Surgeon General censored on stem cells
Good scientists are willing to let their beautiful theories be killed by ugly facts, but President Bush is not. Deep in a New York Times article on the ex-Surgeon General’s testimony on political interference comes yet another example of the Bush Administration plugging its collective ears to unpopular data on stem cells.
Here’s the snip:
When stem cells became a focus of debate, Dr. Carmona said he proposed that his office offer guidance “so that we can have, if you will, informed consent.”
“I was told to stand down and not speak about it,” he said. “It was removed from my speeches.”
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The Bush Administration’s habit of creating its own reality for stem cells is well documented. (For a nice summing up of Elizabeth Blackburn’s travails on the President’s Council on Bioethics, start with the Stem Cell Blog. For a longer, read, see Chris Mooney’s book, The Republican War on Science.)
When voices are systematically excluded from appropriate forums, the natural reaction of some of those silenced is self-censorship, a quiet retreat into discussions with like-minded peers.
For others, the impulse is to speak louder and shriller, avoiding acknowledging where one’s own argument is weak and another’s strong. As with other areas of debate, Bush abets this by setting up false dichotomies such as pitting embryonic stem cell research against research on adult stem cells.
But honest debate does not happen through warring quotes, and scientists’ minds are especially trained to weigh merits of competing ideas.
To be part of the solution, scientists must spend time away from the lab bench. The scientific community should get its views (and the evidence for them) into the public sphere, writing letters to editors and politicians, speaking to schools and gatherings.
When scientists do so, they balance enthusiasm with caution, caveats with imagination. They should be able to tell personal anecdotes without fear of being mocked by their peers. To maintain credibility, not to mention civility, scientists should understand opposition to stem-cell research and describe which opinions are backed by data, which are not, and which exist independent of data.
Consistent efforts can help turn a raucous debate into a reasoned one.