Olivia Judson: An Obama Fan?

Dr. Olivia Judson

WE BRING you another column by the splendidly-evolved Olivia Judson, an evolutionary biologist and a research fellow in biology at Imperial College London. This article, part of Dr. Judson’s series in the New York Times, is titled Back to Reality, in which Olivia steps out of her field and discusses American politics.

Because she’s writing from London, it’s not surprising that Dr. Judson’s views and those of your Curmudgeon don’t perfectly match. In fact, we’d like to take Olivia over our knee and spank her a time or two — but it’s just business, not personal. Anyway, here are some excerpts from Olivia’s column, with bold added by us:

President-elect Obama already has a long to-do list. But here’s another item for it: to restore science in government.

The most notable characteristic of the Bush administration’s science policy has been the repeated distortion and suppression of scientific evidence in order to fit ideological preferences about how the world should be, rather than how it is.

You know how we admire Olivia. But … “repeated distortion and suppression of scientific evidence”? She sounds like a creationist whining that evolutionists won’t let The Truth™ be taught in schools. But because it’s Olivia, we continue:

In his disturbing book “Undermining Science: Suppression and Distortion in the Bush Administration,” the journalist Seth Shulman describes case after case of intimidation of scientists in government posts, the suppression of scientific evidence and the perpetuation of misinformation.

Case after case? We’d like some peer-reviewed data, Olivia. Anyway, here’s that book at Amazon. Part of the description there says:

The Bush administration’s abuse and misuse of science in areas including stem cell research, AIDS prevention, environmental protection, the Iraq war, the teaching of evolution, and global warming …

We know about (and don’t excuse) the problem with funding stem cell research, and we know that Bush has said — not done — some goofy things about evolution; but as for the rest of that list, it sounds more like politics than science — at least in our humble opinion. Anyway, let’s get back to Olivia:

The fields affected range from climate change to public health. Although some incidents are small in and of themselves, the cumulative effect is horrifying. Shulman also catalogs a long list of established government scientists who, during the course of the Bush administration, resigned their posts in despair.

Olivia, we must ask you a personal question: Have you been dating Ben Stein?

This is Olivia’s last paragraph:

The rubbishing of science is far more serious than any particular decision over whether to fund research into stem cells, the sexual behavior of fruit flies or the quarks and quirks of particle physics. Undoing the damage of the past eight years may take another eight. But it must be done. We are probably one of the last generations that will be able to use our knowledge and methods to guide human civilization to a sustainable future. This is our time.

We’re talking about Olivia here, so we’ll have to overlook a few transatlantic quirks. But still, that girl needs some straightening out.

Olivia, just you wait ’til we get our hands on you …

Copyright © 2008. The Sensuous Curmudgeon. All rights reserved.

. . Permalink for this article