There is a new website which I found via titusonenine . It is called SEA Scientism and Engineers for America. It is subtitled Smart Leadership for a Change. On that site they have a Bill of Rights for Scientists and Engineers.
This is my take on the Bill of Rights for Scientists and Engineers. Warning there is more a bit of hyperbole here both from them and me. At least I hope it is hyperbole to some degree on their part.
Effective government depends on accurate, honest and timely advice from scientists and engineers. Science demands an open, transparent process of review and access to the best scholars from around the nation and the world. Mistakes dangerous to the nation’s welfare and security have been made when governments prevent scientists from presenting the best evidence and analysis. Americans should demand that all candidates support the following Bill of Rights:
Except for the first sentence there appears to be underlying assumptions that make the motivations suspect. The idea of access to the best scholar of the world troubles me the most. My experience in thirty years of engineering has been when getting down to brass tacks that scholars are borderline useless.
Scholars or as I prefer to call them academics more often than not are followers of trends and forget basic engineering. The academic communities tend to have their own set or orthodoxies. These orthodoxies have a tendency to be politically liberal. Academics also tend to focus on the process and the expense of getting real work done.
Except in the parts of the academic world most engineering is not an open or transparent process. Companies that want to profit from the work have paid most engineers and therefore rightly keep the work within the context of the company. When the government is the customer, they must protect the work of private companies as provided by contract. This has provided the government quality goods and services for a long time. I fail to see a compelling reason that we should change this.
1. Federal policy shall be made using the best available science and analysis both from within the government and from the rest of society.
At first this idea looks good. Who could disagree that you should use the best available science? However, there is a major practical fault in the discussion. What is the best available science? I would say that overall the best available science comes from those who are active in that particular area. My sense is that the owners of the site infer by this that most of the best science comes from the university.
I would be properly upset is my work was put on a par with some two-month academic study, but the implication here is that is what they expect. If my employer has spent many millions of dollars on a project to meet a specific need of the government, why should it be subject formal review by some academic with a political agenda?
There is also in this statement an implied assumption that science trumps moral or ethical considerations. Just because something can be done does mean it should be done. The so-called best science answer may in fact be immoral.
2. The federal government shall never intentionally publish false or misleading scientific information nor post such material on federal websites.
I sense that this statement is in reaction to some press where some government agencies have failed to present certain minority or dissenting views when publishing policy decisions.
Government agencies are tasked to take action to protect safety, health, or welfare. These agencies need to rely upon good science to make these decisions. Nevertheless, they also must consider the policies of the administration, the law, morals, ethics, and other things.
3. Scientists conducting research or analysis with federal funding shall be free to discuss and publish the results of unclassified research after a reasonable period of review without fear of intimidation or adverse personnel action.
If you are part of an engineering team, you agree to abide by the rules set forth when you joined. Often this means that the results of the work belong to who paid for the work. Part of owning the results of the work is the choice if or when to publish. Part of our governmental process is to have decision makers.
The mention of a reasonable period of review is interesting. It is interesting because of what it implies. To me it implies that after sometime anyone should be free to publish whatever they think they discovered, even when those tasked with the proper usage of that information have not accepted the opinion for whatever reason.
4. Federal employees reporting what they believe to be manipulation of federal research and analysis for political or ideological reasons should be free to bring this information to the attention of the public and shall be protected from intimidation, retribution or adverse personnel action by effective enforcement of Whistle Blower laws.
This is an open invitation to take every dispute within government agencies and make it into a public discussion. If this is to be public policy, then we undermine the process by which decisions are made. Government decisions are made for political and ideological reasons all the time, this is why we have elections so the political and ideological framework is from time to time changed.
5. No scientists should fear reprisals or intimidation because of the results of their research.
Here is one with which I can agree. However, this does not extend to unauthorized publication of such research or other violation of the terms and conditions upon which the research was funded.
6. Appointments to federal scientific advisory committees shall be based on the candidate’s scientific qualifications, not political affiliation or ideology.
Why would anybody put on a panel those who have and ideology opposed to that of the person doing the appointing? The idea that there is pure science devoid of ideology is pure fancy.
7. The federal government shall not support any science education program that includes instruction in concepts that are derived from ideology and not science.
Science itself is a philosophy or one could say ideology. I fear that this plank has much to do with giving to the academic community that which is not theirs. Namely the right to choose what is taught to our children.
8. While scientists may elect to withhold methods or studies that might be misused there shall be no federal prohibition on publication of basic research results. Decisions made about blocking the release of information about specific applied research and technologies for reasons of national security shall be the result of a transparent process. Classification decisions shall be made by trained professionals using a clear set of published criteria and there shall be a clear process for challenging decisions and a process for remedying mistakes and abuses of the classification system.
Give me a break here. The classification system has had it abuses for sure. Nevertheless, it is necessary and the implied taking that authority away from the President and his designee and giving it to some unaccountable group of people is ridiculous.
I can see a few conditions where it might be necessary, but overall what give a person the right to withhold for those who have paid for it the results of his labor?
Within the context of this post, I have engaged in a bit of hyperbole. My point is that the academic’s work is no more meaningful, no more honest, and no better science than the work I do for my employer. I make no apology for working for industry. I realize that many academic’s work very hard. I fear however, that often the work it toward the artificial goal of getting published.
October 2, 2006 at 4:22 pm
The idea that there are *scientists* devoid of ideology may be pure fancy, but all of them worthy of the title strive to produce *science* devoid of ideology. The majority of those who are worth their salt succeed in doing so, at least to a degree. Your criticism also seems to suppose that freedom from ideology is a black/white question, with no shades of gray. I submit that we might be able to judge the difference between “dark gray” and “slightly dingy white.”
October 2, 2006 at 5:06 pm
And, BTW, your “Invite to Darwin Fish” link over at the SEforA blog doesn’t work….
October 2, 2006 at 6:14 pm
I mostly agree Bill Gascoyne above about trying to have science which is devoid of ideology. I do however draw the line if an activity no matter how promising has ethical or moral problems. In that case I fully let my ideology come in. I would say, I let my ideology limit or encourage areas of study. I like to think I do not let ideology influence my analysis or the outcome.
I stated up front that I was doing a bit of hyperbole. Part of the hyperbole was stating things more black and white then they really are. You are correct there are shades of gray in ability to detach for ideology.
I did take down the invitation to Darwin Fish after he said he was not going to visit.
October 6, 2006 at 9:35 am
[...] I have written about Scientists and Engineers for Change because at first they looked like something that I could consider for support. I found this not to be so, and I have written herein and in comments to their website the reasons this is so. This morning, I spent sometime re-looking at their website and the internet overall concerning this group. My conclusion is that they are secular humanists, with a political agenda which support the Democratic party. [...]
October 12, 2006 at 9:19 am
I wrote a counterpoint to the “Bill of Rights for Scientists and Engineers” called the “Bill of Responsibilities for SEFORA” here. While I did not criticize each item line by line, I did think about what the appropriate responsibilities should be for SEFORA based on their demands in the Bill of Rights.
October 15, 2006 at 9:30 am
Josh Poulson I think you have a good start. If this were part of the SEFORA I may join.
October 16, 2006 at 8:35 am
Doesn’t seem tremendously likely to be accepted, however.