The Fact Act - Restoring Science Integrity

- I'm asked to get specific. 

"All right, Brin, you're convincing that there's an all-out war against facts and all fact-using professions, from science, journalism and teaching to the FBI and Officer Corps. But what can we do about it?"

I've spoken on this at Google and Facebook, at the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and many other places where there's rising concern over what seems to be a concerted campaign not only against those professions -- (see Shawn Otto's The War on Science and Tom Nichols's book The Death of Expertise) -- but against even the notion that there's such a thing as Objective Reality! That anything is testable or provable.

Mind you, this stab at the heart of enlightenment civilization won't be blunted by corporate or government action, alone. One-by-one, we must sway our fellow citizens to forego the drug high of incantations and assertions, returning instead to the adult art of pragmatic negotiation.

But law and politics can play a role!  And so -- suppose we get a Congress that's willing to push back against idiocracy. What item should be number one on its 'contract' or to-do list? How about ending the War on Facts?

I wrote the following at the request of the Internet Caucus of the recent convention in San Diego, of the California Democratic Party. It is posted in full on my website here.

== Ending the tyranny of lies and liars... without a "Ministry of Truth" ==

The "Fact Act" will help restore access to useful and confirmable information for public officials, politicians and citizens. Rather than establishing some suspect "Ministry of Truth,"¹ this legislation will encourage systems that use diversity, competition and grownup adversarial methods, helping leaders and the public to parse lies and distractions from assertions that are supported by strong evidence.²

Under the Fact Act, Congress will:

ONE: Restore the nonpartisan Congressional Office of Technology Assessment (OTA), shut down in the Gingrich era.³ Protect the Congressional Budget Office and Government Accountability Office. Take measures to ensure that scientific processes in government agencies will be both subject to critical accountability and liberated from partisan political pressures.

TWO: Restore full funding and staffing to the executive Office of Science and Technology Policy (OTSP). This bill further requires that the President must fill, by law, the position of White House Science Adviser from a diverse and bipartisan slate of qualified candidates offered by the Academy of Science, and the Academy will choose one, if the president does not. The Science Adviser shall have uninterrupted access to the President for at least two one-hour sessions per month.⁴

THREE: Each member of Congress shall be summoned to choose, from his or her home district, two advisers: one a scientist and one a statistician, funded to counsel the member on matters of verifiable fact, and to take press or public questions referred to them by the member. They will not opine on political issues, only upon the degree to which assertions are supported by factual evidence.

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Likely effects? (a) Congress-members will no longer be able to shrug off fact/scientific questions with "I’m not a scientist." (b) Any member's refusal to appoint these advisers will be an implicit insult to the member's home district, implying she or he could find no one qualified.

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FOUR: These congressional advisers — scientists and statisticians — shall gather a shadow "Fact Congress" (FC) twice a year to supervise the restored OTA and OSTP and ensure nonpartisan professionalism. Eclectic diversity and potent minority input will ensure there is no "Ministry of Truth."

Without usurping Congressional authority over policy and confirmations, the FC will question top scientific appointees regarding grasp of important concepts in their field, e.g., ability to clearly describe factual disputes and forecast potential policy outcomes and tradeoffs, including levels of uncertainty.

If more than one quarter of Senators or Representatives submit a question to the Fact Congress, the FC will respond with advice according to best available models. Congress-members may bring their FC advisers to House or Senate committee hearings and may charge them to form ad-hoc shadow committees, to assist with explications of fact.

FIVE: The Fact Act must restore the media Rebuttal Rule, prying open "echo chamber" propaganda mills. Any channel or station using airwaves or accepting advertising will be required to offer five minutes per day during prime time and ten minutes at other times to reputable adversaries chosen by Competitive Argument Societies (CAS) that are approved by one quarter of the members of the Fact Congress.⁵

Example: If the 25% most-conservative members of the FC approve the 'Herbert Hoover Competitive Argument Society,' then HHCAS may send a rebuttal spokesmen to MSNBC, tackling Rachel Maddow. A CAS chosen by the most liberal 1/4 of the Fact Congress will get rebuttal time on Fox.

Rebuttals shall feature under-banners offering links for more details... plus links to refutation of the rebuttal, or else to fact-debates offered by pairs of competing CAS.⁶

Any channel or station not using the airwaves or accepting advertising that nevertheless engages in avid political polemic, with the intent to influence electoral outcomes, will be required to offer — at intervals &md a small link, in one corner, that the viewer can use (or not) to access counter-arguments, or else to track the sources of both the channel’s assertions and funding.

SIX: Under auspices of the Fact Congress, Competitive Argument Societies (CAS) and other entities will be offered infrastructure and encouragement to engage in public debates over policy or else disputations over fact. Fact disputations will argue matters of verifiable or falsifiable evidence, aiming to narrow — but never eliminate — uncertainties and to target specific questions meriting further study. Amateur or non-credentialed participation will be encouraged.

SEVEN: Whistleblower protections will be upgraded to encourage early/discreet problem solving within institutions, and later (if necessary) protection of whistleblowers who feel they are unfairly repressed by their own institution. By offering a scaled sequence of safe and secure steps, the Fact Act will encourage first self-reform, but ultimately the adversarial discovery of cleansing truth.

EIGHT: To encourage the establishment of a wide variety of competing, credible fact-checking services, Congress will appoint a commission of sages from all parties, starting with the former presidents and retirees from the Supreme Court and top federal appeals courts, along with other eminent Americans with unimpeachable reputations. Among the duties of this panel will be to issue findings when a fact-checking service is accused of "partisanship."

NINE: Under the 13th and 14th Amendments, this act requires that states mandating Voter ID requirements must offer substantial and effective compliance assistance, helping affected citizens to acquire their entitled legal ID and register to vote. Any state that fails to provide such assistance, substantially reducing the fraction of eligible citizens turned away at the polls, shall be assumed in violation of equal protection and engaged in illegal voter suppression.

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Corporations demand compliance assistance when government imposes new regulations. So, why can’t poor folks get help to comply with voter ID laws? If a state does this, then its demand for Voter ID might be sincere. Alas, not one red state allocates a cent to help poor citizens, elderly, the young, or divorced women comply with onerous new restrictions on franchisement. Most have moved to close DMV offices in counties where many Democrats live! (Why do no Democrats make this point? Opposing voter ID leaves Democrats open to accusations of excusing cheaters, but denouncing the GOP's corporate-citizen "compliance assistance hypocrisy" is a clear win.)

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TEN: Congressional committees and procedures will be reformed so that members will be free to negotiate as individuals, with less power vested in the majority leaders to control legislation. Each member — whether in the majority or minority — will have authority to issue one subpoena per year, compelling adversarial testimony before a congressional committee of his or her choosing for as long as five hours, so that the minority will always be able to question the party in power. These member subpoenas will have priority over those issued by committee chairs.

ELEVEN: The seventy-three Inspectors General of federal departments and agencies shall be brought under an independent office of the Inspector General of the United States (IGUS), whose appointment must be ratified by the council of sages (see SEVEN) as well as the Senate. IGUS officers shall be commissioned, uniformed, trained and held to quasi-military standards of discretion, honesty and meticulous devotion to law.

TWELVE: This act directs the administration to negotiate treaties extending transparency, accountability and truth worldwide.

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endnotes

1. The "Ministry of Truth" Orwellian accusation will surely be trotted-out , it must be prepared-for.

2. This principle underlies our competitive, fact-using arenas: markets, democracy, science and justice courts. We know how to do this.

3. Even Republican appointees on OTA kept demurring from GOP dogma, saying "That's just not true," so it was eliminated.

4. Donald Trump is the first President since Truman not to fill this post. Evidently, even far-right candidates like David Gelernter made the mistake of saying to him: "I'll tell you, when something is clearly false." That was, apparently, unacceptable.

5. This "one quarter" provision ensures there can be no accusation of majority bullying or "voting on facts."

6. Again, emphasizing the competitive nature of these measures will stymie accusations of a "Ministry of Truth" or "free speech repression."

The Case for a Scientific Nation: Part Two

Last time I made it clear whom I blame for 90% of the tragic collapse of American political discourse, and especially the War on Science.  Indeed, I will finish (in a bit) by quoting one of the most eloquent calls that I have seen, for a return to confidence in our future-oriented nation.

But first...

== Where democrats have sinned, too ==

Oh, I could cite figures to you. Like the fact that only around 6% of U.S. scientists are still Republicans. (And that includes folks like me, whose GOP registration is both nostalgic and "tactical.")    Still, it's true that Democrats do not have a blemish-free record when it comes to science.

Certainly, the dems increased research budgets and ended most political censorship of peer-review commissions. They repaired the crippling damage done (deliberately) by George Bush upon our energy and efficiency research programs, goosed the now-healthy auto industry into a burst of mileage-saving measures, and steered manned spaceflight from an absurd lunar boondoggle to privatization of launch and reaching toward planetary resources. Polemically, I have reason to believe that President Obama is at least friendly to the notion that we should be a civilization propelled by curiosity.

Still,   Go look up Science Left Behind by Alex B. Berezow and Hank Campbell...about the rise of anti-science tendencies on the far left. A secondary but very real problem, described by a founder of Science2.0.  Anyone who talks for very long with a genuine American leftist -- as opposed to the vastly more numerous moderate liberals -- can quickly see that romantic-nostalgic spite toward science and technology is not the sole province of Fox-watchers.

(The real difference between the far-right and the far-left? Both extremes are crazy. Both despise science. But one of them owns and operates an entire political party and ran the nation off a cliff. The other dominates a hundred university soft-studies departments, and almost nothing else. Big deal.)

In fact, let me take this farther and lay down my biggest science-related grievance against democrats. I will never forgive Nancy Pelosi for what she did not do during her brief tenure as Speaker of the House.

One move might have made clear the two parties' pro vs anti science traits. That action would have been to restore the independent advisory apparatus that Congress used to maintain, from World War II all the way until 1995, when Newt's radical neocons banished the Office of  Technology Assessment, kicking out every fact-checker and irritating expert who might dispute polemical dogma with inconvenient "data."

Amid the battles over Health reform and other major fights, this would have been a trivial side matter to pass in an afternoon, funding OTA for twenty years in advance and making sure all congress-critters would have neutral bean-counters and nerds at their elbows, irritatingly murmuring "Well... actually, the facts say..."

What could be more important, as our politicians are asked to construct policies about a rapidly changing technological environment, with every issue dependent upon scientific  insight? Both as a practical matter and as a declaration of fundamental political difference, no other action would have spoken as loudly or carried as much weight with our nation's knowledge castes.

I take Ms. Pelosi's failure to fix this very seriously. It disqualifies her from leadership, should the dems re-take the House. Seriously. A total blow-it.  Go with someone else.

== The real problem and solution, eloquently put ==

But enough with being evenhanded.  The matter before is is fundamental.  As fundamental as freedom, or the basic laws of economics.

This needs some punch. So let me hand the mike over to internationally renowned tech-business pundit Mark Anderson, of the Strategic News Service, who wrote the following, just after watching the brilliant landing of our Curiosity space probe on Mars:

Science is reality. At a time when a large and increasing fraction of the U.S. population does not "believe in" science (i.e., objectively provable reality) - or, worse, has bought into the idea that science is just one choice on the reality menu - NASA has again given concrete reason to understand that science works, and that science is not an option, not a theory, not a menu item, but instead represents the finest efforts of human minds in understanding, and addressing, objective reality.

Those on Earth who currently think that science is a political football should take note: not only are you endangering your own reputation, you are endangering the welfare of your constituents, and today, of the planet itself. 

Any person or party which mocks science should be considered for what he or it is: a threat to the welfare and future of us all.  Under the influence of political propagandists, misled religious zealots, and truly dangerous television and radio empires (such as Fox (Not) News and Rush Limbaugh), too many people today have been led to believe that science is in some way an option to opinion.

Science is as optional as gravity.  Ignorant delusion is the only real option.

It is time for the U.S. to catch back up to the world in this matter, and recognize the value of scientific study and theory, the use of scientific consensus in guiding public policy, and the wonders that we can achieve when we abandon self-aggrandizing political fantasy in favor of objective scientific knowledge. 

We should use this marvelous achievement to create a new cultural change in the United States, returning us to the group intelligence of past eras, when no one doubted that an experiment, done with the same result in many locations, demonstrated an objective truth.  Not an opinion, not a religious position, not a political chip, but another permanent addition to our ever-rising mountain of human scientific knowledge.

The world owes much to the people of NASA, of JPL, and to the taxpayers of the U.S., who have achieved the most important step in space exploration yet attempted.  This was done by a willing and informed government, working with private contractors, paid for with taxes.  It stands as one of the greatest of tributes to human intelligence yet achieved, shoulder to shoulder with decoding the human genome. 

I highly recommend that you take a moment to watch the scene inside JPL headquarters in Pasadena, as Curiosity makes its way safely to the Martian surface.  We owe a great deal to those pictured in their moment of triumph, and citizens of the U.S. owe it to themselves, if they wish to remain a great nation, to put a rapid end to the rise of ignorance in their country which threatens scientific endeavor, and the acceptance of scientific findings. 

Our thanks go out to all of the people who, using Science, Technology, Engineering and Math, just flew a car-sized laboratory across the solar system, landed it safely at the end of four lines under a crane under a rocket under a parachute that popped out from a targeted aerobraking shell, from a ballistic missile, to bring us yet more scientific knowledge about the world.

It is time for all Earth inhabitants to recognize the value of science.  In doing so, we will find common ground for agreeing on other important things.

Wow. I could not have said it better than Mark just did. All the way to his tone of militancy.  Because it is, indeed, time for moderate pragmatists to stoke up their own sense of militant ferocity and drive.

If you are unconvinced by the plight of the middle class, or the diametrically opposite records of the two parties at fostering economic growth or entrepreneurial startups, or the blatant oligarchic power grab of Citizens United, or the fact that all our present deficit comes from just four GOP "programs"...*

...then at least ponder science. Hated by viewers of Fox, adored by viewers of Jon Stewart.  That pretty much says it all.

Return to Part 1: The Case for a Scientific Nation

See also: Unscientific America: Denying Science at our Peril

----- AFTER-THOUGHTS -------

*  GOP "programs" that made nearly all of today's skyrocketing U.S. debt. Two multi-trillion dollar land wars of endless quagmire-attrition in Asia, attempting futile "nation building" in places where we're hated... plus vast tax gifts to the oligarchy, that they have not spent on the promised productive factories, not ever... plus Medicare Part D for which no funding source was ever devised, just a vast, red-ink gift to Big Pharma.  Add them up, plus the effects of Bush's "ownership society" deliberate asset bubble....  Remove them and what do you get?  We are back to Bill Clinton, paying down the deficit every year.  And you would put those guys back in charge?  Really?

Suggestion 13: Restore independent advisory agencies for science, technology and other areas of skilled analysis

(Part of a 12/08 series of “unusual suggestions for America and the Obama Administration.”)
 
(Note! I am posting sometimes two a day, in oder to clear these away before new years!)
I’m proud to have lent some modest help to the ScienceDebate2008
 effort, which got both the Barack Obama and John McCain campaigns to answer questions on science and technology policy.  Before making my own science-related recommendations, let me clip a recent statement from the folks at Science Debate 2008:

We want to congratulate President-elect Obama on continuing to assemble an outstanding science team, starting with Nobel Laureate and experienced scientific administrator Steven Chu as Energy Secretary. Two more outstanding appointments are:

a.  John Holdren as President Obama's Science Advisor.  John has an excellent knowledge of science policy, and a deep understanding of how the public needs the government to engage on science policy issues.  He is a recent past president of the AAAS and an early and ardent Science Debate 2008 supporter.

b. Jane Lubchenco, we're told, will head up President Obama's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Admninistration (NOAA).  She is an outstanding choice with a deep background in marine biology.  Jane is also a past AAAS president, and also an early supporter of Science Debate 2008.

What other evidence is there, that we may have reversed directions veering away from the know-nothing cliff? During the recent election campaign, Barack Obama received endorsement from 61 of the country’s Nobel laureates in physics, medicine and chemistry — scientific heavyweights who used the occasion to both call for a scientific renewal in America and critique the state of American science at the end of the Bush era.
  
Nothing could better indicate the turn in our national fortunes than to see science no longer dismissed as a realm of pointy-headed boffins, but viewed as part and parcel of our nation’s future.  Now, let me go farther with some added proposals:

1)  Rebuild OTA and other science advisory agencies in Congress

Yes, we look back at Newt Gingrich as having been mild and reasonable - ahem, well, relatively - compared to the horrific troglodytes who followed.  Still, among the truly loathsome crimes that occurred on his watch was the dismantling -- with malice and absolutely open-eyes toward the likely disastrous consequences -- of the in-house scientific and technical advisory apparatus that used to help senators and representatives base their deliberations on fact, rather that arm-waving dogma.  One of the greatest disappointments of the 2006 Congress that elevated Nancy Pelosi as Speaker, was its timidity about reversing this crime against the Republic.

The idea of bringing back the Office of  (Science and) Technology Assessment has never been dormant. In the 13 years since the OTA closed, Rep. Rush Holt (D-NJ) and Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) have championed several attempts to reopen its doors. Other efforts are mounting. Yet, as noted science journalist Chris Mooney wrote in a Science Progress column earlier this year, “the quest to restore dedicated science advice for Congress through a reborn Office of Technology Assessment has proven more difficult than one might have supposed.”

This situation must be rectified, as soon as possible.  Moreover, steps should be taken -- perhaps backed up by an Inspector General of the United States (see #7) -- to ensure that in future, technical reports may not be rewritten by politicians, changing their meaning at the last minute.  (See also my remarks about the Civil Service -- and rooting out the “burrowers” who started as fanatical Bush political appointees and wrangled civil service slots as permanent endowments from which to keep spreading idiocy.)


2) Try to get more scientific-minded people into high office, especially Congress.

Advisors are one thing.  It will be quite another thing for some of the worst, troglodyte Congresscritters to know that several of their congressional peers sitting nearby know -- and can rise to point out -- how foolish they sound.  In other words, why should there not be a few Congressfolk who actually know something about the world and how it works?

Let’s reduce this to fundamentals - is there any inherent reason why our policy-making legislative and executive apparatus should be dominated almost entirely by lawyers?  That is almost as unwise as it was to fill upper management in commerce and industry with solely MBA business majors, who never built a product or delivered a single palpable service.

Specifically, the governors who are appointing replacements for Senators jave resigned in order to enter the Obama Administration should be encouraged to go outside the political caste and go directly to the kinds of people who are so sorely lacking in Congress.  Instead of scions of famous political dynasties, why not prove you really are “above politics” by appointing somebody prestigious and brilliant from a field the public actually respects?  A couple of politically savvy scientist-senators might change the entire tenor of deliberation, on the floor of that august body.

Well. Naive hope springs, eternal.

3) Yes, re-emphasize science and technology education, the way we did after Sputnik.  But go farther!  Let’s make this renewed emphasis sharp enough for even the obstinate to notice.

Investment maven David A. Rosenberg recently commented: “We have 1.2 million unemployed construction workers. We have 123,000 unemployed architects and engineers. We have 83,000 unemployed machinery workers. We have 145,000 unemployed transportation-related workers. So that brings us to barely more than 1.5 million of a labor pool the government can tap into for all the new building activity. But the bulk of the joblessness is in financials (up to half a million), retail/wholesale (1.2 million), leisure/hospitality (1.3 million) and health/education (1.2 million). And if investment bankers, shopkeepers, bell captains and medical chart technicians have anything in common it is that they don't have much experience in shovel-ready activities.”

To which I must reply -- so what?  Barack Obama talks about how we must return to being a technologically adept and innovative society.  But all the scholarships and propaganda in the world will not do as much to change minds about that as the sight of thousands of MBAs and business school graduates -- who drove our nation into the ground while preening and posing as geniuses and grabbing loot hand-over fist -- frantically learning to do something that is actually useful, making a product or delivering a service. Or else honorably driving bulldozers, developing sun tans and new muscles, helping to build infrastructure that will make America strong again.

Watch.  Just watch how quickly some of those “financial geniuses” discover the value of practical knowledge, or math, or facts, or any of the other things that boffins and wage slaves -- both the scientists and the practical workers -- knew all along.  That money serves us all best when it plays the role of helper, and not tyrant.

4) Get grassroots science advisory systems going in every community.

Again, the theme of citizen-level resilience that I have raised elsewhere.  There are so many ways to do this.  For example, get inexpensive chemical sensors into public hands -- even into some cell phones  -- and watch how quickly they pour data both into public agency databases and ad hoc citizen networks.  Communities will be able to monitor their own waste streams, or zero in to help everyone spot and fix energy hemorrhages.  There are a million other ideas, awaiting only the right environment of can-do encouragement.

Yes, we need federal action.  But I am sure President Obama will grasp what George Bush never could -- even though it is supposedly” conservative” wisdom -- that the best solutions are often local ones.

Try a “crackpot idea” or two...

All right, this one really belongs in Suggestion #19: “Crackpot Ideas.”  But thematically it has a home here.  I suggest the creation of a Shadow Congress that will be an outer, advisory commission, consisting of one eminent scientist or other professional, appointed by each member of Congress. Ideally, these 535 luminaries (serving pro-bono) would be the “best” technically savvy people in each congress-person’s district, who is also basically compatible with his or her viewpoint.

Each delegate would receive all congressional technical reports and have the right to post, online, their own appraisals and discussions, with the aim of thrashing out matters of FACT... just as the Senators and representatives are charged with deliberating matters of POLICY.  At minimum, the resulting online deliberations should be interesting and involve a higher level of scientific discourse than those in Congress itself. But advantages go further.

1) This could staunch propaganda about the main Congressional advisory panels being biased, since the shadow commission would keep a wary eye.

2) If this outer commission reaches consensus to accept (or revise) a particular proposal, then it would provide political cover for the Senator or Congressperson to do the same.  A valuable escape clause for any representative worried about offending the fanatics back home.

3) And, yes, this body would bridge the world of science and politics, because many members would be appointed by representatives who have their own burning agendas.   So?  This commission will put the congressional fanatics into a terrible bind. If they choose somebody eminent, with genuine credentials and peer respect, they risk getting unwelcome news from their own appointee. If they pick a “scientist” of the flaky, fifth tier -- based on some dogma-driven agenda like climate change denial or creationism -- then the appointment will be open for glaring scrutiny... and politically-damaging hilarity. 

In what way would this not be a win-win for the pro-science and pro-future majority in the new Congress?


6) Above all, speak up often about the future...

...about how it will be different.  It cannot help but be.  But Americans have always done best when we dealt with change in a way that no other people did -- with a spirit of excitement and confidence and hope.

After all.  This year, change is exactly what we asked for.dvantages go further.

--Continue to Suggestion #14: Insure the kids...