December 9, 2003
Dr. John H. Marburger III
Director
Office of Science & Tech. Policy
Old Executive Office Building
17th & PA Ave., NW
Washington, DC 20502
Dear Dr. Marburger:
It is a changing, uncertain, and sometimes dangerous world. And these are
exactly the kind of circumstances when we need social science to assess reality
and be sure that we have an independent capacity to update our images and
understanding about how the economy is changing and the world beyond our
borders.
The nation cannot afford to rely upon these two institutions for effective
planning. The institutional problems are extensive and similar to the
breakdowns associated with the destruction of the space shuttle Challenger.
There is not a great deal of innocence left, and they are unlikely to be selfcorrecting.
Sincerely,
(Dr.) Lloyd S. Etheredge, Director
Government Learning Project
[Attachments:
Letters to Dr. Washington 12/2/2003 and Dr. Alberts 12/7/2003 requesting
termination and recusal.]
December 7, 2003
Dr. Bruce M. Alberts - President
National Academy of Sciences/National Research Council
500 Fifth St., NW
Washington, DC 20001
Dear Dr. Alberts:
I enclose a copy of recent correspondence with Senator John McCain bearing
upon scientific deficiencies and a failure of public trust by the National Academy of
Sciences/National Research Council.
You already may have seen the background material referenced in the letter (e.g,
the scientific criticisms affirmed in the letter from Dr. Robert Reischauer, the
Executive Branchís demotion of the Council of Economic Advisers, and the public
judgment of the unacceptable and serious scientific deficiencies of economics by
Dr. Lee Bollinger, President of Columbia University).1 They are prima facie
evidence of an alarming pattern of self-serving, scientific misconduct and negligence
in the work of the NAS/NRC; and of coverups that have damaged the
country.
I am writing to petition, formally, you and other officers and members of the
NAS Council and the Governing Board of the National Research Council to recuse
yourselves from all further actions and discussions related to these breakdowns of
scientific integrity. To permit democratic processes to operate freely, I also request
that this group, and all members of the NAS involved in the committees and reports
that are implicated in the NAS/NRC ėsins of omission and commissionî (to use the
phrase of the late Ernest Hilgard)2, permanently recuse themselves from all future
decisions involving election to the National Academy of Sciences or other
NSF/NAS/NRC or academic world outcomes affecting scientists who participate in
public discussions of these system breakdowns, apparent wrongdoing, and institutional
remedies.
As you know, these national problems of deficient scientific advice and eroding
capacity began under Dr. Frank Press, when he and other officials implicated in
early wrongdoing failed to recuse themselves. They used the power of their offices,
and the prestige of the National Academy of Sciences/National Research Council, to
1. Copies are available on the www.policyscience.net Website. Copies of earlier correspondence
(e.g., concerning unmeasured and uncontrolled variables and the failure of the 53 leading
mathematical models for macroeconomic behavior, forecasting government revenue, etc.) also
are available on the Website.
2. In the early - and still secret - internal debate and coverup decision.
3. As you know, the NAS/NRC governance system also ignored earlier private warnings about
breakdowns of scientific integrity - and the NAS/NRC obligations to provide the best scientific
advice to the public concerning progress in the behavioral sciences - by the Carnegie
Commission for Science, Technology, and Government; by President Jack Peltason of the
University of California system; and others. I am not aware of evidence that the NAS Council or
NRC Governing Council told the members of the NAS about these warnings.
defend themselves and block the self-correction processes of science.3 Thus they
caused additional, future damage to the nation and to the due process rights of
scientists (especially, younger scientists) who want new data systems to test
innovative, competing - and possibly better - ideas.
Would you be kind enough to ask your General Counsel to provide a written
pledge of these recusals?
Sincerely,
(Dr.) Lloyd S. Etheredge, Director
Government Learning Project
cc: Senator John McCain
Office of NAS/NRC General Counsel
Mr. Lawrence Rudolph, NSF General Counsel
[Policy Science letterhead]
December 2, 2003
Dr. Warren Washington, Chair
National Science Board - National Science Foundation
4201 Wilson Blvd.
Arlington, VA 22230
Dear Dr. Washington:
I am writing to request that the National Science Board direct Dr. Rita
Colwell and NSF to terminate all contracts for behavioral science advice with
the National Research Council.
I enclose copies of letters of December 2, 2003 to Chairman McCain and
Chairman Boehlert of the Senate and House NSF oversight committees. I will
not recapitulate correspondence with the National Science Board that presents
the background to this request and tried, as best as I could, to raise an alarm and
prevent the recent damage to the country. However, may I draw your attention
to the enclosed Op Ed pieces (e.g., President Lee Bollinger of Columbia; and
the discussion of the demoted status of the Council of Economic Advisers) and
the earlier letter from Dr. Robert Reischauer?
You might wish to contrast the scientific candor of President Bollinger and
Dr. Reischauer with the recent Presidential address by Dr. Bruce Alberts,
available on the www.nas.edu Website. Dr. Alberts writes a fine speech and
quotes Albert Einstein, ėMany people say that it is the intellect which makes a
great scientist. They are wrong: It is character.î1 But he makes egregious and
false claims that the reports of his organization ėare based on the best scienceî
and represent a scientific consensus of our best scientists.2 I am prepared to
believe that he is accurate about the physical sciences but he is lying about
economics - and has been for years.
It should not be the business of the National Science Board to become
involved in sympathetic imaginings about academic behavior, or why the
internal problems of the National Academy of Sciences have brought us to this
point, or to continue behavioral science contracts because 90% of NSF/NRC
contracts, in other areas, may be reliable. Just as in cases of medical malpractice,
or negligence in the destruction of the space shuttle Columbia, the National
Science Boardís public role is assign accountability, replace personnel, cancel
contracts, invoke penalties, and send messages to the NAS/NRC and a wider
scientific and university world about the management and scientific standards
the American people have a right to expect.
I am alarmed and deeply concerned that an academic science Establishment
has captured too many government agencies. The ėwe do not criticize our
colleaguesî norm is chilling when joined to government power. Stagnant
macroeconomics research may only be the tip of the iceberg, the most prominent
example of how a web of collegial, status, and power relationships, imported
from the world of academic science, has led to misuse of government
power and blocked needed corrective action, in the public interest, that would
disrupt such relations.
Thus, by this letter, I formally request that members of the National Science
Board, who also are members of the National Academy of Sciences or who have
other conflicts of interest, acknowledge these conflicting interests and relationships
and recuse themselves from the cancellation decision.
- Suppose that a lower-status contractor, responsible for fast discovery
national cancer research, produced the same egregious intellectual failures and
damage to patients as Dr. Alberts et al. have produced for economics research
and policy? And an examination of the records showed that they had killed
relevant statistical controls (e.g., equivalent to not washing test tubes) for
research and field trials. That senior researchers had systematically derailed new,
promising, and competing lines of research by younger researchers that might
have falsified or replaced their own, older theories? And had made false claims
that their work represented a ėbest scienceî consensus and representation of all
views?
Under these conditions, I think the National Science Board would vote ėno
confidenceî in the contractor.
By copies of this letter I will bring this request for immediate cancellation
and recusal, and concern about your conflicts of interest, to the attention of
Senator McCain and Representative Boehlert; and I would urge that all members
of the National Science Board with dual membership receive the advice of
counsel. The National Academy of Sciences is a self-governing organization and
1. Quoted in: ėMaintaining Standards for Scientific Excellence and Conduct,î section in
Bruce Alberts, ėHarnessing Science for a More Rational World.î Presidential Address 2003.
April 28, 2003.
2. Op. cit., section on ėThe National Academies.î In America, there are accepted standards
for the recall of unreliable products and drugs, and expectations of published correction of
scientific journal articles that are found to contain errors, but Dr. Albertsís lower standard is
to stonewall. Had Dr. Alberts et al. candidly admitted and corrected their problems of
NAS/NRC-suppressed data and scientific competition in the behavioral sciences many years
ago, the magnitude of the current breakdowns and economic damage to our country might
have been avoided.
members of the National Science Board with dual membership have known
about the serious and uncorrected deficiencies in the performance of Dr. Alberts
et al. for several years and may have been negligent.
Sincerely,
(Dr.) Lloyd S. Etheredge, Director
Government Learning Project
cc: Senator John McCain
Representative Boehlert
Dr. Rita Colwell, NSF Director
Mr. Lawrence Rudolph, NSF General Counsel