The Fraud of 'Sound Science'

Over recent months, an unprecedented rupture has occurred between the U.S. scientific community and the White House. Denunciations of President Bush's science policies by a slew of Nobel Laureates organized by the Union of Concerned Scientists, followed by a sweeping rejection of the scientists' charges by the administration, have made for great political theater. But the controversy has also shown that on issues ranging from mercury pollution to global warming, today's political conservatives have an extremely peculiar -- and decidedly non-mainstream -- concept of what science says and how to reach scientific conclusions. Conservatives and the Bush administration claim to be staunch defenders of science, of course; but close attention to the very language they use suggests otherwise.

Much of the modern conservative agenda on science is embodied in the enigmatic phrase "sound science," a term used with increasing frequency these days despite its apparent lack of a clear, agreed-upon definition. In one sense, "sound science" simply means "good science." Indeed, when unwitting liberals and journalists have been caught using the phrase -- which happens quite frequently -- it appears to have been with this meaning in mind.

Conservatives, too, want people to hear "good science" when they say "sound science." But there are reasons for thinking they actually mean something more by the term. The Bush administration has invoked "sound science" on issues ranging from climate change to arsenic in drinking water, virtually always in defense of a looser government regulatory standard than might otherwise have been adopted. In this sense, "sound science" seems to mean requiring a high burden of proof before taking government action to protect public health and the environment (not really a scientific position at all). Indeed, in an online discussion of "Sound Science and Public Policy," the Western Caucus of the U.S. House of Representatives, chaired by Utah Republican Chris Cannon, notes that "environmental laws should be made with great caution and demand a high degree of scientific certainty" -- once again, a policy statement rather than one having to do strictly with science.

A short history of the phrase "sound science," and its development into a mantra of the political right, clearly demonstrates its anti-regulatory, pro-industry slant. Strategic uses by the business community trace back at least to Dow Chemical Company president Paul F. Oreffice's 1983 claim that a $3 million program to allay fears of dioxin pollution in Michigan would use "sound science" to "reassure" the public -- i.e., downplay risks. To rebut Dow's claims, a young South Dakota representative named Tom Daschle promptly released results from a confidential study suggesting that dioxin damages the immune system. In this incident, it's possible to see the first sprouting of a political debate over "sound science" that would bloom into a full schism a decade later.

A key development came in 1993, when an Environmental Protection Agency report estimated that secondhand smoke causes some 3,000 lung cancer deaths each year. EPA classified secondhand smoke as a Group A human carcinogen. The tobacco lobby quickly sprang into action, and it's not hard to see why. If smokers were hurting other people, and not merely themselves, the issue wasn't just about "personal responsibility" any more. Society could find itself compelled to take steps to ban smoking in a variety of public venues.

The Tobacco Institute, an industry group, quickly labeled EPA's conclusions "another step in a long process characterized by a preference for political correctness over sound science." And as we now know from tobacco documents made available as a consequence of litigation, the industry decided to do something about it.