Olivia Judson, a research fellow in biology at Imperial College London, offers insightful commentary on science in columns regularly published in The New York Times. In her column titled “Back to Reality” published 2 December 2008, Ms. Judson writes:
“President-elect Obama already has a long to-do list. But here’s another item for it: to restore science in government.”
“The most notable characteristic of the Bush administration’s science policy has been the repeated distortion and suppression of scientific evidence in order to fit ideological preferences about how the world should be, rather than how it is.” read more | K. Lee Lerner’s comment
I hope all of this begins to change on inauguration day!
Michelle’s point is valid. However, even critics of the most invasive data sifting programs have to admit that if such technology was not developed by the U.S., it would be developed by others (perhaps to be deployed for industrial spying). The questions facing the Obama administration are how (or whether) to deploy such technologies in light of our Western ideals and the evolving notions of personal privacy.
True enough that science has suffered under Bush, but what the pundits miss is that such abuse is routine (and far worse) throughout most of the world.
The obstructions to science research under Bush were really rather selective. Fields and research projects that could in any way be classified as “anti-terrorism” generally flourished.