THIS is the best of times. This is the worst of times. About now Washington’s
science policy insiders are taking a deep breath and preparing to educate a new
administration in the ways of Washington.
It’s the best of times, because President George W. Bush’s crew will need advice right away,
especially with the truncated transition period brought on by that unpleasantness over who won in
Florida. Naturally the incumbents are best placed to offer that
advice—whether it be on the true importance of the investment tax credit
and the reimbursement US universities are due for the overheads associated with
federally funded research. Or even something as straightforward as where to go
for a good barbecue in DC.
IT’S ALSO the worst of times, since any new team comes complete with the “new
broom” mentality: clean out the entrenched views and install a fresh approach
(albeit inevitably a naive approach) to all policy issues. While the newcomers
may be grateful for the scoop on barbecues, and possibly a few other tips about
coping with the Washington policy scene, the cognoscenti may simply have to grin
and bear it as the new team goes its own sweet way and gets it wrong.
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Of course as an impartial observer, Andreas Frew has no desire to help or
hinder the new administration on its journey of discovery. What’s certain is
that Bush and his new band and Congress will provide the same amount of
farcical, wrong-headed, silly, misguided and impenetrable policies and
statements as their predecessors did. But at the risk of scuppering some juicy
topics for future columns, I have some advice for Bush’s officials on how to
handle some of the hot topics of the new millennium.
Space station: Try to keep a straight face when describing the space station
as essential for growing protein crystals in space. It only gets harder when you
move on to describe the other important functions of the $20 billion
project, for example, curing human diseases by studying extraordinarily healthy
individuals working in an environment like nowhere on Earth.
Sequencing the human genome: Remember, both the public consortium and the
private company Celera Genomics have done incredibly important work on this
project. Repeat after me: it wasn’t a race, all humanity is the winner. It
wasn’t a race, all humanity is the winner . . .
Stem cells: Not all stem cells come from embryos or aborted fetuses. Since
many senior senators are convinced that stem cell research will ultimately be
useful in prolonging lives—especially their lives and the lives of their
constituents—try not to get too doctrinaire about prohibiting this kind of
research.
Cloning: See stem cells, above.
Environment: Bill Clinton spent the last two months of his administration in
front of a map of the US, finding green spots and declaring them “national
monuments”. This is what outgoing American presidents do. They “leave a legacy”,
though they don’t admit to it at the time. Don’t try to undo a presidential
legacy. No incoming president has been able to overturn monument
designations—the pertinent laws are close to airtight. Besides, you should
have learned in nursery school that it’s not nice to knock down someone else’s
house of blocks, no matter how ugly you think it looks.
Ballistic missile defence: Probably just as well not to refer to this as Star
Wars any more, since the latest prequel to this impossibly successful movie was
a dud. On second thoughts, maybe you should continue to refer to efforts in this
direction as the new Star Wars. The analogy may be apt.
