1. When politics meets science

POSTED 5 NOV 2004

1. When politics meets science

4. Nothing but politics?

Has science become politicized? Or has it always been political?

By suggesting that Earth revolved around the sun, Galileo Galilei became a hero of science -- and was punished by the Catholic Church. Guess what: The debate between science and society is not over. Not by a long shot!

AP Photos: Kerry photo on left, Bush on right The election is over, more or less
With the closest and bitterest election in memory a close and bitter memory, we Why Filers wanted to think about a topic that's usually beyond the political arena: politics and science. When was the last time a scientific issue like stem cells played such a starring role in an election?

There was also the Nobel-novelty: in February, 48 Nobel prize-winners charged that the Bush Administration had distorted science and made politically biased appointments to influential scientific posts. Critics have also charged that the administration has ignored the reality of global warming and edited health advice about AIDS and contraception to satisfy its political constituents.

On the Sunday before the election, James Hansen, a NASA employee who has been at the forefront of global warming research for 20 years, said he'd been told by NASA chief Sean O'Keefe, not to discuss global warming in public.

Definitely give us your poor, your tired and your huddled masses, but let's debate some more about who can do what with stem cells. Stem cell graphic University of Wisconsin Embryonic Stem Cell Research. Patriotic poster by Paul Stahl, ca. 1917-18 from National Archives.

The story reinforced "The Bush Administration's well-deserved reputation for tailoring scientific information to fit its political agenda," according to the New York Times (see "Subverting Science" in the bibliography).

We don't claim science played a larger role in the billion-buck election than war, terror or misleading ads, but the ferocious debate got us wondering:

What is behind the charges that the Bush administration has distorted and politicized science?

Doesn't every administration play politics with science?

Is science an impartial search for truth, an amoral pursuit of knowledge, or a political-social creation?

Does science have any existence outside of politics, or is it fundamentally a "social construct?"

What is what with the stem-cell debate?

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Megan Anderson, project assistant; Terry Devitt, editor; S.V. Medaris, designer/illustrator; David Tenenbaum, feature writer; Amy Toburen, content development executive