The US government is removing scientific data from the Internet | Hacker News Reader

The US government is removing scientific data from the Internet

arstechnica.com

66 pointsjonbaer23 comments

> The act would disallow any scientific papers whose data cannot be "reproduced," which basically includes all studies of toxic cleanup and contamination. We can't reproduce those events, and, therefore, any data about them would be disallowed by the HONEST Act. Essentially, the EPA would no longer be able to use any scientific studies that explore environmental disasters.

Is the Republican government Dr. Evil in an Austin Powers' movie plot? Their only priority is to move money from the USA citizens - probably all the world - to the hands of a few individuals with total disregard for the environment, or the lives of human beings.

Clever (mis)use of the word "reproduced" in this context. I'm sure a lawyer is patting himself on the back right now.

HONEST Act

I wonder who comes up with these clever doublespeak backronyms... the other one that immediately comes to mind is the "PATRIOT Act".

People who actually truly believe what they are doing is good. Yes, what is happening is bad, but the people doing aren't doing it out of malice.

>> We can't reproduce those events,

But they can be reproduced, it's just that nobody wants to reproduce toxic contamination or something similar. In any case, whenever a new contamination event happens, it should be possible to reproduce all the methods applied in the paper, so long as the situations are sufficiently similar.

How will a scientist reproduce a study when the original study is not public?

I thought the argument was that the research could not be reproduced because the studies were about one-time events that could not be repeated, not because they were simply not publicly available.

If the latter case is true, then I support disallowing these studies for policy decisions, since how can you use something for support if others can't even look at it to verify that it says what you say it does?

You cant look at it because "its not repeatable" and therefore not publically available so cannot be repeated indefinitely. Seems like a political levee to hold back the sea of environmental data.

I don't like that Ars is cherry picking edge cases to oppose the action when everyone knows that there are huge problems with reproducing scientific data of any sort these days.

It's not 'these days' it's the intrinsic nature of false hypotheses outnumbering true hypotheses by an enormous ratio. Even if everything were working perfectly you'd expect false results to outnumber true results. It's like the common example of disease screening, where even if you only get a false positive 1% of the time, but there are only 1% of true positives in your sample population, you're going get many more inaccurate results than accurate results. This video walks through an example calculation and what kinds of steps are being taken to improve on things.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42QuXLucH3Q&t=218s

Without further qualifications, this statement is flat out wrong.

Text of the HONEST Act:

> (Sec. 2) This bill amends the Environmental Research, Development, and Demonstration Authorization Act of 1978 to prohibit the Environmental Protection Agency from proposing, finalizing, or disseminating a covered action unless all scientific and technical information relied on to support such action is the best available science, specifically identified, and publicly available in a manner sufficient for independent analysis and substantial reproduction of research results. A covered action includes a risk, exposure, or hazard assessment, criteria document, standard, limitation, regulation, regulatory impact analysis, or guidance. Personally identifiable information, trade secrets, or commercial or financial information obtained from a person and privileged or confidential must be redacted prior to public availability.

https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/1430

This seems to me like a perfectly reasonable step towards scientifically guided governance, so I don't get why this is framed as some kind of attack on the role of the EPA.

I would in fact prefer if any government agency would only rely on "scientific and technical information" if it is "the best available science, specifically identified, and publicly available". No cherry-picking of your studies, no reliance on confidential research that can't be verified.

Hint: The loophole is in the word "best". Note how this is a 3 part test, yet one of the conditions is subjective.

That's what courts are for, isn't it? Someone claims that the EPA did not use the "best available science" for some decision by pointing to what they believe to be a better study; the EPA gets to argue why that study is not in fact better (or admits they overlooked it); then a judge decides whose definition of "better" is the better one; and a new piece of case law is added that future decisions can refer to.

So, now the scientific studies have to be validated by courts?

This is how science in the USA should work?

No, this is how legal disputes should be resolved. The science can be done any way the scientists want to. The EPA can use any study that it believes to have sufficient quality. People who disagree can complain about it. The judicial system decides whose interpretation is correct.

What you're advocating is that science would be done by judicial branch, not by science.

More so when the new EPA policy depends of a subjective matter and we know what the position of the new chief is.

I apparently have a different understanding of what "doing science" means. To me, it means performing experiments, taking measurements, testing theories etc. the result of which is usually some kind of scientific publication. I'm obviously not advocating that this kind of work be done by the judicial branch.

So what am I imagining the judicial branch to do?

Assume the new leadership of the EPA decides to introduce some new policy based on bogus cherry-picked studies that deny the reality of climate change. When people rightfully complain that this is not the "best available science", the case goes to a judge.

The judge now has to decide whether or not the HONEST act was violated. To do that, since they are themselves not in a position to judge the science involved, they will likely have to rely on expert testimony. Given the overwhelming consensus in the scientific literature, a judge would have to be quite crooked indeed not to find that studies that completely fail to reflect this are not the "best available science". They should thus find in favor of environmentalists against the EPA.

Am I too naive in imagining this outcome?

Naive, yes, but no offence intended. You seem sincere, but consider that many judges are political appointees trained in legal matters. They will leave "the science" up to expert witnesses who've been paid to say whatever they've been paid to say.

Look at the court cases involving Purdue Pharma and Oxycontin, or Phillip Morris and Cigarettes, or any of the oil companies and their oil spills, or Nestlé and cases involving its water sources, or look at the government and gerrymandering. The evidence of judges identifying sound science and it affecting their decisions in major cases - those involving large amounts of money - is not comforting.

But if that doesn't convince you, then perhaps you can show us where in the Constitution the judiciary is delegated this power to define truth.

Have you never heard the cautionary story of Galileo?

That's not how Science is supposed to work, you don't judge science based on who has the best lawyers and most money, you base it on what's observable in the world.

Is this where people backing up this data onto other servers in other countries come in? Maybe the Dapp block chain stuff could work here not sure.

I heard about Live Journal and Russia's censorship recently fucked up. Oh well animals be animals I guess.

There would be an archive of the same lying somewhere on the Internet.

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