To many in the scientific community, it is unfathomable that Marburger would risk his reputation by staying on and continuing to defend the administration. Others see the fact that he has remained in office as indicative of nothing more than the very real compromises involved in formulating science policy. ”If you haven’t been there and lived in the White House, and thought deeply about your role and the ethical dilemmas you incur, such as whether or not to resign, then it might be quite difficult to understand what’s happened with Marburger,” says Neal Lane, Bill Clinton’s second science adviser and a prominent supporter of the U.C.S. petition. Those who have worked closely with Marburger agree that his response is based on a careful cost-benefit analysis. ”The choice is between Jack and a Neanderthal,” says one former Bush administration official, whose livelihood still depends on the federal government and thus spoke to me on the condition of anonymity. ”The scientific community will never understand that.”

This would seem to imply a hostility to science in the administration so great that one has to pick one’s battles very carefully, lest the messenger be killed.

http://www.insurancejournal.com/news/national/2006/02/26/65929.htm
the following is from a yahoo AP version of same report:

“But in the run-up to the decision, the journal Environmental Health reported that industry-commissioned scientists withheld data suggesting even small amounts of the known carcinogen, which is used in the steel, aerospace, electroplating and industries, can be deadly.

“We think we have an example in which all of the standard elements of scientific distortion are present: hiding behind the lawyers, statistical manipulation, failure to publish … all that kind of stuff which comes right out of the tobacco industry playbook,” said Dr. Peter Lurie, one of the report’s authors.

Kate McMahon-Lohrer, an attorney at the firm Collier Shannon Scott and counsel for the industry group Chromium Coalition, vehemently disagreed with the Environmental Health report.

“That charge is absolutely and completely false and it’s outrageous and libelous,” she said.

In a telephone interview, McMahon-Lohrer acknowledged that hexavalent chromium raises workers’ cancer risk at high doses, but said there was debate about the risk from low doses. She denied any industry-sponsored research was withheld from OSHA.

David Michaels, who heads the project on scientific knowledge and public policy at George Washington University and was a senior author of the report, said studies commissioned by a chromium industry group showed even low doses elevate cancer risk.

“Industry had commissioned a study which looked at newer facilities where exposures were much better-controlled and that study showed that workers with relatively low exposure to hexavalent chromium had greatly increased risk of lung cancer,” Michaels said by telephone.”

Archimedes was killed by a Roman soldier when the city was taken. The traditional story is that the mathematician was unaware of the taking of the city. While he was drawing figures in the dust, a Roman soldier stepped on them and demanded he come with him. Archimedes responded, “Don’t disturb my circles!” The soldier was so enraged that he pulled out his sword and slew the great geometer. When Archimedes was buried, they placed on his tombstone the figure of a sphere inscribed inside a cylinder and the 2:3 ratio of the volumes between them, the solution to the problem he considered his greatest achievement.

I thought it good that I get a least one side of the conversation in context:)

From a climate perspective this issue would tarnish other perspectives as well I am sure. There are no borders separating what is being viewed, when the outcome had been stalled to signing Kyoto, and a position upheld by scientists suporting this “illusion” of scientific origins.

That it was money motivated without doing the research to alternate energies, hurt the impression people might have of the governement?

So that had to be addressed.While the focused had been detailed in the circles I guess Archimedes did not see the danger?

…..better debate…better outcome.

-cvj