Kick-off campaign for policy reform proposal for publicly-funded science
July 29, 2010
Dear Friends and colleagues,
As you are all aware, the levels of unrest in the U.S. are reaching unprecedented levels. The conflict of visions between big government and what remains of our free enterprise system is fast approaching the point of no return. One of the most significant aspects of our cultural malaise is the destruction wrought by environmental regulatory policies. In less than 50 years environmentalism has extended its tentacles into every area of our economy and left us with a litany of disasters ranging from the banning of DDT to the fraud of human-induced climate change. Although scientists and others have been fighting the pseudo-science fueling environmentalism for over 25 years, our efforts until the Climategate scandal have only managed to slow the environmental juggernaut, not reverse it. However, with the scandal of Climategate, an unprecedented opportunity for reform has presented itself.
In May 2010 Jay Lehr presented the ideas for reforming grant-funded science in "Saving Science after Climategate: Recovering the Loss of Scientific Credibility" (attached), at the Heartland Institute conference on climate change. Fundamental reforms recommended in the paper included: (1) release of data and protocols at the time of publication (2) transparency in the grant funding process, and (3) Adherence to objectivity in the scientific process. Through the implementation of these ideas, Dr. Lehr and I believe our current system of publicly-funded science will eventually self-correct. (I will also refer to publicly-funded science as grant-funded science, and taxpayer-funded science, and use these terms interchangeably.) The following discussion will elaborate on these ideas and propose a plan to implement them as public policy. By implementing these ideas as public policy, the American people will be saved the largely wasted 100 billion dollars per year in direct expenditures -- as well as several times that amount in indirect costs -- that can consequently be converted into productive scientific endeavors. With the billions saved by ceasing wasteful, and downright pseudo-scientific adventures, we will be placing a jetpack to the U.S. economy, and simultaneously delivering a sledgehammer blow to the encroaching welfare state that is threatening to destroy the U.S.
Those addressed in this communication have professional backgrounds in: science, industry / business, law, and journalism. I hope by including this broad variety of professions that I will receive comments and feedback from a variety of perspectives needed to help fuel this reform effort. In addition, I have addressed several individuals outside the U.S. with this communication, because this crisis extends far beyond our borders. My hope is that if we are successful in the U.S., others will use our approach to achieve similar reforms overseas.
The Current Status of Publicly-funded Science
Climategate has put scientific authorities around the world into "circle the wagons" mode. Three investigations have declared the scientists involved to be free of blame. Fortunately, this farcical whitewash hasn't fooled many people. Lord Oxburgh, for example, who headed one of the so-called "independent" investigations, has known ties to the Carbon Capture and Storage Industry that is slated to receive nearly 250 billion dollars from the Kerry-Lieberman cap and trade bill. David Holland, among others, was not fooled, and his efforts regarding freedom of information paid off in a recent European legal decision. According to Holland:
"This Decision Notice has implications for all European public authorities that are bound by the Directive. In addition to disclosure upon request, public authorities are bound to progressively and proactively disseminate information by electronic means."
Similar efforts to address freedom of information continue in the U.S., so this scandal is far from over, a fact I intend to take maximum advantage of.
The larger cultural picture shows the proponents of Big government also reeling from lack of credibility. The Tea Party movement continues to gain strength and is terrifying the political establishment. Their latest attempt to discredit the Tea Partiers with charges of racism is falling flat as a pancake. Clearly, the American people are open to alternatives to the status quo, and if we take the high road and avoid name calling and other self-defeating tactics, should be able to attract large numbers of people to our perspective in a relatively short period of time.
The Proposed Reform Program
The proposed program for converting "Saving Science After Climategate..." into public policy includes three separate issues:
1) Informing the general public of the nature of the problem of publicly-funded science through: a) blogs and social media such as Facebook, Twitter, etc., (b) working with sympathetic Internet-based journalists and news services, and (c) contacting grassroots portholes of communication such as the Tea Party movement.
2) Identifying a specific vehicle for reform.
This has tentatively been identified as amending the "Grant Performance Act of 1993" to include the activities of grant-funded science.
3) Shaping and driving public opinion to the point that immense pressure is put upon the legislature to enact the specific reforms that we develop in step two.
A vital element of this effort will be a blog specifically set up for this reform effort, to serve as a central organizing hub for our efforts.
Attached to this email is a document (science grant-funding reform.rtf) that summarizes the state of publicly-funded science and presents the purpose of this reform effort. After receiving comments on its content, it can be used as a document for the public kick-off of this reform campaign. Given the current chaos in Washington, we can probably not get this on the docket until after the pending elections, and the new representatives are seated in January 2011. However, between now and then, much needs to be done to advance this reform effort. Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma, the leading climate change skeptic in Congress, should probably be our "go to" guy. Several of you have professional ties to him which I hope to utilize when we have a suitable proposal prepared.
There will be an intense, probably epic, battle over this issue, so every conceivable advantage needs to be employed to achieve victory. Several of you have direct experience with the entrenched scientific establishment and know that by predicting an epic battle, I am not exaggerating. Even so, there is a phenomenon that exists that convinces me that we can triumph in this conflict: the strength of grassroots political movements.
The Nature of Grassroots Political Movements
When I began trying to unravel the abuses of environmentalism in the late 1980s, I concentrated on the "what" and "why." Thanks to the efforts of people such as Edith Efron (The Apocalyptics), Julian Simon (The Ultimate Resource), Petr Beckmann (Access to Energy), Jay Lehr (Rational Readings on Environmental Concerns), and others, I was able, after some years, to understand what had happened, and why. That still left "How do we reform the status quo?" as an open question. After studying this issue for the last six years, I can now confidently say that applying grassroots political pressure is the answer. By studying grassroots efforts in homeschooling, school vouchers, eminent domain disputes, tax revolts, the growing Tea Party movement, as well as overseas efforts such as "The White Rose" in Germany, it has become unmistakably clear to me that when a grassroots movement reaches a certain critical mass, nothing and no one can stand in its way. That includes a deeply entrenched scientific establishment such as the one we will be challenging.
Some Specific Ideas Needed for the Proposed Reform Program
Let me now elaborate on some specific ideas needed for this proposed reform program. To effectively engage the mechanism of self-correction in grant-funded science requires first and foremost, the release of data at the time of publication. Climategate, and the outrageous attempts to conceal data by various parties, has shown us vividly the crucial nature of this issue. Fortunately, in our camp we have a champion of the movement to release scientific data at the time of publication, Dr. Stanley Young. I have had the honor of exchanging correspondence with Dr. Young over a number of months, and he has graciously shared a number of valuable documents concerning the proper release of data, protocols, and related issues. He has also indicated he has a significant interest in this project. With his technical expertise, and leadership, we will be able to craft a powerful, detailed, argument concerning the crucial role of data release at the time of publication.
To address the "objectivity in science" issue, it will probably be advantageous to break it down into smaller parts, such as existing science and future science. Let's start with the future. Induction is a process of generalization used to understand causal connections in unknown phenomenon being studied. It is at the core of all scientific endeavors. Due to the "publish or perish" syndrome, and other maladies caused by the subsidizing of science, statistical manipulation has been largely substituted for the understanding of causal connections in experimental science. That has to change. Fortunately, in addition to his work in data and protocols, Dr. Young, along with Dr. John Ioannidis, have produced several landmark papers exposing how and why statistics have been misused in scientific endeavors. In addition, an important work has recently been published: The Logical Leap: Scientific Induction in Physics, by physicist David Harriman and philosopher Leonard Peikoff, that should serve as a rich source of material for delineating what a genuine process of induction consists of in scientific endeavors. By pinning down the abuses in the area of statistics, as well as stipulating the proper use of induction, we can present a compelling case for what scientific investigations should look like in the future.
One litmus test for good science in the future should be the issue of experimental replication. Believe it or not, vast numbers of scientific studies are being churned out that cannot be replicated, yet are treated as if their results have significance. This is particularly rampant in the field of epidemiology and other health sciences. Here again we will be able to turn to the work of Drs. Young and Ioannidis to shed the needed light on how to prevent this travesty from occurring in the future.
That leaves us with past results. As much as I would like to take 90% of the published papers in environmental science to the nearest blast furnace, I know my little fantasy will not become a reality any time soon. However, the next best thing might be to identify the key feature that makes so many papers in environmental science, and other areas, of such little value. And here we are more fortunate, because the concept operating behind the scenes is the use of the arbitrary. For instance, the cancer scare of the week that the U.S. endured during the 1970s was based on the following arbitrary assumptions:
1) Assuming that animal tests for carcinogens could easily be converted to project accurate risk levels in humans;
2) Assuming there was no threshold (i.e., no amount was safe) for a carcinogen, even though there was no scientific support for this position;
3) Weighing positive studies (i.e., those that suggest a chemical is a carcinogen) much more heavily than negative studies; and
4) Assuming when studies contradict each other, guilt of the chemical in question must be considered much more likely than innocence.
These utterly arbitrary assumptions not only fueled the vast regulatory regime concerning manmade chemicals in the environment, it opened the door to the use of politicized (i.e., arbitrary) science from government regulatory agencies. Very little, if any, of the science produced by the EPA, Air Quality boards, and other regulatory bodies around the U.S. holds up under close scrutiny. However, being aware of this still leaves us with the question: "But how do we get it out of there?" The solution, in a nutshell, goes like this:
Remove the arbitrary, and what remains are valid principles and concepts grounded in reality.
When the grant funding process is opened up to independent scientists willing to challenge reigning paradigms, their results will start contradicting earlier scientific studies. Requiring openness in the grant-funding process will still allow them to receive funding because that same openness will expose biases on the part of grant-funding agencies who deny them funding for anything other than valid scientific reasons. When it comes time for reporting results, if professional publications resist publishing them, scientists may have to go to alternate sources such as less prestigious publications, self-publishing, and even posting on public blogs. However, they should still be able to get follow-up grants-- providing their research is solid -- due to the openness in grant funding provision. It will not be where you publish, but what you publish that matters.
The first few years following the passage of this reform package there will be tremendous upheaval in the scientific community as the previously unchallengeable begins to be challenged. For non-scientists unaware of the paradigms I am referring to, the following is a short list of currently unchallengeable paradigms:
1) Cholesterol and saturated fats cause coronary heart disease.
2) Mutations in genes cause cancer.
3) Human activity is causing global warming through increased CO2 emissions.
4) A virus called HIV causes AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome).
5) The damaging effects of toxins are dose-dependent in a linear fashion down to zero. Even a tiny amount of a toxin, such as radiation or cigarette smoke, will harm some people.
Ridiculous to think of challenging these ideas? There are world-class scientists who believe otherwise, and would very much like to get their views aired.
Publishing in an environment that challenges these and other paradigms will not be for the faint of heart. Politicized science, alarmist science, consensus science, and other related phenomenon run rampant in the scientific community, and challenging them will require some real mental toughness on the part of those venturing into this realm. This is why the intellectual foundation to support their work will need to be in place before these intrepid souls venture into this situation. Many of the scientists I am addressing in this communication have been writing of this issue for years in a variety of publications and venues. Somehow we need to gather this work under one roof and continue to add to it as needed. This is where the scientific blog developed for this reform will be indispensable. One topic that will need to be addressed is an intellectual defense of objective vs. arbitrary science in the reform legislation and how to distinguish one from the other. I will be offering a detailed discussion of this subject to be used in this effort, tentatively titled: "The practicality of principles and their role in combating the arbitrary in scientific endeavors."
As source material for this writing project, I will be drawing heavily on Ayn Rand's work in epistemology (a branch of philosophy dealing with the theory of knowledge). At the age of 25 I first stumbled across her works of fiction and can still remember the intellectually electrifying experience of reading her novels The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged. Even so, in the 28 years since that time, I have come to believe that her work in epistemology is every bit as important as her unforgettable novels. Proper concept formation, induction, and other issues must be elaborated on in detail to help the scientists who will be publishing in a potentially hostile intellectual environment following the passage of any reform legislation. Rand's Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology, as well as other works in the field by her associates such as David Kelley, Harry Binswanger, Leonard Peikoff, and now David Harriman, will provide the needed source material to elaborate on what is, and what is not arbitrary, and give scientists pursuing unpopular lines of thought the intellectual support they need to challenge entrenched ideas. This will be the most challenging writing project of my career, but, fortunately, I'm just crazy enough to relish such an opportunity.
By incorporating these issues into our reform program, we can address: 1) release of data, 2) openness in the funding process, and 3) objectivity in scientific endeavors. These are the core issues that must be addressed to restore the credibility of grant-funded science.
(I'll make a brief note, here, about where I would like science to go in the longer term. Prior to 1950, scientific endeavors in the U.S. were performed predominately with private funding. I would like to see it return to that state of affairs eventually. However, this is a long-term exercise that given the entrenched nature of the scientific establishment, will likely need to occur in several steps. In addition, there are outstanding scientists who do not necessarily share my viewpoint on this issue, so for those of us who wish to sell that long-term proposition, we have a lot of persuasion ahead of us. However, this reform program, although not a complete return to "the old days of science", will represent an enormous improvement in how scientists conduct science, and provide for a vastly improved return on investment for the taxpayer who is ultimately funding such endeavors.)
An Action Plan for Your Consideration
And now for a specific action plan to implement this reform program....
#1 Collect comments and feedback on the proposed program
I hope many of you will have the time to review this email -- as well as the attached public kick-off notice-- and offer comments and suggestions. If I could get those within 3 weeks of your receipt of this, it would be appreciated. Also, if you know of others that would find this program of interest, please feel free to forward it to them.
#2 Determine the optimum vehicle for a reform proposal
The Grant Performance Act of 1993 was passed to develop metrics for art funding. Its purpose was to help evaluate whether the public was getting an adequate return on their tax dollars. The concepts used there may be of use in addressing similar issues in the grant funding of science. I have never written any kind of legislative proposal, so those of you with a legal background, who fell so inclined, feel free to jump in with any advice on how to approach this.
#3 Develop a formal outline and draft of a proposal to be used for the public policy reform
Using the ideas presented in this communication, The Grant Performance Act of 1993, and "Saving Science after Climategate....", I will make a first pass at an outline for the piece of policy reform. A significant amount of material needs to be developed such as details on data and protocols, identifying the arbitrary in science endeavors, etc. I hope that a number of you will offer to help with this, because I cannot do this alone. When we have a satisfactory proposal drafted, we can present our proposal to Senator Inhofe.
#4 Develop a Scientific blog to serve as a central hub of communication with public
This reform proposal will succeed or fail based on our ability to communicate its purpose and specifics with the American public. Although there are many avenues available for garnering public support, a blog that explains the scientific issues may well be the most important. Several of you have mentioned the idea of creating a blog for science issues, so this may be an excellent outlet for you if you have the time. I will be putting in a significant amount of time on this portion of the project, and hope that others of you will consider participating as well.
#5 Launch our campaign with the public and gather grassroots support for it
When we have identified the specifics needed for a legislative proposal -- and developed a sufficient amount of content on the current nature of science and its need of reform --, we can probably begin actively promoting our message with the public. I would suggest we spend the next few months on developing content and organizational aspects of this reform effort before circulating our message with the public. Early November might be a good time to start formally presenting our message to the public. We can put it in the public sphere at that time, and begin building momentum for the new Congress in January 2011. Unless I hear arguments to the contrary, I'll start with that timeframe in mind, and see how things go.
#6 Issue progress reports on reform effort as we move toward passage of new legislation
There will be many changes and modifications along the way as people weigh-in on this program. The means of communicating with interested parties will depend on how many people eventually get involved with this effort. I'll start off by using email, and if it gets too large go to some sort of list serve (I have participated in a technical writing list serve that worked effectively with 5000 people.) Another possibility, if participation gets very large, would be to create a segment of the scientific blog mentioned in action item #4, and use it as a communication vehicle for those actively involved in promoting this effort.
Summary: Why I believe this Reform Effort is Worth Your Time
The elements listed below indicate we have what we need to achieve victory in this reform effort:
A) Climategate has left the scientific status quo reeling from a lack of credibility.
B) The growing grassroots rebellion in the U.S. will change the character of the next U.S. Congress to one which is more open to the ideas contained in this reform effort.
C) World-class scientists are available with the time and energy to explain why scientific reform is needed.
D) A thorough knowledge of how to develop grassroots support is available for our reform effort.
E) The means to gain that grassroots support exists through the use of blogs, Internet media, etc.
Our world is facing three grave threats to its future: (1) collectivist ideologies, most prominently a growing corporate/financial fascism that is warping the institutions of free enterprise beyond recognition,
(2) Environmentalism with its enormously destructive regulations dragging down virtually every aspect of our economy, and (3) Islamic totalitarianism. By successfully enacting this reform program, we will be delivering a thunderous blow to two of these threats, and indirectly greatly improving our chances with the third.
JP Morgan Chase may be the classic example of a company "double dipping" between corporate fascism and environmentalism. Their big mistake was to allow themselves to be sandbagged by a ragtag environmental outfit, the "Rainforest Action Network." This financial peashooter took on a battleship (i.e., JP Morgan Chase) and won because they knew how to accuse Chase of "exploiting the environment." Since JP Morgan Chase had no philosophical response to the charge, they caved in and changed their lending policies to reflect "Green" values. Their reward for this change was needing 29 billion dollars of bailout money, engineered in 2008 by Ben Bernanke, head of the Federal Reserve System. Now as a dutiful lackey of the environmental lobby, they promote Green policies by trotting out their attractive female VP, and concerned mother, Blythe Masters -- with the appropriate weepy-eyed look on the cover of Bloomberg Markets January 2010 edition-- to tell the world that for carbon trading to be a realistic means of combating global warming, "the banking system has to be involved...." What this approach lacks in subtlety, it more than makes up for with its potential for producing vast economic destruction.
By enacting reforms to taxpayer-funded science we can all but destroy the pseudo-intellectual foundation that has underlain environmental alarmist claims, and replace it with one with solid science and pro-human philosophy. This will also put a stop to the creeping fascism that currently relies on that pseudo-intellectual foundation (e.g., JP Morgan Chase's activities). I might add this sort of "science" abetting bad business practices is not limited to environmental applications. For example, the lack of experimental replication in scientific studies coming out of the health/medical industry would belong in the funny pages of your local newspaper if it were widely understood what is occurring there. Thankfully, the efforts of Drs. Stanley Young and John Ioannidis, among others, are beginning to expose this pseudo-science. We also help ourselves with the third great threat (i.e., Islamic totalitarianism) by putting the political status quo on notice that "the game has changed" -- permanently. Those in government -- or otherwise feeding out of the public trough -- had better stop pilfering our wallets, and start paying attention to the implacable enemy facing us or they are going to be unceremoniously removed.
All of you receiving this communication have busy lives, but I hope you can see that the issue here is significant enough that it deserves some of your attention. If you have the time to review this and the attached document (science grant-funding reform.rtf), and offer any comments or recommendations, it would be greatly appreciated. Beyond that, if you have 3 hours a week, or more, to get involved with this effort, I promise you -- your time will not be wasted.
Thank you all for your attention. I look forward to your comments.
Regards,
Mike Gemmell - (970) 261-9339
