Scientific Illiteracy

[James Marple <jesl@carolina.net>]

Another comment by a CRWM member, addressed to David Hahn-Baker:

Sir:  Your view of three types of knowledge point up a problem in public participation that every EPA official is keenly aware of but too often powerless to correct.  Profiteers have misused 'the best science money can buy' to monopolize attention of elected/appointed officials and so dictate critical planning.  We are routinely misled away from the most appropriate planning and design by persons highly skilled in the art of deceiving with superior knowledge of technicalities. (I've watched a private consultant persuade a roomful of officials that dumping water with a ton of minerals per acre-foot into a reservoir with a slightly higher concentration was 'augmentation', not pollution.)  

  Public servants are constrained by the instructions given their agency, are required by most politicians to be 'sensitive to needs of the business community".  The public cannot reasonably expect career officials to defy Congressmen and Senators who demand that exceptions be made, that enforcement be soft-pedaled or that certain planning options be overlooked.  

The best we can hope for is that those who staff public agencies will push their ability to manage information to the limit so that we have the best opportunity to find pertinent information, as a tool we provide to our neighbors, the news media and politicians so that publicity will provide the pressure needed to counteract improper influence by special interests. This is not a forlorn hope, as many public servants are willing to use their powers to the fullest and some even step outside their appointed roles to help guide concerned citizens to critical information that profiteers want suppressed.