From: bulldog23x@gmail.com   
      
   A Key Reason Why U.S. Politicians Don't Understand Science   
      
   89,56158   
      
   Mark Strauss   
   Filed to: POLITICS   
   5/12/14 4:09pm   
   A Key Reason Why U.S. Politicians Don't Understand Science   
   In 1995, Congressional Republicans shut down the Office of Technology   
   Assessment. For 23 years, this agency had published reports that provided   
   legislators with nonpartisan analyses of science and technology issues. Last   
   week, Rep. Rush Holt (D-NJ) tried    
   to reopen the agency with minimal funding.   
      
   He failed.   
      
   The legislation--a proposed amendment to the Legislative Branch Appropriations   
   Act that would have provided $2.5 million for the Office of Technology   
   Assessment (OTA) --was defeated in the House by a 248-164 vote, with 217   
   Republicans opposing and 155    
   Democrats supporting.   
      
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   Holt, a former research physicist, has been a longtime advocate of reopening   
   the office. In a recent press release, he noted:   
      
   OTA was an agency dedicated to serve Congress. When Newt Gingrich came to   
   power in the 1990s, he eliminated OTA to cut costs. But this turned out to be   
   a foolish move, as OTA had always saved taxpayers far more money than it cost.   
   An OTA study on Agent    
   Orange, for instance, helped save the government $10 million. Another report   
   recommended changes in computer systems at the Social Security Administration   
   that saved more than $350 million. Studies on the Synthetic Fuels Corporation   
   helped save tens of    
   billions of dollars.   
      
   Although in ending OTA Gingrich said Congress could get help elsewhere, that   
   hasn't worked. When OTA shut down, technological topics did not become less   
   relevant to the work of Congress. They just became less understood. And   
   scientific thinking lost its    
   toehold on Capitol Hill, with troubling consequences for the ways Congress   
   approaches all issues-- not just those that are explicitly scientific.   
   A Key Reason Why U.S. Politicians Don't Understand Science   
      
   The Rise and Fall of an Agency   
      
   Congress created the Office of Technology Assessment in 1972, at a time of   
   mounting public concern over pollution, nuclear energy, pesticides, and other   
   technology-induced hazards. OTA was conceived as an in-house think tank that   
   would help Congress fact-   
   check technical claims made by the various expert agencies of the executive   
   branch (such as the EPA and the Department of Defense), while also forecasting   
   coming technological quandaries. A twelve-member board, comprised of six   
   members of Congress from    
   each party, approved each OTA project, to help ensure the agency's objectivity.   
      
   Over the years, OTA produced some 750 reports and assessments on topics   
   ranging from global climate change to the accuracy of polygraphs. The studies   
   were highly regarded for their ability to translate complex science-speak into   
   accessible prose. The    
   reports were made available to the general public as well as Congress, and   
   were often Government Printing Office best sellers. Other countries, including   
   the UK and Germany, copied the U.S. example, establishing their own versions   
   of OTA.   
      
   The first rumblings of Congressional discontent emerged in the 1980s, when OTA   
   published reports raising questions about the technological feasibility of the   
   Reagan administration's Strategic Defense Initiative. In a 1985 assessment,   
   OTA concluded that    
   SDI's goal of protecting the entire U.S. population from a nuclear attack   
   would be "impossible to achieve if the Soviets are determined to deny it to   
   us." Three years later, another OTA report warned that SDI would stand a   
   significant chance of "   
   catastrophic failure" due to software glitches.   
      
   A Key Reason Why U.S. Politicians Don't Understand Science   
   Those reports didn't win friends among conservatives. And, when Newt Gingrich   
   initiated the shutdown of OTA in 1995, some in Washington referred to it as   
   "Reagan's Revenge." A 2001 comment by Gingrich, explaining the reason OTA was   
   killed, pretty much    
   said it all: "We constantly found scientists who thought what they were saying   
   was not correct." Meanwhile, other nations shook their heads in disbelief.   
   "That the leading technological state in the world, a democracy like us,   
   should have abolished its    
   own main means of democratic assessment left us aghast," wrote Lord Kennet,   
   who created the OTA-inspired European Parliamentary Technology Assessment   
   Network.   
      
   In an article recounting the history of the agency, science journalist Chris   
   Mooney observed:   
      
   In defending his party's dismantling of OTA, Gingrich has advocated what one   
   might call a "free market" approach to scientific and technical expertise. In   
   the Speaker's view, members of Congress should take the initiative to call   
   individual scientists    
   and inform themselves, much as Gingrich himself did.... "Gingrich's view was   
   always, 'I'll set up one-on-one interactions between members of Congress and   
   key members of the scientific community,'" recalls Bob Palmer, former   
   Democratic staff director of    
   the House Committee on Science. "Which I thought was completely bizarre. I   
   mean, who comes up with these people, and who decides they're experts, and   
   what member of Congress really wants to do that?"   
      
   But quality scientific advice needs an institutional structure and consistent   
   procedures and methodologies behind it; it can't simply be privatized....With   
   OTA gone, Gingrich's troops didn't hesitate to invoke their own favored   
   experts to undermine the    
   scientific mainstream in hearings devoted to subjects such as ozone depletion   
   and global warming. The attacks came as the new Republican majority sought to   
   free up the market in another way as well-by ramming through a major   
   "regulatory reform" bill that    
   would have prescribed rigid and inflexible rules governing the use of science   
   to protect public health and the environment.   
   This is not the first time that Holt has tried to revive the agency, and he   
   says that he'll keep trying this year, working with colleagues in the Senate.   
   "Funding OTA would be a minimal expense that would pay off many times over by   
   averting foolish or    
   wasteful policies," he says. "Decisions made in ignorance are costly."   
      
   A complete archive of OTA's reports are available online at Princeton   
   University and at the Federation of American Scientists.   
      
      
   http://io9.com/a-key-reason-why-u-s-politicians-dont-understand-   
   cien-1575132934   
      
      
      
   https://www.princeton.edu/~ota/   
      
      
      
   http://ota.fas.org/otareports/   
      
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