The Environmental Protection Agency's new rule will protect polluters, not the environment

Here's a neat political trick: if you want to introduce a new law, but you know people will hate it, give it a misleading, nice-sounding name. It's surprising how well this works. Let me explain.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was founded in 1970 under Republican President Richard Nixon, and since that time it has helped the country clean up our air, water, and soil at thousands of locations. For many years, the agency was a bipartisan success.

Now, though, the EPA is run by a former coal industry lobbyist, Andrew Wheeler, and it seems more concerned with protecting polluters than with the environment. The latest example is a newly proposed rule that will allow the EPA to ignore a vast swath of scientific research that demonstrates the harmful effects of pollution on people's health. This includes research on the damage caused by burning coal and other fossil fuels.

(I should note that this new proposal was first introduced by the previous EPA administrator, Scott Pruitt, another friend of the fossil fuel industry who sued the EPA 14 times while serving as attorney general for Oklahoma.)

If the EPA were being honest, it would call this new proposal something like "Ignoring the Science on the Harmful Effects of Pollution." Of course, Congress would never go near a proposal like that, so instead the EPA calls it "Strengthening Transparency in Regulatory Science."

Huh? How can they do that?

Well, there's nothing to prevent the EPA from calling this proposal "Motherhood and Apple Pie," but they like to pretend the title has something to do with the content of the new regulation. And it does.

Here's what the new regulations do: they will allow the EPA to ignore any science where the public doesn't have access to all of the underlying data–including private, individually identifiable health data. The EPA is pretending that this rule all about openness and transparency (who could object to that?), but actually it's not that at all. It's really about protecting the fossil fuel industry.

As The New York Times reported two years ago, 

"the proposed new policy has its roots in the fossil fuel industry’s opposition to a groundbreaking 1993 Harvard University study that definitively linked polluted air to premature deaths.... In that study, which began in the mid-1970s, scientists signed confidentiality agreements so they could track the private medical and occupational histories of more than 22,000 individuals in six cities around the country."

So apparently the fossil fuel industry thought: hmm, how do we prevent the EPA from regulating us when this high-quality study shows that pollution kills? They couldn't successfully attack the study, so they concocted the strategy of demanding all the confidential data on the participants. When they were told that the data would have to remain secret, they saw their opening: "transparency" would be their mode of attack, aided by their lobbyists Scott Pruitt and Andrew Wheeler.

The Harvard study and hundreds of others like it, which have shown time and time again that air pollution kills people, will be ignored if the proposed new EPA regulation goes into effect.

Not surprisingly, public health scientists and medical experts have spoken out strongly against the EPA's proposed new rules. The American Association for the Advancement of Science said, in a statement last month, that the rules would allow the EPA "to exclude the best available science from informing EPA regulations, making it difficult for the agency to fulfill its mission to protect environmental and human health." Writing in The Hill, biostatisticians Roger Peng (a colleague of mine) and Steve Pierson wrote that the new rule 

"weakens EPA’s scientific process and undermines its mission to protect the environment and the health of the U.S. population." 

And an environmental policy watchdog, EDGI, called it 

"a comprehensive assault on science in agency decision-making."

So that's how it's done. The EPA wants to enable more pollution for its friends in the fossil fuel industry, but they can't say that out loud. The only beneficiaries of this newly proposed rule will be industries that don't want to pay for the cost of cleaning up their pollution. Meanwhile, everyone who breathes air–which, the last time I checked, included every human being on the planet–will suffer from dirtier air, water, and soil.

But don't tell that to the EPA. They are still claiming that this is just about "transparency."

How to predict an election? Ask the math geeks.

Mark Newman's rendering of the 2012 U.S. election,
 weighted by population

It's time for a bit of gloating.  No, not for Democrats over Republicans, though I'm sure that's going on.  It's time for the math geeks to throw a bit of scorn at those insufferable, over-confident frat boys who call themselves political prognosticators, and who spent most of the past two years telling us that they knew how the election would turn out.  They bloviated endlessly on talk shows, explaining why their favored candidate would win, and how he would do it.  

Politicos behave just like promoters of quack treatments when things go wrong: they always have a ready answer, and somehow their "theories" can never be proven wrong.  It seems that the only thing these guys are really expert at is getting themselves onto talk shows. Now that the election is over, let's hope that happens a bit less often.

Instead, pay attention to the math geeks.  The statisticians and analysts who build mathematical models based on multiple polls and other data absolutely nailed this election.  Nailed it!  Nate Silver at FiveThirtyEight blog predicted the winner of the presidential election in all 50 states.  So did Sam Wang , a biophysics professor at Princeton, over at the Princeton Election Consortium blog.  And so did Simon Jackman, a political science professor at Stanford who writes for HuffPo.  Nate Silver first drew everyone's attention in the 2008 election, when he correctly predicted 49 out of 50 states.  Last week's success shows that this is not an anomaly, although it has the mathematically challenged pundits in a tizzy.

Hopkins statistics professor Jeff Leek wrote a nice explanation of how these models work over at Simply Statistics, so I won't explain it here.  Suffice it to say that mathematical models don't work by chattering with their buddies at political rallies.

Mathematics delivered the goods.  And make no mistake, this is the way of the future.

That hasn't stopped the punditocracy yet.   On election night, Republican hatchet man Karl Rove was sputtering on Fox News that Romney could still win, after Fox News itself - which is little more than a media arm of the Republican party -called Ohio and the election for Obama.  Rove, who predicted that Romney would win with 285 electoral voites, also orchestrated the spending of over $127 million on Romney, not to mention his spending on 12 Senate candidates, 10 of whom lost.  Has he admitted he did anything wrong?  Nope.

Rove wasn't the only one wrong.  As Techcrunch pointed out, 

"every single major pundit was wrong - some comically wrong."  

The Atlantic created a detailed score sheet listing all the pundits and their predictions of the overall winner, the electoral college total, and the winner in all the swing states.  And indeed, even those who predicted correctly that Obama would win got most of the swing states wrong.

Here's what needs to happen.  The television networks need to realize that political expertise is meaningless when it comes to making statistical predictions.  Let's treat political forecasting just like weather forecasting, using models that are demonstrably accurate (such as Silver's).  Television stations can hire attractive political "forecasters" (because physical appearance matters on TV, like it or not) who will describe the latest forecasts just like today's weather forecasters do.  Now that I think of it, why not let the weather forecasters do both jobs?  We already have them in place at every local TV station in the country.  Think of all the money the networks will save.

But what about all that air time they need to fill with talking heads arguing about who will win elections?  Well, this makes about as much sense as having two self-proclaimed experts arguing about whether it's going to snow this weekend.  Maybe they can find real experts who will argue about issues rather than about who's ahead in the polls.

Ha ha, just kidding!  Who wants to hear about issues?  But if you must know how the race is going, ask the math geeks.

What do the Presidential candidates think about science?

ScienceDebate.org recently posed 14 questions to President Obama and Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, and just a few days ago, the candidates answered all 14.  Can we learn what they actually think about science from these answers?  Well, maybe just a little bit.  

My first inclination, on going to the ScienceDebate2012 website, was to look for the candidates' positions on the two biggest scientific topics in the political arena today: evolution and global warming.  Somehow, ScienceDebate2012 only asked about one of these, which I'll get to in a minute.

The ScienceDebate2012 organization calls its list "the top American science questions: 2012", but the questions themselves are a disappointment.  They're what you'd expect from a committee: lots of nice-sounding, polite questions, but nothing that really challenges the candidates.  I guess SD2012 was afraid that the candidates might get all offended, or maybe that fewer scientists would sign their petition.  But if you read the answers, you'll see that the candidates just answered the question they wanted to hear, as politicians love to do.  Most of the answers describe policies we already know (for those who are paying attention to the campaigns), but an interesting surprise popped up: Mitt Romney has no fondness for NASA.  Jump to the bottom to learn more.

Most of the questions are big fat softballs, starting with the first one: "What policies will best ensure that America remains a world leader in innovation?" http://www.sciencedebate.org/debate12/   Good tough question, guys!  We only have 14 questions, and you waste one on this?  Unsurprisingly, the answers to this one just repeated campaign talking points.

Before looking at some real answers, let's start with the howlingly obvious question that ScienceDebate2012 failed to ask.  

The Un-asked Question: do you believe that evolution should be taught in public schools, and that it should be presented as the only explanation for how species arose?  

This question has only one right answer, as any biologist worthy of the name knows.  Evolution is the foundation of all of modern biology, genetics, infectious disease research, you name it.  And the U.S. is one of the few advanced countries where a significant number of its citizens don't accept evolution, opting instead for an archaic religious position that claims Earth is only a few thousand years old.  

We should know the candidates' answers.  In 2008, ten Republican presidential candidates were asked if they believe in the theory of evolution.  Only 7 said yes--but one was Governor Romney.  Back in 2007, he told the New York Times that "the science class is where to teach evolution," and that intelligent design was "for the religion class or philosophy class."  President Obama also supports evolution, and opposes teaching creationism in the science classroom. 

So the candidates agree on this one - at least they did in the past.  But Romney's fellow Republicans don't all agree. In particular, we need to ask Governor Romney: do you support the crazy religious extremism of your fellow Republican, Congressman Paul Broun from Georgia, who just announced that evolution, embryology, and the Big Bang theory are

 "lies straight from the pit of hell"?  

And Broun also stated that the Bible - and his wacko interpretation of it - should be used to run our government.  Any candidate for president should denounce this call for theocratic rule.

And by the way, if a Democratic Congressman said anything like this, I'd throw the same question at President Obama.

Now on to one of the real questions, on global warming. ScienceDebate2012 posed the question this way:

"The Earth’s climate is changing and there is concern about the potentially adverse effects of these changes on life on the planet. What is your position on cap-and-trade, carbon taxes, and other policies proposed to address global climate change—and what steps can we take to improve our ability to tackle challenges like climate change that cross national boundaries?"  

Obama's short answer acknowledges that "climate change is one of the biggest issues of this generation," and goes on to say he will "continue efforts to reduce our dependence on oil and lower our greenhouse gas emissions."  Vague generalities, and nothing he hasn't said before, but consistent at least.

Romney's answer, though, tries to have it both ways.  He first says that global warming is indeed happening and then says, basically, we need more research because it's controversial.  Here's how his lengthy answer begins: 

"My best assessment of the data is that the world is getting warmer, that human activity contributes to that warming, and that policymakers should therefore consider the risk of negative consequences."  

But then he pivots in the very next sentence and claims 

"there remains a lack of scientific consensus on the issue ... and I believe we must supported continued debate and investigation within the scientific community."  

So there you go: yes, global warming is a problem, but let's study it rather than do something.  At the end of his answer, Romney recovers a bit by saying he supports "robust government funding for research on efficient, low-emissions technologies."  So it appears he would support some action on global warming.  But his answer offers a troubling false claim about a lack of scientific consensus: the consensus is rock solid.

Now, I promised one surprise: a bit of new information.  Question 12 covers space exploration and is another softball: 

"What should America's space exploration and utilization goals be in the 21st century and what steps should the government take to help achieve them?" 

I expected some vague answers about how great America is (and both candidates did indeed deliver on that), but Romney surprised me with his answer.

Here's the surprise: Romney comes right out and says he will probably cut the NASA budget.  What he actually said in his answer was: 

"A strong and successful NASA does not require more funding, it needs clearer priorities."

In Washington-speak, this means "NASA has too much money and I will probably cut it."

So at least we know where Romney stands on space exploration.  He wants to downsize it and, apparently, outsource it to other countries.  Here's how he puts it later in his answer: 

"Part of leadership is also engaging and working with our allies and the international community. I will be clear about the nation’s space objectives and will invite friends and allies to cooperate with America in achieving mutually beneficial goals."  

If I worked for NASA, I'd be worried.  

Evolution bugs me

Cover illustration for the forthcoming textbook
by Carl Zimmer and Douglas Emlen

This is a real photo.  It's the cover for a new biology textbook by Carl Zimmer and Douglas Emlen.  The photo shows three "walking leaves," or leaf insects, which have evolved to look just like the leaves around them.

These little bugs must be one of the best examples of natural selection ever.  The more closely they resemble a leaf, the more difficult it is for predators to find them.  Over the millenia, the bugs who evaded predators survived better, and eventually walking leaves looked like they do today.

In fact, these guys have been around for a long time, at least 47 million years, according to a fossil discovery published in 2006.  That paper described a fossilized leaf insect found in an ancient lake bed in Germany, which looks remarkably similar to its modern descendants.

Yes despite this amazing evidence, only 40% of Americans believe in evolution. State legislatures continue to pass bills attempting to teach children the creation myth that the world was created less than 10,000 years ago.  Just last week, a committee in Alabama's legislature proposed a new law that would give students credit for courses on creationism.  The bill's sponsor, local legislator Blaine Galliher, was very clear about his motivation:

"They teach evolution in the textbooks, but they don't teach a creation theory…. Creation has just as much right to be taught in the school system as evolution does." 

I feel sorry for the students in Alabama whose education might suffer thanks to the ignorance of their lawmakers.  But there is some hope: in the national poll showing that 40% of Americans overall accept evolution, among young adults that percentage was 49%, while among over-55 set it was just 31%, as shown in this graph:

So perhaps in another hundred years or so, Americans will start to "get" evolution.  But it might take longer: apparently 18% of Americans still believe that the sun revolves around the earth.  So it's taken us 500 years to get to 80% for that one.

The black death is dead

Evolution tells us a lot about death. Of course it's about life too, but it's really about survival, which involves both life and death.

As most people know, the Black Death was a horrible plague that swept through Europe, Asia, and Africa in the 1300's, killing tens of millions of people at a time when there weren't so many people to begin with. The world's population prior to the plague, about 450 million, dropped to 350 million. About one-third of the entire population of Europe, and half the population of China, may have died. Centuries earlier, the Plague of Justinian in 541-542 C.E. may have killed even more, up to half of Europe and untold millions elsewhere around the world. In ancient and medieval times, people thought the plague was caused by rats, but the true cause wasn't discovered until 1894, when Alexandre Yersin of France and Kitasato Shibasaburo of Japan finally traced it to a bacterium now called Yersinia pestis, which is transmitted by fleas, which in turn are carried around by rats.

The plague kills all of its hosts, even the fleas:

"The bacteria multiply inside the flea, sticking together to form a plug that blocks its stomach and causes it to starve. The flea then bites a host and continues to feed, even though it cannot quell its hunger, and consequently the flea vomits blood tainted with the bacteria back into the bite wound. The bubonic plague bacterium then infects a new victim, and the flea eventually dies from starvation. " Source: Wikipedia

Gross, I know. But the original plague, the Black Death, has never returned. Why not? A study last year and another one published just this week provide the answer.

Last year, Barbara Bramanti and colleagues collected DNA from mass graves dating to the Black Death, and showed conclusively that the victims were infected with Yersinia pestis. Until this study, some scientists were uncertain about whether Yersinia pestis was the true cause, but Bramanti's research should settle that question once and for all. They also showed that at least two distinct strains of plague bacteria infected Europe, each arriving via a different route.

Further evidence appears in a remarkable new study published this week by Hendrik Poinar and colleagues. They exhumed over 100 skeletal remains from victims of the Black Death, collected from a ancient London cemetery, East Smithfield, which has been conclusively dated to the plague years, 1348-1350. Using the latest DNA sequencing methods, they identified Yersinia pestis DNA in 20 of the 109 victims.

Both studies collected enough DNA to show that the strain of Yersinia pestis from 1350 C.E. is unlike any modern strain. In other words, the original plague died out, probably long ago. The likely explanation is just this: the Black Death was simply too deadly to persist. Evolutionary theory tells us that a pathogen that kills all its victims will eventually run out of victims, leading to its own extinction. The plague bacteria needed to evolve into something less virulent, and that seems to be what happened. A bug that doesn't kill its host is far more successful evolutionarily. (Just look at the common cold, which we can't seem to get rid of.)

The same thing happened to the "Spanish" flu virus, the one that cause the terrible 1918 flu pandemic. It too evolved into a milder pathogen, and it is still with us today - the 2009 influenza pandemic was caused by a direct descendant of the 1918 virus.

The Black Death was so widespread that it even affected human evolution. In 1998, Stephen O'Brien and colleagues showed that a mutation that confers resistance to HIV first appeared in the human population in the 1300's. They concluded that this mutation can best be explained by "a widespread fatal epidemic"; in other words, the Black Death. I should be careful to explain that the plague didn't actually cause the mutation: the mutation occurred naturally. The Black Death selectively killed more people without the mutation, leaving us with a population of humans that tended to have the mutation.

In light of these new results about evolution, I can't help pointing out that, finally, that evolution has been in the news recently for another reason. Several U.S. politicians, some campaigning for President, have been attacking evolution, saying that it has "got some gaps in it" and even supporting the teaching of creationism. Scientific facts aren't affected by political statements, of course, but the future of the U.S. is. Politicians who attack evolution, whether from ignorance or from some political or religious agenda, only hurt our future potential as a technology leader. I can only hope that the public won't support these anti-science positions.

Virginia's war on science and academic freedom

The attorney general of Virginia, Ken Cuccinelli, is waging a war on science. Earlier this week, a federal judge dismissed Cuccinelli's lawsuit against the University of Virginia, but Cuccinelli has already announced that he will appeal the decision. This battle threatens not just climate researchers, but any scientist working in the state of Virginia.

Cuccinelli is a disturbingly right-wing politician whose primary actions since taking office have all been designed, seemingly, for his own political gain. He doesn't seem to mind wasting the tax dollars of Virginia's citizens as long as he can get his own name in the headlines.

His current battle is against global warming. Back in May, he announced with great fanfare that he was suing the University of Virginia over the work of climate scientist Michael Mann, a professor at Pennsylvania State University. It appears that Mr. Cucinelli disagrees with Prof. Mann over his findings about global warming. Prof. Mann is one of the world's leading experts on global warming, and he co-authored the study that produced the "hockey stick graph" showing a dramatic increase in temperature in recent decades:

Source: 2001 IPCC Third Assessment Report

The conclusions that the Earth is warming up, and that humans are one of the main causes, are no longer controversial within the scientific community, especially after the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (the IPCC) issued its report a few years ago. Nonetheless, many global warming denialists, including Mr. Cucinelli, continue to dispute them.

But Cucinelli isn't just a global warming denialist. He's also the attorney general of Virginia, which gives him quite a bit of power within that state. He's not a scientist, but that didn't stop him from suing the University of Virginia. His legal "trick" - what allowed him to use his power to go after Prof. Mann - hinges on the fact that Prof. Mann formerly was a professor at UVA, and while working there, he received a small grant from the state to support his work. (Never mind that the vast majority of his funding came from the federal government.) This was enough for Cucinelli to sue UVA, claiming that Prof. Mann had committed fraud by misusing state funds.

Cucinelli demanded that the University release all documents related to Prof. Mann's work, including all emails, laboratory notes, and any other correspondence since 1999. (This was a classic "fishing expedition: he didn't say what he was looking for.) To its credit, UVA refused, citing academic freedom, and challenged Cucinelli in court. The judge who dismissed the case pointed out that Cucinelli's suit was so vague that it didn't even specify how it was that Prof. Mann committed fraud. Apparently Cucinelli was unable to come up with a single concrete example of fraud.

Academic freedom is often cited in defense of questionable behaviors, but this case goes to the very heart of what academic freedom is all about. University professors - scientists, economists, historians, all of us - should be free to pursue the evidence wherever it takes us, and to write about our findings without fear of retribution. Even if his lawsuit fails on appeal, Cucinelli's lawsuit threatens to cast a chill over research in Virginia. Will scientists at UVA or other state universities, perhaps concerned about lawsuits, word their findings more carefully in the future? Will they simply avoid research on controversial topics, even if those topics are important to society?

The Virginia attorney general's groundless lawsuit, based on his purely political views and ambitions, is clearly intended to intimidate academic scientists at Virginia universities. Prof. Mann himself called the case "criminal harrassment." This kind of political threat is reminiscent of the oppressive regimes of the Soviet Union, whose scientists only published findings that met with the approval of their political masters. Political threats are a recipe for bad science.

UVA is a great university, but I'm glad I don't work there right now. If I did, I'd probably be looking to move.

South Dakota legislature declares that astrology can explain global warming

Here in the U.S. we have a never-ending competition among the states to see which one can enact the dumbest laws. This past week, the South Dakota House of Representatives passed a law that tells schoolteachers how to present the evidence for global warming. The lawmakers who wrote the bill clearly don’t believe that global warming is a reality, so they simply created a law to promote their version of reality. Interestingly, they used the same strategy used by creationists in their efforts to ban the teaching of evolution: the “teach the controversy” approach, where you claim you simply want children to hear both sides of the issue. But the part that really got my attention was the law’s claim that “astrological dynamics” are one of the driving forces behind global climate change.

The South Dakota bill, which was passed 36-30 (not all the legislators are idiots; here’s the roll call vote), includes a number of delightful errors, which are worth examining one by one. Let’s start with the most entertaining claim:

That there are a variety of climatological, meteorological, astrological, thermological, cosmological, and ecological dynamics that can effect world weather phenomena and that the significance and interrelativity of these factors is largely speculative.

Wow! The South Dakota legislature has declared, by majority vote, that the ancient pseudoscience of astrology “can effect world weather”! Astrology, of course, is a superstitious belief that the movements of stars and planets can affect our daily lives here on Earth, a belief that has no basis in science. Some people – including, apparently, the South Dakota legislature – still take it seriously, although most view astrological forecasts as light entertainment.

(Perhaps South Dakota was jealous of all the attention that creationists are getting by attempting to legislate the teaching of creationism in other states. Bradford Plumer over at The New Republic thinks this is their attempt to win the “dumbest state in the nation” prize.)

And we mustn’t ignore “thermological” causes. Do the wise SD legislators realize that thermology is the analysis of detailed infrared images of the human body? I suppose all our warm bodies also affect world weather – it must be true, because the SD legislature says so. And “interrelativity”! They must mean “interrelatedness”, but how nice to bring in Einstein’s theory here. I can’t quite grasp how relativity has anything to do with global warming, but I probably don’t know as much physics as the South Dakota legislators.

Now let’s look at a couple more of the new law’s assertions:

WHEREAS, the earth has been cooling for the last eight years despite small increases in anthropogenic carbon dioxide;

This is equivalent to passing a law stating that the earth is flat. Voting on it doesn’t make it true. Even if it were true, legislators have no business passing laws declaring scientific facts – they shouldn’t pass a law declaring that the earth is an oblate spheroid either. In any case, this one is just wrong. Here’s a plot showing global average temperatures for the past century, which make it pretty clear that temperatures having been warmer the past 20 years.

According to NOAA, “seven of the eight warmest years on record have occurred since 2001 and the 10 warmest years have all occurred since 1995.” (Of course, if you think this is all a government conspiracy, you won't believe NOAA.)

Here’s another entertaining quote from the South Dakota bill:

During the Little Climatic Optimum, Erik the Red settled Greenland where they farmed and raised dairy cattle. Today, ninety percent of Greenland is covered by massive ice sheets, in many places more than two miles thick.

Do the lawmakers in South Dakota really think that the enormous Greenland ice sheet formed in just the past thousand years? The best scientific evidence suggests that the ice sheet is over 100,000 years old. Maybe one of the South Dakota lawmakers is a descendant of Erik the Red, and he just wanted to mention his ancestor in the law.

And here is a lovely non sequitur:

WHEREAS, carbon dioxide is not a pollutant but rather a highly beneficial ingredient for all plant life on earth. Many scientists refer to carbon dioxide as "the gas of life."

The “gas of life” – so I guess this means it can’t possibly harm us. A stunning piece of logic. The mind boggles, the room spins about us. Apparently, though, our friends in South Dakota are just following the lead of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, which calls carbon dioxide “earth’s organic fertilizer.” It's funny how CEI, which claims to be dedicated to “limited government,” doesn't seem to mind when the government intrudes in the classroom, as long as it takes the right position.

Finally, let’s look at the opening declaration of the law:

the South Dakota Legislature urges that instruction in the public schools relating to global warming include the following:
(1) That global warming is a scientific theory rather than a proven fact;

This language is identical to that used by creationists in their attempts to undermine the teaching of evolution. Revealing his true agenda, Republican state representative Don Kopp said to the Rapid City (SD) Journal, “If you're going to teach science and there are two sides, you need to teach both, or it's about politics."

Sorry, Mr. Kopp, but no. Any idiot can take an opposing side on any issue – some people think the Earth is flat – but that doesn’t mean we should teach it. For most scientific questions, especially those that we teach to schoolchildren, there is only one well-supported “side.” On the topic of global warming, we should teach the theories that have strong scientific support.

I should admit that the South Dakota Senate, perhaps a bit embarrassed by their House colleagues, passed an amendment (just barely, 17-16) deleting the claims about astrology and thermology in the law. I guess this means that students in South Dakota will never learn the true astrological causes of global warming.

Science, medicine, and politics mix in new mammography and stem cell guidelines

Today's news included two stories that both illustrate how politicians almost always get science wrong. It never seems to be a good thing when politicians sink their teeth into a scientific or medical question: they are only too happy to distort the facts to achieve their political goals.

First, the new mammography guidelines. This was all over the news two weeks ago: an official federal advisory panel, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, recommended that women between 40 and 50, who had no risk factors for breast cancer, not have annual mammograms. This caused a firestorm of criticism from many quarters, because the previous guidelines recommended annual screening. The panel determined, after looking at data from the past decade and more, that the risks of excessive screening (many more false positives, and the resulting biopsies and even surgeries) were not justified by the small number of additional cancers detected.

This is a complex issue, and many other bloggers wrote about it, so I'm not going to discuss it in detail. My overall impression was that the panel weighed the evidence and made their recommendations based on the best available science, and I think their decisions were good ones. I'd also note something that the media seems to have missed: about ten years ago, when another panel was debating similar recommendations, there was tremendous political pressure to make annual screening the official policy.