at the U.S. Geological Survey, the latest agency subjected to controls on research that might go against official policy.

New rules require screening of all facts and interpretations by agency scientists who study everything from caribou mating to global warming. The rules apply to all scientific papers and other public documents, even minor reports or prepared talks, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press.......

The new requirements state that the USGS's communications office must be "alerted about information products containing high-visibility topics or topics of a policy-sensitive nature."

The agency's director, Mark Myers, and its communications office also must be told - prior to any submission for publication - "of findings or data that may be especially newsworthy, have an impact on government policy, or contradict previous public understanding to ensure that proper officials are notified and that communication strategies are developed.".......

At the Environmental Protection Agency, scientists and advocacy groups alike are worried about closing libraries that contain tens of thousands of agency documents and research studies. "It now appears that EPA officials are dismantling what it likely one of our country's comprehensive and accessible collections of environmental materials," four Democrats who are in line to head House committees wrote EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson two weeks ago.

Democrats about to take control of Congress have investigations into reports by The New York Times and other news organizations that the Bush administration tried to censor government scientists researching global warming at NASA and the Commerce Department.


Comment: Administration spokespersons indicate that the new rules are not intended to censor the science, but simply to insure the quality of the USGS scientific products and to alert the public relations folk to publications that might result in a need for their service. It sounds reasonable, except that the scientific community does not trust the political appointees of the Bush Administration (or really any political appointees) to value scientific accuracy more than political expediency. The Bush Administration is especially suspected of politicizing any scientific results that would potentially threaten business profits, as results from environmental science often do. It also is suspect with regard to an science that bears on human reproduction or the evolution versus creationism controversies. JAD

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

To clarify the new requirements of the USGS review system, they have added an additional layer to the system. Scientists in the agency do not protest the peer-review system. Many are editors or reviewers, and embrace that established system in science.

However, they now face a separate (double) review directed by the agency. For example, a scientist's supervisor receives the manuscript and sends it to 2-3 anonymous peer reviews. The scientist must respond to these comments to the satisfaction of the supervisor. Once that is completed, the manuscript is then submitted to a journal where it will be subjected to another set of anonymous peer reviews.

In the past, a scientist could write a report and submit it through channels (supervisor reads it for policy sensitivity and general acceptance). These usually were fast processes. Now, all reports are sent out for anonymous peer review. Many of these reports were studies conducted for another agency and timeliness is important.

These are several points not clearly stated yet.