[AAACE-NLA] "science under siege"

[Daphne Greenberg]

These two postings are taken from the National Reading Conference listserv. 
I thought that some of you may be interested.

'SCIENCE UNDER SIEGE'

ACLU issues report attacking Bush administration's "assault on academic 
freedom and scientific inquiry."

http://insidehighered.com/news/2005/06/22/aclu

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The following statement was approved for publication by the Association's 
Committee on Government Relations on June 8, 2005, to express the

committee's concern over the increased politicization of science policy 
making in recent years. Comments are welcome and should be addressed to

the<mailto:govtrelations at aaup.org> AAUP's Washington office. The Committee 
on Government Relations is alarmed at the increasing

disregard for science, scientists, and scientific method in the development 
of national policy on a wide range of topics. These include policies on

HIV/AIDS, global warming, human sexuality, environmental protection, energy, 
natural resource utilization, space exploration, and general

science education. Lack of adequate funding of many federal science 
agencies, such as the National Science Foundation, the Environmental

Protection Agency, and the Department of Energy as well as the defunding of 
many long-standing postdoctoral grants and fellowships over the last four

years is having a chilling effect on the nation's research and scholarship 
in the physical sciences and many of the social sciences that gather and

analyze data over periods of time to predict trends, identify issues, and 
address problems by assessment and accountability. A persistent

substitution of politically and ideologically driven criteria for scientists 
and scientific credentials in the selection and organization of

boards, panels, and commissions does a disservice to the public and the 
process for informing public policy.

http://www.aaup.org/statements/Resolutions/ScienceforFreeSociety.htm