We have professional scientists on the payroll because they're professional scientists and will give us the straight scoop.
Is there any politicians in the White House who are competent enough to review USGS findings?
I don't think so...
Scientists are entirely trustworthy and wouldn't spin in order to keep funding coming their way. Riiiight.
Modern science is as thoroughly politicized as any of the other academic professions, more so than some. Conjectures and hypotheses are often trotted out as "scientific fact" to make a political point. Happens all the time.
Is there any politicians in the White House who are competent enough to review USGS findings?
There is. People who work in OSTP (Office of Science and Technology Policy, run by the Presidential science advisor) are all trained scientists on temporary duty at the White House. They can and should comment on government funded scientific findings and evaluate them for policy makers. That's what they get paid for.
If these guys are so brilliant, why are they working in the public sector?
Just askin' :)
We have professional scientists on the payroll because they're professional scientists and will give us the straight scoop.
Is there any politicians in the White House who are competent enough to review USGS findings?
I don't think so...
Democracy - n, def: The group that gets PAID THE MOST ends up VOTING THE MOST See: TRAGEDY)
If you applied your tag line to the scientific community you would get "The group that gets paid the most comes up with the most dire predictions of destruction and peril." (so they can get paid again to figure out how to avoid it.)
It kind of assumes that some politician knew the right answer before we starded doing the research in question.
This is almost certainly wrong.
When you're a federal employee you give up certain "rights" that you would enjoy if you weren't a federal employee such as running for partisan office and publishing whatever you want without getting it cleared. The trade-off, in terms of compensation and benefits, more than offset those "lost rights" in my case.
If the scientists truly want to be free, then they shoud quit USGS and publish whatever the heck they want.
Of course, they'd have to scramble for grants and little things like that.