Many of you might not be aware of a relatively new effort by the Center for American Progress called Science Progress. An experiment, of sorts, Science Progress “proceeds from the propositions that scientific inquiry is among the finest expressions of human excellence, that it is a crucial source of human flourishing, a critical engine of economic growth, and must be dedicated to the common good.” Indeed!
Truth be told, I wrote a piece for Science Progress in October on the removal of all specific references to the potential health impact of global warming in CDC Director Julie Gerberding’s Senate testimony in a hearing on…the health impacts of global warming!
I have been most impressed by the thought and care in the pieces that have appeared since their launch. For example, their current piece on rethinking priorities at NASA by Drew Baden, the Chair of the Physics at the University of Maryland, really puts perspective on the agencies activities and the, at times, odd use of the agency for political gain by the Administration. Baden puts it best: “There are no burning scientific questions that scientists around the world are clamoring to know about that can only be answered by sending humans to the moon or Mars.”
Another recent piece by Chris Mooney asks why we have not seen more Congressmen and Senators clamoring for the return of the Office of Technology Assessment (OTA), which was killed by wrongheaded ideology in 1995. In the piece, Mooney interviews Rep. Rush Holt (D-NJ), a former physicist, and reveals that funding for OTA was actually included, but then removed from the Legislative appropriations bill. “Someone actually said to me this year, when OTA was in and then taken out of the appropriations, they said, ‘Well, we’ve already done some things for scientists this year.’ How was this not big news in the science journals? It was in the bill? Then it was removed because it is viewed as a gift to scientists? I am still trying to wrap my head around how a technology assessment branch of Congress is a gift to scientists. Earth to journalists asleep at the wheel…this is important.
Science Progress doesn’t seem to be shying away from controversial issues either. A piece by Wayne Shields and Rivka Gordon of the Association of Reproductive Health Professionals takes aim at the controversial appointment of Dr. Susan Orr to the position of acting deputy secretary for the Office of Population Affairs, the office charged with running a federal program provides birth control and family planning to more than 5 million low-income Americans. Dr Orr had previously referred to contraception as part of a “culture of death.” “Dr. Orr does not have a medical degree and has no direct experience in family planning. Her public statements indicate a lack of experience and an ideologically-based commitment to extreme points of view that bring into question her qualifications for the job and her ability to objectively assess and apply accepted best practices in health care to Federal policy,” write Shields and Gordon. FYI: This was actually the second controversial appointment to the position. Dr. Orr’s predecessor Dr. Eric Keroack, a non-board certified gynecologist, had received “two formal warnings from the Massachusetts board of medicine ordering him to refrain from prescribing drugs to people who are not his patients and from providing mental health counseling without proper training.” Nice.
Keep an eye on this journal. They’re certainly keeping an eye out for us.
