Sunday, February 26, 2006

White House to NASA Climate Scientists: Stuff it

NASA public affairs official George C. Deutsch was fired forced to resign
this month amidst claims that he tried to stop NASA climate expert James E. Hansen from talking with the media. It would appear that Dr. Hansen's thoughts on climate change to not square with what the administration would like the public to believe.

According to the NY Times:
Mr. Deutsch, 24, was offered a job as a writer and editor in NASA's public affairs office in Washington last year after working on President Bush's re-election campaign and inaugural committee, according to his resume. No one has disputed those parts of the document.
What was disputed was the fact that Mr. Deutsch claimed to hold a journalism degree from Texas A&M. The University denied he was a graduate. D'oh! Resume fraud is not only bad, it is also really easy to check. Mr. Deutsch heaped further scorn upon himself by insisting that the web designer at NASA insert the word "theory" before every instance of the term "Big Bang." This is a favorite tactic of the intelligent design crowd, who are really creationists if you haven't been paying attention.

What does it matter if the word "theory" is inserted, you asked? Good question. The reason is because there although the word theory is a synonym for conjecture or guess in common usage, in scientific terms it holds much more weight. A theory is a hypothesis that has been (successfully) tested using real-world measurements. It (successfully) explains how a part of the real world works. To be useful, a theory has to make testable predictions. The belief (not theory) of intelligent design creationism makes no testable predictions and thus fails to qualify as a proper theory. It is a statement of belief, nothing more.

But back to Mr. Deutsch. His case is a disturbing one because it is probably not an isolated incident. If you listed to the NPR interview with the White Houspresidentialal science advisor Dr. John Marburger, you got the impression that this instance was a complete aberration. A fluke - a one time oddity. The truth is that this is the just tip of the iceberg. The editor of Science Magazine, one of the premier scientific publications in the US, published an editorial in the 17 Feb issue (read it here) about the Deutsch debacle and how the Bush administration is basically trying to impose a gag order on any conclusions that disagree with the party line. Did you know that there is clear scientific evidence that the intensity of hurricanes striking the Gulf has increased due to global warming? You probably haven't heard that story from most of the national media. Hmmm, I wonder why that is?


Note: The image above is from the aforementioned Science editorial. Credit: Pat N. Lewis

Friday, February 03, 2006

NSA watch: Bride of "Total Information Awareness"

In today's New York Times, there was an article about the an open session of the Senate Intelligence committee held on 2 February, 2006. Among many contentious exchanges, here's one that caught my eye:

A similarly revealing sparring session came when Senator Ron Wyden, Democrat of Oregon, pressed the intelligence officials about whether a controversial Pentagon data-mining program called Total Information Awareness had been effectively transferred to the intelligence agencies after being shut down by Congress.

Mr. Negroponte and the F.B.I. director, Robert S. Mueller III, both said they did not know. Then came the turn of Gen. Michael V. Hayden, who headed N.S.A. for six years before becoming the principal deputy director of national intelligence last spring.

"Senator," General Hayden said, "I'd like to answer in closed session."
Bingo - that's a yes in my book. There's no reason you'd need to restrict your answer to closed session if it was an unqualified no. What this means is that Total Information Awareness (see Wikipedia entry here) was clandestinely reconstituted.