Assessing Bush Science Advisor’s defense of science funding

By John Timmer | Published: November 04, 2008 - 05:20AM CT

As the Bush Administration draws to a close, it would be no exaggeration to say that the scientific community as a whole is pleased that the era is coming to an end. The President's primary conduit to the scientific community, Presidential Science Advisor John Marburger, however, has taken the opportunity to pen an editorial for physicsworld.com, an online publication of the Institute of Physics. In it, Marburger argues that science has flourished during the Bush years. Marburger has some valid points, but it's worth examining precisely why the scientific community is unlikely to be persuaded by them.

Marburger's perspective in making his argument is primarily budgetary. He notes that the US' R&D budget, as a percentage of discretionary spending, edged up over the eight years of the Bush administration, and now accounts for almost 13 percent of this spending, up from just over 12 percent. For many areas of research, funding outpaced inflation during the past eight years, an especially impressive achievement given the budgetary constraints of the times, according to Marburger. The editorial also highlights how scientific work within the federal government has been reorganized to reflect post-cold war realities.

Why aren't scientists impressed? A lot of the budgetary gains come directly from the decision to double NIH funding over a five year period—a decision made during the Clinton administration. Since that expansion ended, funding for biomedical research has flattened out. Outside of medical and military research, the spending situation has been quite bad (although Congress shares blame for that). Scientists aren't likely to be sympathetic to the challenges posed a tight budget, given that the budget resulted from other policy decisions made by the administration. Of course, bad feelings about budgets will also be exacerbated by the fact that nearly every scientist feels that his or her own area of research is important and tragically underfunded.

But, in reality, Marburger largely elides the more significant issues scientists have with the administration, which largely focus on the fact that it hasn't appeared to place much value on science at all. Marburger himself is viewed as symptomatic of that; his appointment came well after Bush's inauguration, and his positions' status was demoted from cabinet level once he was named. The apparent disinterest in science is generally viewed as having persisted to the very end of the administration—in August, proposed changes to Endangered Species Act reviews would eliminate the scientific review that had previously been part of any protection decisions.

more:
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20081104-assessing-bush-science-advisors-defense-of-science-funding.html

handed over to the "Moon-Mars" program, or the Vision for Space Exploration, or whatever. Basically, science money got cut so Bush could hand subsidies to defense contractors who are building the flawed replacements for the Shuttle, and more billions for the Space Station. (Heard of any good uses for the Space Station lately?)

So it's just possible that Marburger's claims are manipulative BS.

he has actively sabotaged it. He placed political cronies to review and rewrite any scientific conclusions that didn't conform to the administration's agenda. He prevented American scientists from exchanging information with their peers in other countries. He de-funded nearly every major scientific project and eliminated nearly all of NASA's earth observation programs so he could pursue the essentially valueless goals of colonizing the moon and having Americans walk on Mars. And that doesn't even start to address the damage he's done to America's ability to lead the world in such areas as stem cell research and the development of alternative fuels and greater energy efficiencies.

The - Worst - President - Ever - period

Laying off people left and right. Heck of a job BUSHIE!:grr:


In 2006 I worked at NIH and he's a direct quote from the head of my department "We have to beg and grovel for every penny we get because as scientists we are absolutely at the bottom of the barrel for funding from the politicians".