Steve Allen on why scientists should not set science policy

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

Steve below talks about how scientists were fooled by the Soviet Union. 
So were Keynesian economists who believe in activist government 
intervention in the economy. See this commentary from earlier today:

http://www.prudentbear.com/archive_comm_article.asp?category=Guest+Commentary&content_idx=32395
> CENTRAL  PLANNING  CONVICTIONS  IN  1989
>   The private economy is "like a machine without an effective steering wheel."
> - Samuelson
> " Despite the gargantuan character of the coordination problem, Soviet central planning has worked reasonably well."
> - Campbell McConnell,  Best Selling Economic Textbook Writer
> " Stalin's economic organization was remarkably successful." [1]
>  - Robert B. Reich, Harvard Professor
> " The real question is not whether we want elements of socialism on planning to abridge our personal freedom, but by how 
> much."
>  - Textbook Writers:  Baumol and Blinder, Princeton 

-Declan

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: RE: [Politech] Scientific American slams Bush for biased science
Date: Fri, 30 Apr 2004 19:56:12 -0400
From: Steven J. Allen <editor () iguild org>
To: 'Declan McCullagh' <declan () well com>

As you may know, I'm working on my PhD in Biodefense at George Mason
University's National Center for Biodefense.

During the 1970s and 1980s, the scientific establishment -- including
publications like Scientific American -- worked very hard to create the
impression that the Soviets were in accord with the treaty banning
biological weapons.

In reality, the Soviets had tens of thousands of people turning out a
new type of bioweapon every year or so.  By the end of the Cold War,
they had an arsenal of bioweapons that, in terms of destructive
potential, far surpassed their nuclear arsenal.  I believe that, had the
Soviet bureaucracy understood what they had, the Cold War might have had
a different outcome.

The fact that the Soviets were building bioweapons was obvious to any
informed observer.  But scientists who were advocates of the bioweapons
treaty worked overtime to find some alternative explanation -- _any_
alternative explanation -- for evidence of Soviet violations.  The
anthrax outbreak at Sverdlovsk in 1979 was the result of "tainted meat."
When Soviet scientists, in open sources, referenced their research on
how to make pathogens more pathogenic, well, that research was just part
of an effort to develop vaccines.  And Yellow Rain was just bee
droppings.  HAHAHAHAHA.

Scientists are easily fooled.  Lots of scientists believed Uri Geller,
the psychic spoon-bender; see Geller's Web site
(http://www.uri-geller.com) for documentation.  It took former magician
Johnny Carson, working with The Amazing Randi, to expose Geller as a
fraud.

Biologists were more likely that any other professional group to join
the Nazis.  It is said that the remarkable thing about the Manhattan
Project is that so _few_ communists penetrated it, given how few
non-communist physicists were running around the Ivy League in those
days.  Scientists provided the rationale for white supremacy; indeed,
the book that the ACLU defended at the Scopes trial (_A Civic Biology_)
described a hierarchy of inferior and superior races, and suggested that
the disabled be put out of their misery.  Scientists, especially the
elite ones, refused to accept the idea of continental drift -- something
that's obvious to every eight-year-old who looks at a globe -- and
scientists once told us that you could discern a person's potential for
criminality from the bumps on his head.

In the 1960s and '70s, when radical environmentalists needed a
justification for government domination of the economy, "impending Ice
Age" theorists provided it.  (Today some of the same scientists are
promoters of Global Warming theory.)  In the 1980s, when the Soviets
wanted to promote Nuclear Winter theory, so that the West would
unilaterally disarm, there were plenty of scientists to provide support
for this now-discredited view.

Every day, some scientists grab for more power over our lives.  They
manipulate the meanings of words like "addiction," "race," "species,"
and "carcinogen" to achieve the policy goals they want.  Just the other
day, The Washington Post reported that it was the scientists at the FDA
who wanted to impose European Union-style restrictions on genetically
modified foods, if only they could figure a way around the law.

Now don't get me wrong: I like scientists.  I just don't want them
making science policy.

Basing science policy on the views of scientists is like deciding
whether God exists by surveying seminary students.


-- Steve Allen

P.S.  Of course, I don't trust non-scientists, either.  A National
Research Council survey found that 48% of newspaper editors thought
humans and dinosaurs were contemporaneous.  And a few years ago, 23
people attending the Harvard commencement were asked what causes the
seasons of the year.  Two knew the answer.

Yeah, I want THAT crowd making decisions about Global Warming.

Speaking of Global Warming: The earth probably is getting warmer, in the
sense that we are emerging from a relatively cold period.  Temperature
cycles are a necessary characteristic of world climate, and humans have
seen many of them; a warm period made possible the great Viking
conquests that stretched from America to Russia.  But "Global Warming"
-- in the sense that such warming is (a) catastrophic AND (b) man-made
AND (c) preventable by any means compatible with peace and democracy --
is an absurdity.


==========================
Steven J. Allen
editor () iguild org

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