Critical Elements Bills Lurch Forward in the U.S.

While the U.K. released a report on strategic minerals last week, the U.S. made another go at advancing legislation to improve its capacity to monitor, produce, and recycle strategic minerals and other compounds.

Senator Murkowski introduced a bill to achieve this goal, just as the bill Senator Bingaman introduced earlier this year (a near copy of the 2009 legislation) was reported out of the same committee.  Senator Murkowski’s bill is S. 1113, and text is right now available only at the Senator’s website.  This bill will be different at least in its scope – broader than the medical isotopes that the Bingaman legislation targets.  The Murkowski bill would have the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) develop a list of critical minerals, but also lists several that deserve special attention separate from a spot on the list: cobalt, lithium, lead, helium, phosphate, low-BTU gas, thorium, potash and rare earth elements.  Most of the work envisioned in this bill would be handled by the Department of the Interior (the parent agency of USGS).  A companion bill, H.R. 2011, has been introduced in the House (currently not available).

I have no particular sense about whether a more broadly focused bill stands a better chance of passage.  The only grumblings over these new bills seem to be over a possible relaxing of rules for permitting and extracting these materials.  As with many science and technology issues, I think it more likely an issue of priority for Congress rather than vehicle.  But I could be wrong.

Moving from a solid to a gas, the Government Accountability Office today released a report on the Department of Energy’s management of Helium-3 (H/T The New York Times).  There were notable inventory control and demand measurement issues at the Department that contributed to the recent supply challenges.  This essentially confirms what has been previously reported on this matter.

Science and Technology Guests on Late Night, Week of May 30

The Memorial Day holiday in the U.S. brings more of the rerun fairy.  Biz Stone (co-founder of Twitter) visited Conan O’Brien in March, and that appearance will air again on Tuesday.

Of those programs airing new shows this week, The Colbert Report is, again, the place to go for science and technology content.  While Robert Kennedy’s scientific acumen is suspect, at least where vaccines are concerned, you can expect his appearance on Wednesday will likely address an environmental topic.  On Thursday Salman Khan visits.  He operates an online academy that provides free video instruction in dozens of topics in math, science and other subjects.

Uncertainty and Physics

A short interview with the Director of the European Organization for Nuclear Research (H/T Arts & Letters Daily) raises the issues of the boundaries of scientifically derived knowledge from a perspective that gets little attention from the usual U.S. sources of science policy noise.  I mention it because I think it might be useful in debates that involve science and uncertainty.

In the interview, Rolf-Dieter Heuer discusses the work going on at CERN to find the Higgs Boson and complete the Standard Model that currently defines particle physics.    Towards the end of the interview Heuer covers the interplay between theory and experiment, and how theory does not necessarily precede experiment.

“But the interplay between theory and experiment is very interesting. Sometimes the theory is indeed ahead of the experiment and we must later try to find proof for the validity of the theory through data analysis. But when the analysis yields results that could not be expected from the theory, then it must follow the experiment and devise new formulas to explain our observations.”

He also goes on to discuss how theories may never be proven in the sense of full proof.

If all experimental evidence points to a given fact, that you can say that within certain boundary conditions the theory is correct. Take Newton’s law of gravity: Within our velocity regime, it is correct. But when you apply the logic of relativity theory, it loses its validity.

Would this discussion of relevant boundary conditions help in other debates where scientific uncertainty makes it easier to consider things messy?  I think these discussions stand a better chance of moving anywhere in debates that don’t involve policy choices.  Invoking boundary conditions for proof isn’t likely to persuade opponents, primarily because they aren’t primarily concerned about the science, but about the choices that could be supported by that science.

In other words, in policy fights involving settled science, the issue isn’t usually the science or whether its settled.

Spooky Signature at a Distance: Using an Autopen to Enact Laws

The news has circulated that President Obama has used an autopen to sign the recent extension of various provisions of the USA PATRIOT Act (yes, it’s an acronym).  While presidents have used autopens for ages to have documents signed, this would be the first time it has happened for a U.S. bill.  In previous situations where timing required a rapid signature and the President was far away, the bill was taken to the President.  In this instance the President directed that the autopen be used to affix his signature.  I’ll touch on the Constitutional issue in a moment, but some technical details seem relevant here.

An autopen – a machine (first called a polygraph) – predates electronic signatures by centuries, and is fundamentally different.  Electronic signatures are still made by the individual signing (either on a signature pad or with a signature algorithm), while autopens replicate the signature of the person.  Once they were automated (President Jefferson’s polygraph/autopen was essentially a copier), the signatures need not be (and typically aren’t) signed by that person.

So we have an issue – a signature made to a document when the signer was nowhere near the document.  The White House has asserted that the President reviewed teh bill before using the autopen, but Representative Tom Graves has requested confirmation of that review and an explanation of the Constitutional authority to use the autopen.

The issue is the Presentment Clause, from Article I, Section 7.  Specifically (boldface mine):

If He Was Serious, Senator Coburn Blew an Opportunity

While the YouCut program from House Republicans appeared to stall out once they came to power, the general thrust of line-item scrutiny has continued. This is a reasonable thing to do, if the scrutiny is handled in a thoughtful, thorough manner.  YouCut seemed more geared toward easy political points than recommendations for change, and that target proves difficult to resist.

Senator Coburn of Oklahoma failed to resist when he released a report yesterday outlining a host of issues he has with various accounting, oversight and grant choices made by the National Science Foundation (NSF).  There have been reports before about waste and abuse at NSF, typically in two categories: reports of bad behavior by employees and/or grant recipients; and the sound-bite ready descriptions of research programs that focus on what is done rather than what it means.  Coburn managed to smush it all together into a sloppy mess. In an effort to acknowledge the valuable contributions of basic research while arguing for a much more limited focus for the Foundation, the report fails to present a coherent argument or feasible recommendations for change.  Arguably, it’s for a lack of trying.

Coburn last waded into this area in 2009, when he introduced an amendment to strip any funding for political science research, which he saw as unnecessary since pollsters, news networks, and political parties provide all the political science research that’s needed.

The report conducts the traditional practice of taking aim at research projects that don’t address the value of the research in the abstract.  The absence of the explanation is taken as an absence of the value.  Researchers and research administrators continue to fail to provide these explanations to the public before complaints are lodged.  Alan Boyle manages to collect several of these explanations, but why is it always done after criticism is levied?

Science Envoys Still Active, Just Not As Publicized

For reasons only those at the State Department and the Office of Science and Technology Policy might be able to give, there’s not been a lot said of the science envoys.  Since the second group of envoys was announced last September, the two trips they have taken have seen little publicity, and none in the places where earlier visits were noted.

In any event, Dr. Alice Gast traveled to Azerbaijan in early March.  Dr. Gebisa Ejeta traveled to South Africa earlier this month.  There are other trips currently scheduled for Drs. Gast and Rita Colwell.  They will visit countries in various parts of south Asia.  It would appear, from reading the announcements of the most recent trips, that the science envoy positions are intended to be limited in duration.  After all, the envoys are keeping their day jobs.  So far the envoys have visited 12 countries to meet with various representatives on science, education, and partnership issues.

While it’s great to see the program continue, it would be nice to see some of the same level of attention provided in its first year.

Italian Scientists Will Face Manslaughter Trial Over Quake Recommendations

In September, seven Italian scientists will stand trial on charges of manslaughter.  The charges stem from an April 2009 earthquake (registering 6.3 on the Richter scale) in the central Italian city of L’Aquila that led to over 300 deaths.  Much of the area is still affected by the damage from the quake.

The investigation has taken its time, as I posted about the possibility of a trial last June.  Apparently the basis of the charges (and possibly the prosecution’s case) will hinge on what happened at meetings in the days before the big quake.  There had been several smaller tremors in the region, and the scientists comments during that meeting and in a subsequent press conference supposedly persuaded the public not to evacuate their homes.  The judge in the case states that the defendants gave “imprecise, incomplete and contradictory information” and “thwarted the activities designed to protect the public.”

I am not a lawyer, and am certainly not versed in Italian jurisprudence.  Indications of poor post-quake support from local government suggests there may be a bit of scapegoating going on.  Independent of that possibility, charging scientists with manslaughter for failing to predict a large quake – something that’s currently impossible with any level of certainty – is hugely problematic.  Absent evidence of fraud or other intent to deceive, I have a hard time seeing a crime here.  Yes, the devastation of earthquakes is tragic, but such devastation can be at best mitigated, not avoided.  And when there is a serious level of uncertainty involved in scientific assessments, to expect strict liability from those who make their best informed judgment will end badly.  Fewer people will provide their expert advice, and governments will have even less information to work with.

However, I’m not as sanguine about this case preserving a scientist’s ability to provide expert advice.  Thinking of the ways in which libel laws in Europe and the U.K. have been used to silence critics, I would not be that surprised to see notable scientists imprisoned for something they had neither the capability or the responsibility to predict.

Blame the Bridges for Manhattan Traffic?

If a bridge is modernized, you might assume that more people will be able to cross that bridge.  But the reality seems to depend on what means is used to move the people across the bridge.

StreetsBlog did some digging when they ran an old photo of the Brooklyn Bridge (H/T John Petro and The Overhead Wire).  They found that the bridges into Manhattan are now carrying just a little more than half of the number of people they did in their peak years (which ranged from 1907 to 1940).  The major difference?  The bridges were shifted from multi-use (private vehicles, transit lines and pedestrians) to single-use (private vehicles).

This suggests that the modernization of bridges isn’t necessarily connected to increasing the volume of traffic flow.  Now I am not suggesting any kind of Robert Moses style plan to keep the poor out of Manhattan by cutting off transit and pedestrian access to the city.  After all, there are plenty of people walking around Manhattan, and transit into the city isn’t limited to the surface.  I think it does suggest that transportation improvements are not necessarily connected to preferences like efficiency or capacity that can be easily quantified.  Much in the same way that policy options that seem dictated by the science aren’t always chosen, policy choices involving technology aren’t necessarily made on the basis of what relevant engineering suggests.

And please don’t disregard something because it’s old technology.

Science and Technology Guests on Late Night, Week of May 23

11:40 p.m. Monday – added Dave Salmoni’s appearance on Conan.  I just don’t give the animal expert guests much mind.

Original Post

Another thin week.  Some programs are in repeats for the upcoming Memorial Day holiday (even MythBusters).  The Daily Show is one of them, and will reair its recent episode with Jon Ronson about psychopaths on Thursday.

The best I can come up with for new guests kind of stretches my usual list of suspects.  On Wednesday the Piedmont Bird Callers will visit with Dave on The Late Show.  This is an annual event that has been on either Letterman’s program, or the Johnny Carson edition of The Tonight Show for decades.  That same evening on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, herpetologist and host of Dangerous Encounters Brady Barr will appear.  I have no sense of whether this will be an education discussion, or one of those segments where we try and creep out the host by bringing out the weird stuff.  To continue the animal expert Wednesday, Dave Salmoni from Animal Planet will appear with Conan.  Jimmy Fallon will have on a reptile expert, Jeff Musial, on Thursday.  But this is likely to be a segment to wow/creep out the audience rather than educate.

Why the AAAS Policy Forum Really Isn’t for the Locals

Miller-McCune has a nice summary of what it considers highlights from the recent AAAS Policy Forum held in Washington.  As someone working in Washington, it’s been difficult for me to justify attending, as most of the major points emerging from the event could be gleaned from goings-on in the U.S. capital.

That said, it was nice to see some important points raised at the event, in part because they need repetition to fight some conventional wisdom.  To wit:

• A reminder from Francesca Grifo of the Union of Concerned Scientists that “A lot of decisions end up being based on whatever values the politicians were elected to uphold.”
• Another reminder from Grifo that while government interference with the conduct of science is a problem, interference with the conduct of science from private entities is a bigger one.
• George Gray of George Washington University’s Center for Risk Science and Public Health noting that different government agencies can and do come to different decisions even working from the same data.
• Finally, David Goldston, longtime House staffer now with the Natural Resource Defense Council, reading the page from Roger Pielke about how there is the scientization of politics – representing something as science-based when it isn’t – to watch for just as one should watch for the politicization of science.

Again, great points, but not new to me, and really shouldn’t be to anyone embedded in science and technology policy in this town.