http:\/\/www.nasa.gov\/audience\/formedia\/features\/communication_policy.html<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p>\n
This was all triggered by individuals in the NASA press office toning
\ndown reports on Global Warning and the Big Bang and even going so far
\nas to attempt to prevent one climate scientist who is a leader in the
\nClimate Change field from talking to the media after he made a speech
\nsaying that his evidence showed that the measures being taken by Bush
\nwere not near enough to prevent disaster. There was also a reported
\nissue where reports on research into the Big Bang were being toned
\ndown. Both of those things really disgusted and annoyed me and I have
\nto say I blame the Bush Administration for trying to silence a great
\nscientific institution in order to maintain their lies that climate
\nchange is not a reality and to protect their fundamentalist religious
\nbeliefs from the cold realities of the universe. NASA is not supposed
\nto be a mouth-piece for the government, it is supposed to be a
\nscientific institution of the highest caliber where all that matters is
\ngetting at the truth, regardless of whether the President finds is
\ncomfortable reading or not!<\/p>\n
Anyhow, Micheal Griffin’s letter impressed me. In his letter he sums up the key principles outlined in the new policy and top of his list is this:<\/p>\n
"A commitment to a culture of scientific and technical openness which values the free exchange of ideas, data and information. Scientific and technical information concerning agency programs and projects will be accurate and unfiltered."<\/i> <\/p>\n
This is very positive IMO as it makes clear that the press-office cannot go round re-writing the science to reflect the spin Washington wants to see. The next key point IMO is that it sets in stone the right of NASA employees to talk to the press. The policy goes even further into what I would consider to be best practice and "requires that [scientists] draw a distinction between professional conclusions and personal views that may go beyond the scope of their specific technical work, or beyond the purview of the agency"<\/i>. I think this is a very healthy thing and will make it much harder for the press to spin scientific conclusions and personal opinions and will also help to distinguish between what science is saying and what scientists extrapolate from that based on their own views and instincts.<\/p>\n
Basically, I am yet again impressed by Micheal Griffin, he would appear to be the best NASA Administrator we’ve seen in a while.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Following a spate of embarrassing news stories detailing what appeared to me to be some very serious censorship of science that the Bush administration don’t like NASA have released their new media policy. You can see the details here: http:\/\/www.nasa.gov\/audience\/formedia\/features\/communication_policy.html This was all triggered by individuals in the NASA press office toning down reports on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"series":[],"class_list":["post-226","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-science-astronomy"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7t9xK-3E","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bartbusschots.ie\/s\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bartbusschots.ie\/s\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bartbusschots.ie\/s\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bartbusschots.ie\/s\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bartbusschots.ie\/s\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=226"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bartbusschots.ie\/s\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bartbusschots.ie\/s\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=226"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bartbusschots.ie\/s\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=226"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bartbusschots.ie\/s\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=226"},{"taxonomy":"series","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bartbusschots.ie\/s\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/series?post=226"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}