Friday, August 29, 2003
1. COLUMBIA: INVESTIGATION REPORT LEAVES BIG QUESTION
UNANSWERED.
Initially, 10 of the 11 members of the Gehman panel were federal
employees (WN 14 Feb 03). NASA head Sean O'Keefe responded to
calls for greater independence by adding academic scientists,
including Nobel physicist Doug Osheroff (WN 7 Mar
03). The
report of the panel, released Tuesday, was anything but a white
wash. It charged that NASA had forgotten the lessons from
Challenger. Meanwhile, an internal NASA panel was charged with
planning how to get back into space as quickly as possible. But
another panel is needed to study why Columbia was in space at
all. It was listed as a science mission, but experiments ranged
from embarrassing (WN 7 Feb 03) to scandalous (WN
21 Feb 03).
It's not likely NASA will investigate the appalling "research" that cost
between one and two billion dollars and seven lives. It remains to be seen
whether Congress has the stomach for it.
2. INTELLIGENT DESIGN: WHO DESIGNED THE STATE
OF TEXAS?
Even as
the state Board of Education is selecting textbooks to be used in
Texas science classes for the next decade (WN 11
Jul 03), there
is a petition movement in Montgomery County, TX to require equal
time for teaching Intelligent Design. In a poem, familiar to
school children in Texas, the Devil asks the Lord if he had
anything left over when he created the land. "The Lord said, 'yes I had
plenty on hand, but I left it down by the Rio
Grande.'" The devil proceeds to use the left-over land to build his own Hell
Texas.
3. ENVIRONMENT: INDUSTRY HAS A GOOD WEEK; THE
REST OF US.......
Environmental groups in the Northeast are preparing legal
challenges to a decision by the Environmental Protection Agency
to allow thousands of the nation's dirtiest coal-fired power
plants to upgrade their facilities without installing anti-
pollution equipment, as they have been required to do under the
New Source Review program of the Clean Air Act. It was a major
cost saving victory for the utility industry. The Administration
argues the change will encourage power companies to upgrade
equipment, reducing the price of electricity. Meanwhile, the EPA
ruled it lacks authority under the Clean Air Act to regulate CO2and other greenhouse gas emissions. Whose environment is the
Environmental Protection Agency protecting?
4. PEER REVIEW: IS THE GOAL BETTER SCIENCE, OR
DELAYED SCIENCE?
The success and credibility of science are anchored in the
willingness of scientists to expose ideas and results to peer
review. But when the White House Office of Management and Budget
announced plans to require government agencies to employ panels
of experts to review the quality of science used in establishing
regulations, scientists questioned the motives. The consistency
with which the administration has bowed to the wishes of industry
led to speculation that peer review panels would be stacked and
used as just another tool to delay implementation of regulations.
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