SCIENCE, CULTURED

The Science Unveiling

When (and How) will Obama Name His Adviser? We're Waiting.

On January 28, 1993, the Senate confirmed physicist Jack Gibbons, former director of the congressional Office of Technology Assessment, as Bill Clinton’s science adviser and White House Office of Science and Technology Policy director. It was just eight days into the new administration, and Gibbons bore the title “assistant to the president,” giving him a cabinet-level ranking.

On October 23, 2001, Senate confirmation finally came for physicist John Marburger, former director of Brookhaven National Laboratory. It was a full ten months into the new administration, and the president had already set in stone his stances on the two most dominant science policy issues: embryonic stem cell research and climate change. Marburger did not bear the “assistant to the president” title; compared with his predecessors Gibbons and physicist Neal Lane, Clinton’s second science adviser, he had been demoted.

The difference here is between forethought and afterthought, between priority and inferiority. And now, hopefully very soon, we will get a third data point, allowing us to determine where Barack Obama falls on the spectrum.

Top science organizations have already asked the incoming president to name his science adviser prior to the inauguration, and at the same time, to restore the First Scientist’s rank and standing. Obama himself has pledged to move “quickly” on the appointment, but without making a specific promise as to timing. And so now we wait. But in the meantime, I’d like to indulge a bit and imagine how the rollout ought to occur.

The First Scientist ought to be part of this top tier of unfolding administration rollouts.

Thus far, President-elect Obama has mostly announced the members of his cabinet in thematic groups. First came the economic appointees and advisers, then came the foreign policy and national security team. At this point, we’re still waiting to learn about the heads of the energy and environmental agencies—EPA administrator, Interior secretary, Energy secretary—and related positions such as White House Council on Environmental Quality chair. We’re also waiting for the filling of prominent health posts: Health and Human Services secretary (though it seems clear Tom Daschle will take that job), the heads of the NIH, CDC, FDA, and so on. There are other important roles, too, that are yet to be filled. The question is where the science adviser fits into the picture.

First, let me state unequivocally my view, which is also presumably that of the nation’s science organizations: The First Scientist ought to be part of this top tier of unfolding administration rollouts. If this is a cabinet level adviser, then we’re talking about someone technically similar in stature to the national security adviser, who has already been named.

It’s true, and unfortunate, that the media and most observers don’t accord the science adviser such a status in their minds. The position has declined in visibility since its inception in the late 1950s. But it ought to have this measure of importance awarded to it, and let’s hope the Obama transition team agrees.

So then where does the science adviser best fit? Here it gets tricky. There’s a serious argument that the science adviser ought to be thought of as part of the economic team. We know that scientific research and innovation, funded by government, fuels economic growth; one need look no farther than the Internet to see this. But then, the First Scientist should also play a key role in national security and international affairs: The day after Obama named his team, a panel of experts warned that we need to worry about a bioterror attack by the year 2013.

Moving on to environment and health, once again we can easily see the relevance of the science adviser’s expertise. It would be perfectly appropriate to name him or her when announcing the EPA and Interior heads, or when filling the top administration health jobs. No one grouping is obviously superior to any other.

What this exercise has clearly shown, however, is that science informs a vast array of issues that the government must manage. The trouble is that this fact is rarely acknowledged; science policy instead gets treated as a somewhat isolated issue area, centrally concerned with the setting of research budget priorities and little else. Just to break us out of this mould, I rather wish the First Scientist had been named as a part of the national security team; that would have been a delightful reframing of the role of science in policymaking on all levels.

But whatever happens, it’s critical that we see the science adviser rollout given a level of prominence on par with all these other nominations. Precisely how the Obama transition team accomplishes as much is up to them, but in our next government, science can’t just be an afterthought.

Chris Mooney is contributing editor to Science Progress and author of several books, including The Republican War on Science and the forthcoming Unscientific America: How Scientific Illiteracy Threatens Our Future, co-authored by Sheril Kirshenbaum. He and Kirshenbaum blog at “The Intersection.”

Tags: ostp, transition

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