Bushy science and the marbled murrelet

[Jim]

No surprise here but this is how it work under the current administration. After working on a scientific panel review of recent studies we submitted our report (working for US Fish and Wildlife Service) on the status of the marbled murrelet. The small bird lives in old growth and is listed as threatened - and is of great interest to the timber industry.

 

The panel included experts in genetics, population dynamics, population modeling, habitat, etc. Quite a diverse group from the US and Canada. The scientific report - in short - said the birds are in big trouble in CA and should likely be listed as Endangered, that the CA, WA & OR, and Alaska populations are distinct. And that the WA and OR populationss should remain listed as threatened.

 

Yesterday the DC office of USFWS came out with their statment that concluded the exact opposite. The leaked orginal memo from the Portland regional office, which made the same conclusions as our science report, shows how the DC memo is just made up from thin air.

 

I shouldn't be surprised, this crap just goes on and on. Rather than just say what they mean - which is we don't care about no stinkin' science - they try and make stuff up. Ugh.

 

On the heels of that decision was the one that DC now says the Columbia River dams do not affect salmon . If the Bushies get in again (oh please, please no) count on a major effort to delist the spotted owl, murrelet, and salmon - all without any scientific justification. And then the ensuing onslaught of clearcutting and mining.

[iain]

It just makes you sick.

[markinore]

Thanks for posting that, Jim.

 

For those of you who wonder why some of us "hate" Bush, this is another example. The Bush administration has relentlessly falsified scientific data to justify its ulterior motives. It is this lack of respect for objective facts that engenders contempt.

 

It would be one thing if Bush's people said, "Well, yeah, the marbled murrelet is engangered, but we think the lumber industry is more important," or "Sure, stem cell research could help treat disease, but we don't want to alienate the right to life bloc," or "Yes, drilling for oil in ANWR will screw up the environment somewhat, but it's worth it." Instead, they try to deny reality.

 

It is reminiscent of the story of man who is in bed with another woman. His wife comes home, catches them, and starts screaming at him. While the other woman calmly dresses and leaves, the man sits there, saying nothing. When his wife asks him what he has to say for himself, he denies everything. The wife is flabbergasted by his arrogance, and asks him what did she just see. He replies, "Who are you going to believe? Me or your lying eyes?"

[RobBob]

It would be one thing if Bush's people said, "Well, yeah, the marbled murrelet is engangered, but we think the lumber industry is more important,"

 

And I think that sometimes they should make exactly this type of statement. And we as a nation ought to be able to evaluate things in terms of tradeoffs.

 

Agreed that the Bush admin spews out a lot of backwards bullshit on the environment. But Goddamn if a whole lot of "science" isn't being funded and conducted by the radically-environmental side, and the studies begin with high expectations as to what the outcome will be. Whatever happened to the fucking Scientific Method? Where are the dispassionate scientists that are supposed to be searching for the unskewed truth? You won't find them in this month's National Geographic.

[markinore]

But Goddamn if a whole lot of "science" isn't being funded and conducted by the radically-environmental side, and the studies begin with high expectations as to what the outcome will be.

 

Oh, really? What "radically-environmental" side has the money to provide significant financial support to ANY research? Greenpeace? The Sierra Club?

 

The research that this administration refuses to accept is funded by "radicals" such as the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, and other highly respected agencies that do not have a specific political agenda.

[Jim]

Rob - I agree with your first statement, that folks should be able to make decisions based on truthful policy admissions.

 

The second, however, I would take exception with. A lot of the science that is being ignored or twisted by this administration is coming from the science community and those scientists within the federal agencies. They have no voice in scientific policy decisions these days.

 

You are wrong. But I hope the storm is not headed your way.

[catbirdseat]

This abasement of science made me think of the following:

 

Oceanic society rests ultimately on the belief that Big Brother is omnipotent and that the Party is infallible. But since in reality Big Brother is not omnipotent and the party is not infallible, there is need for an unwearying, moment-to-moment flexibility in the treatment of facts. The keyword here is blackwhite. Like so many Newspeak words, this word has two mutually contradictory meanings. Applied to an opponent, it means the habit of impudently claiming that black is white, in contradiction of the plain facts. Applied to a Party member, it means a loyal willingness to say that black is white when Party discipline demands this. But it means also the ability to believe that black is white, and more, to know that black is white, and to forget that one has ever believed the contrary. This demands a continuous alteration of the past, made possible by the system of thought which really embraces all the rest, and which is known in Newspeak as doublethink.

[RobBob]

Jim, mark,

 

I'm not gonna defend Bush's environmental record, for God's sake. As much as I like to play Devil's advocate on environmental issues, there are some things that are beyond the pale. But here's an example, just because it's the first one that pops into my head. The farmed salmon industry has been shit on from great heights. I don't think that Pew Trusts, the David Suzuki Foundation, or the wild Alaskan salmon industry can be objective in comparing and contrasting farmed salmon with wild salmon. I think the public has received biased information because of the political goals of these various funding groups. ...and on their side, the Chilean/Norwegian salmon folks are playing their position too. It's a publicity war based on a trade war, and the public is being jerked around by each new 'study.'

 

And no, it looks like I'm in the clear, and Frances will stay south. WAtch out Florida!

[Dru]

ooooh, the salmon farming industry has been "shit on from great heights"

 

more like the salmon farming industry has SHIT ON the seabed...with great volume

 

the only biased science here is from the salmon farms. they are about as reputable as those tobacco industry scientists who found that smoking 3 packs a day would prevent cancer and stop tooth decay plus enhancing your sex life

[Jim]

I know what you're saying but my reply is simple - that stuff isn't science, it's their PR based on science. I know that the basic science stuff can be used by advocate groups, but I gotta say that this administration is the worst for lying, twisting, and making up stuff while constantly trying to subvert environmental regulations. All for the benefit of a small group of industrialists - it's not benefiting you or me - that's for sure.

[Greg_W]

But Goddamn if a whole lot of "science" isn't being funded and conducted by the radically-environmental side, and the studies begin with high expectations as to what the outcome will be.

 

Oh, really? What "radically-environmental" side has the money to provide significant financial support to ANY research? Greenpeace? The Sierra Club?

 

The research that this administration refuses to accept is funded by "radicals" such as the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, and other highly respected agencies that do not have a specific political agenda.

 

Ideologically-driven "scientists" have infiltrated governmental departments such as the US Forest Service, and I am sure others. They are, like Jim, pushing their tree-hugger, animal-worshipper agenda from the inside. You guys were wrong on the spotted owl, weren't you? Come to find out another predator started eating the shit out of them. The logging ultimately had nothing to do with it - you worship nature and don't care that you are putting people out of work.

[markinore]

Ideologically-driven "scientists" have infiltrated governmental departments such as the US Forest Service, and I am sure others. They are, like Jim, pushing their tree-hugger, animal-worshipper agenda from the inside. You guys were wrong on the spotted owl, weren't you? Come to find out another predator started eating the shit out of them. The logging ultimately had nothing to do with it - you worship nature and don't care that you are putting people out of work.

 

Thank you, Greg, for helping to make the point. Scientists, whatever their personal ideology, have to demonstrate in a clear and convincing manner to their peers that they have used proper methods, data collection, and analysis to support their conclusions. No one can continue to keep his credibility otherwise. This doesn't mean that scientists are always correct in every one of their studies, but it does mean that errors have a way of being found out, and if you make too many of them, you're found out as well. Therefore, "infiltrating" the scientific community is ultimately self-defeating if the science that one produces is fraudulent.

 

Most scientists that I know are resistant to the idea of "worshipping" much of anything. I guess that's another beef that some people have with us. And most of us do care about whether people are put out of work. Whether people are put out of work because of some scientific discovery is something that matters deeply, but that is an honest debate that should be held. It is NOT honest to deny the scientific evidence. It is that intellectual dishonesty of the Bush team that is so infuriating.

[graupel]

You guys were wrong on the spotted owl, weren't you? Come to find out another predator started eating the shit out of them. The logging ultimately had nothing to do with it - you worship nature and don't care that you are putting people out of work.

 

Source? I've never heard of some other explanation for the spotted owl decline.

[Jim]

Greg - you're being simple-minded again. If you had a clue regarding the scientific issues involved I'd continue the discussion. Read the murrelet report and then give me a rational argument. Don't just stomp up and down and claim bias for an analysis you can't comprehend or disagree with the results based on nothing but opinion. Otherwise it's just arm-waving like the Bushies.

 

One other minor point. The Bushies went outside their federal agency for the first time for an objective study of the data. We gave it to them and they still didn't like the answer.

[scott_harpell]

Otherwise it's just arm-waving like the Greenies.

[Greg_W]

Jim, I was addressing the comment regarding scientists furthering their own agendas within agencies. I was not taking issue with the validity of the report in question.

 

Is the marbeled murrelet tasty?

[RobBob]

Back to salmon, Hell, I know I'll never change Dru's mind about farmed salmon---it's made up. Maybe he's got a point about waste...but I was talking about the obvious, worldwide touting of pcb counts. Both wild salmon and farmed salmon contingencies have their own data, and it's all suspect.

 

Okay, another obvious example of often-rotten science comes out fo the pharmaceutical industry. While I don't think there are many dishonest scientists working on new drugs, I do believe that over-zealous hope, and one Hell of a lot of financial influence putting pressure on the system, introduces a lot of bias into results.

[Jim]

Jim, I was addressing the comment regarding scientists furthering their own agendas within agencies. I was not taking issue with the validity of the report in question.

 

Is the marbeled murrelet tasty?

 

I kinda doubt it. Eating small fish, spending all that time flying back and forth to the old growth from the ocean every day to feed youngin's. They're probably kinda stringy and smaller than a pigeon.

[Greg_W]

Jim, I was addressing the comment regarding scientists furthering their own agendas within agencies. I was not taking issue with the validity of the report in question.

 

Is the marbeled murrelet tasty?

 

I kinda doubt it. Eating small fish, spending all that time flying back and forth to the old growth from the ocean every day to feed youngin's. They're probably kinda stringy and smaller than a pigeon.

 

Well, then I don't give a shit.

[Dru]

Back to salmon, Hell, I know I'll never change Dru's mind about farmed salmon---it's made up. Maybe he's got a point about waste...but I was talking about the obvious, worldwide touting of pcb counts. Both wild salmon and farmed salmon contingencies have their own data, and it's all suspect.

 

Okay, another obvious example of often-rotten science comes out fo the pharmaceutical industry. While I don't think there are many dishonest scientists working on new drugs, I do believe that over-zealous hope, and one Hell of a lot of financial influence putting pressure on the system, introduces a lot of bias into results.

 

I made up my mind because of the data and after a consideration of the inherent economic inefficiency whereas you apparently made yours up because you like the idea of farmed salmon.

[Alpinfox]

 

I'm really looking forward to reading this.

 

From Amazon.com:

Editorial Reviews

Book Description

In this powerful and far-reaching indictment of George W. Bush's White House, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., the country's most prominent environmental attorney, charges that this administration has taken corporate cronyism to such unprecedented heights that it now threatens our health, our national security, and democracy as we know it. In a headlong pursuit of private profit and personal power, Kennedy writes, George Bush and his administration have eviscerated the laws that have protected our nation's air,water, public lands, and wildlife for the past thirty years, enriching the president's political contributors whilelowering the quality of life for the rest of us.

Kennedy lifts the veil on how the administration has orchestrated these rollbacks almost entirely outside of public scrutiny -- and in tandem with the very industries that our laws are meant to regulate, the country's most notorious polluters. He writes of how it has deceived the public by manipulating and suppressing scientific data, intimidated enforcement officials and other civil servants, and masked its agenda with Orwellian doublespeak. He reports on how the White House doles out lavish subsidies and tax breaks to the energy barons while excusing industry from providing adequate security at the more than 15,000 chemical and nuclear facilities that are prime targets for terrorist attacks. Kennedy reveals an administration whose policies have "squandered our Treasury, entangled us in foreign wars, diminished our international prestige, made us a target for terrorist attacks, and increased our reliance on petty Middle Eastern dictators who despise democracy and are hated by their own people."

 

Crimes Against Nature is ultimately about the corrosive effect of corporate corruption on our core American values -- free-market capitalism and democracy. It is about an administration, the author argues, that has sacrificed respect for the law, public health, scientific integrity, and long-term economic vitality on the altar of corporate greed. It is a book for both Democrats and Republicans, people like the traditionally conservative farmers and fishermen Kennedy represents in lawsuits against polluters. "Without exception," he writes, "these people see the current administration as the greatest threat not just to their livelihoods but to their values, their sense of community, and their idea of what it means to be American."

 

 

[scott_harpell]

Back to salmon, Hell, I know I'll never change Dru's mind about farmed salmon---it's made up. Maybe he's got a point about waste...but I was talking about the obvious, worldwide touting of pcb counts. Both wild salmon and farmed salmon contingencies have their own data, and it's all suspect.

 

Okay, another obvious example of often-rotten science comes out fo the pharmaceutical industry. While I don't think there are many dishonest scientists working on new drugs, I do believe that over-zealous hope, and one Hell of a lot of financial influence putting pressure on the system, introduces a lot of bias into results.

 

There are definite pro's and cons. The lowered price of fish results in a need for commercial fisherman to catch more wild fish to keep a profit. What to do about that? Subsidy? I think we learned our lesson with corn... Plus it tastes icky.

[Greg_W]

 

I'm really looking forward to reading this.

 

From Amazon.com:

Editorial Reviews

Book Description

In this powerful and far-reaching indictment of George W. Bush's White House, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., the country's most prominent environmental attorney, charges that this administration has taken corporate cronyism to such unprecedented heights that it now threatens our health, our national security, and democracy as we know it. In a headlong pursuit of private profit and personal power, Kennedy writes, George Bush and his administration have eviscerated the laws that have protected our nation's air,water, public lands, and wildlife for the past thirty years, enriching the president's political contributors whilelowering the quality of life for the rest of us.

Kennedy lifts the veil on how the administration has orchestrated these rollbacks almost entirely outside of public scrutiny -- and in tandem with the very industries that our laws are meant to regulate, the country's most notorious polluters. He writes of how it has deceived the public by manipulating and suppressing scientific data, intimidated enforcement officials and other civil servants, and masked its agenda with Orwellian doublespeak. He reports on how the White House doles out lavish subsidies and tax breaks to the energy barons while excusing industry from providing adequate security at the more than 15,000 chemical and nuclear facilities that are prime targets for terrorist attacks. Kennedy reveals an administration whose policies have "squandered our Treasury, entangled us in foreign wars, diminished our international prestige, made us a target for terrorist attacks, and increased our reliance on petty Middle Eastern dictators who despise democracy and are hated by their own people."

 

Crimes Against Nature is ultimately about the corrosive effect of corporate corruption on our core American values -- free-market capitalism and democracy. It is about an administration, the author argues, that has sacrificed respect for the law, public health, scientific integrity, and long-term economic vitality on the altar of corporate greed. It is a book for both Democrats and Republicans, people like the traditionally conservative farmers and fishermen Kennedy represents in lawsuits against polluters. "Without exception," he writes, "these people see the current administration as the greatest threat not just to their livelihoods but to their values, their sense of community, and their idea of what it means to be American."

 

 

Please, a Kennedy? And a lawyer to boot? Sure, this screams credibility. How is it, exactly, that "the White House doles out lavish subsidies and tax breaks to the energy barons" again? They don't make the laws, Congress does. Nor do they control the budget, Congress does.

[RobBob]

I made up my mind because of the data and after a consideration of the inherent economic inefficiency

 

I'm in the food and foodstuffs biz, and I read a lot of food industry news, nutrition stuff, animal diets and nutrition, etc. I happen to like seafoods of all kinds (grew up around commercial fishing) and therefore have a particular interest in just trying to understand the facts of both wild and farmed seafood. You can and all you want, but that won't make you necessarily more informed or less entrenched in your position than me. If a real study tells me tomorrow that there are 10 times more pcbs in farmed salmon than wild salmon, then I'll probably only eat wild salmon. But since the pcbs ultimately come from feeding on other fish (whether in the wild or thru menhaden or anchovy meal), I have a feeling that pcb levels are going to be roughly the same in either product. Depending on the source, they both taste good.

[ashw_justin]

You're all full of shit if you think you can debunk scientific findings without actually being familiar with the studies themselves. It's actually quite easy to read a scientific paper and tell whether their assumptions, methods, and interpretations hold merit. The problems arise when people who know nothing about science pretend to understand, merely to justify their agenda. The typical politician has no idea how (let alone the time) to critically analyze a scientific study, and doesn't give a shit about the scientific method unless it involves his fundraising and/or his re-election.