Biden Pledged to Follow the Science. Now Hes Following These Three Texans. – Texas Monthly

Marvin Adams, his peers believe, is peerless in his field. The 62-year-old nuclear engineer and Texas A&M professor is the lone academic on the Stockpile Assessment Team of U.S. Strategic Command, which briefs Congress on the nations nuclear capabilities. He has designed complex computational algorithms that can assess whether the weapons in the nations stockpile will work duringheaven forbidan actual war. So its saying something when Adams says theres a problem he doesnt think he can solve: Americas declining faith in science.

I dont know how we get out of it, Adams told Texas Monthly last week, shortly after he and two other Texans were named by President Joe Biden to serve among thirty members of the Presidents Council of Advisors on Science and Technology. I dont think we get out of this problem quickly.

Part of the problem, of course, is politics. This summer, only 64 percent of Americans polled told Gallup they had a great deal of confidence in science. That was a six-point drop from the last time Gallup asked that questionback in 1975. And that dip mostly came from one side of the countrys partisan lines. While 79 percent of Democrats had strong faith in science, just 45 percent of Republicans shared the sentiment, down 27 points from 1975.

Bidens GOP predecessor, Donald Trump, was often dismissive of top scientific minds, and he lagged behind other presidents when it came to naming his own science and technology advisory panel, a group first created by President Eisenhower after Russias launch of the Sputnik satellite in 1957. PCAST has been a key sounding board and study group for nearly all presidents ever since. (Richard Nixon is another Republican exception; he actually abolished a version of the council.) Trump didnt name his science and tech advisers until October 2019thirty-three months into his presidency. Writing for the FixGov blog of the nonpartisan Brookings Institution, academics Marc Hetherington and Johnathan Ladd concluded last year that Trump has gutted scientific expertise and administrative capacity in the executive branch. Trump also, infamously, suggested that injecting disinfectants into the body might be one way of treating or preventing coronavirus infections.

But even those who dont side with Trump have balked at some of the governments top scientific minds as the pandemic has gone on, frustrated at the changing guidance on lockdowns, masks, and disease transmission from experts at the CDC and the National Institutes of Health. Adams sees that shifting advice as less a failure, though, than the way science works. Its just that its a complicated problem, and we didnt have much data, he said. People were having to make their best guesses based on really skimpy data. But over time, the truth comes out.

Thats exactly what Biden has promised when he pledged to follow the science on the campaign trail and continued the mantra into his presidency. Even so, Biden has garnered criticism lately for getting ahead of the science, especially with his push to get booster vaccine shots to all Americanssomething the Centers for Disease Control has not endorsed.

Thats not a concern for Adams or for William Press, a 73-year-old astrophysicist and computational biology expert at the University of Texas at Austin who was also appointed to PCAST by Biden. (Lisa Su, the Austin-based CEO of AMD, a Santa Clara, California, maker of computer processors and software, is also on the council but was not available for comment.) Both Adams and Press express confidence that the president means what he says when he says he trusts in scientists. Every administration is different, and its up to the president how he wants to use his science advisor and his PCAST, Press said. I think its too early to know the answer with President Biden on PCAST. But we clearly see science as important in his decision-making.

Lisa Su, president and CEO of Advanced Micro Devices.

Mark Lennihan/AP

William Press.

Courtesy of University of Texas

Left: Lisa Su, president and CEO of Advanced Micro Devices.

Mark Lennihan/AP

Top: William Press.

Courtesy of University of Texas

Press has worked with Biden before. A former deputy director of Los Alamos National Laboratory, Press was the vice chair of Barack Obamas council of science and tech advisors from 2009 to 2016. That panel met with Obama and Biden more than two dozen times and completed 36 reports on topics ranging from drinking water safety to using technology to foster social connections among older Americans. (Trumps council met four times, and he is not recorded as having attended any of its meetings.) Press recalls that Obama usually left the meetings exactly 45 minutes after they began, but Biden would stay behind. Hed say, Do you have some extra time? I have some questions Id like to ask you, Press said.

Biden has touted his science and tech advisory panel as the most diverse in history and has given it specific tasks, including coming up with ways to prevent future pandemics, exploring solutions to climate change that directly lead to economic growth, using technology and science to best China, and sharing benefits produced by technology and science more equitably.

Those complex challenges, though, might seem easy compared with the panels unofficial task of rebuilding some of the confidence in science and scientists that both the pandemic and politics have erodeda task Press believes has serious economic implications. I think well see an outflow of the economic benefits of technology from the United States to elsewhere in the world and specifically to China, he said. Theres no guarantee that we will stay preeminent in the world.

Press has made groundbreaking discoveries about black holes, galaxies, and supernovas, and authored books that form the building blocks of knowledge for students learning how to use numbers to solve problems. Im very concerned with this general drift in the U.S. and the world away from fact-based decision-making, he said.

Texas has had its own topsy-turvy relationship with science of late.Governor Greg Abbott has welcomed and celebrated high-tech companies, from Elon Musks SpaceX in Boca Chica to Oracle in Austin, but hes also spurned some scientific advice during the pandemic. Abbott reopened the state and dropped the mask mandate in March without consulting all of his chosen medical advisers, some of whom opposed the decision. Biden described Abbotts decision as Neanderthal thinking.

Adams wouldnt discuss the states stance on science, and Press declined to get into specifics about the governors handling of the pandemic. (Understandable, considering they are employees of state-funded universities.) But Press did say that hes been dismayed at how politics, particularly the recent six-week abortion ban and election bill, seem to negatively affect Texass opportunities for improving its technology and higher education sectors. When he moved to Texas in 2007 it was in part because he believed the state held its universities, burgeoning tech industry, and business in a high-enough regard that it wouldnt let politics get in the way. Now hes not so sure. Texas politics has always been tough, he said. But this is politics potentially killing the golden goose.

Original post:

Biden Pledged to Follow the Science. Now Hes Following These Three Texans. - Texas Monthly