A pragmatic approach

Sunday, Jan. 25, 2009 | 2:07 a.m.

Midway through his inauguration speech Tuesday, President Barack Obama said “we will restore science to its rightful place ...” It was his only mention of science, but the message was welcomed by those who have devoted their lives to research and innovation.

Science took a beating during the Bush administration. If a finding didn’t match the administration’s political and ideological dogma, it got tossed aside, as was the case on issues dealing with the environment, nuclear technology and biomedical research.

In 2004 more than 60 prominent scientists, including 20 Nobel laureates, criticized the Bush administration. They released a statement in which they said: “When scientific knowledge has been found to be in conflict with its political goals, the administration has often manipulated the process through which science enters into its decisions.”

Former National Academy of Sciences President Frank Press reacted to Obama’s address by telling The New York Times: “If you look at the science world, you see a lot of happy faces. It’s not just getting money. It’s his recognition of what science can do to bring this country back in an innovative way.”

Obama signaled his respect for science when he named Nobel laureate Steven Chu, a physicist who ran the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California, to be Energy secretary. Chu applied his scientific background when he expressed concern about the perils of global warming and when he promoted the benefits of alternative energy research.

Because the new president is known not as an ideologue but as a pragmatist, science now stands a far better chance of being taken seriously. We look forward to the application of science and a concern for the environment and public health on a wide range of issues — including the ill-conceived, nuclear power industry-driven proposal to build a nuclear waste dump at Nevada’s Yucca Mountain — because the potential payoffs for humankind can be enormous.