Nobel Laureate critcizes Bush Administration's suppression of Science

From Nature
Excerpt:

Nobel laureate attacks government's suppression of research findings.

The rift between US scientists and the administration of President George W. Bush widened last weekend, as Nobel-prizewinning biologist David Baltimore used the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)in St Louis to denounce government suppression of scientific findings.

Speaking last Saturday to a packed conference room, Baltimore — the president-elect of the AAAS — urged scientists to challenge perceived censorship of their research. Tensions between the Bush administration and researchers have been high for years, but Baltimore said he had recently grown convinced that the problem cannot be shrugged off as the usual battles between science and politics.

"It is no accident that we are seeing such extensive suppression of science," he said. "It is part of a theory of government, and I believe it is a theory that we must vociferously oppose." In particular, Baltimore condemned the "unitary executive" theory of government — the notion that a president can bypass Congressional and judicial oversight and run the country single-handedly (see page 891). Baltimore argued that this approach threatens to undermine the independence of science conducted under the auspices of the federal government.