Patrick O'Carroll, one of the major researchers involved with the CDC's efforts in question, infamously wrote that, "We’re going to systematically build the case that owning firearms causes deaths." Doing research to support a predetermined conclusion is not good science. It was political advocacy wearing the mantle of science.
And that is a huge issue with people that don't understand science backing away from and outright rejecting science. That is the whole problem with "Science" today is once you inject advocacy in one little area and it is exposed people throw the baby out with the bath water.
Take environmental sciences for example, the CRU and other leaks where scientist where exposed colluding with other scientist to blackball legitimate skeptics tainted the whole industry. Now we are seeing an wholesale rejection of environmental sciences and the gutting of the EPA. In a manner this is good, because there was obvious collusion and political advocacy and intent to stifle real science. On the other had, we also got a wholesale rejection by the voting majority which is now set to put clean energy back decades.
I personally put the blame squarely on the scientist of the CRU and the NOAA pause buster scientists (they are a disgrace to the title). They cost us dearly by trying to advance their agenda. When you compromise the integrity of science the cost is just too great.
I think it's naïve to think that the agenda is only held by the person who accidentally exposed it. I think a research team where a member can speak broadly about their group "we're going to.." versus "I'm going to" is tainted. What about the way people characterize the paid faux research commissioned by the tobacco industry? Generally it is bad enough that they paid for it, it tainted all the results of the study.
I think it's bad enough if one researcher says that they and their entire team ("we're") are committed to corrupting the results of the study to reach a foregone conclusion.
The state does not like citizens having guns, the state owns and operates the CDC and decides its budget and staffing. In a way, the research is about matters which the state has a vested interest in. If this were a private company, we would be ready to write it off entirely.
When the logging industry finds certain invasive species on land it owns it clear cuts, chips and burns a few square miles just to be on the safe side.
I have no problem with science taking that approach. At least it keeps it fairly pure.
Science 'rejects' the behavior choices of individuals all the time. Should we ignore the obesity epidemic because it 'rejects' those suffering from it?
Science isn't about making feel comfortable, it's about following the scientific method. It often presents ugly or inconvenient truths.
If the evidence at that point was damning he wouldn't have been biased (don't know enough, but I suspect I very well could have been) rather than operating from the evidence.
The cool thing about science is that regardless of your beliefs, you have to show your work, and it must stand up to scrutiny. The process filters advocacy. When there's ample data that suggests causal relationships (which there is in this case), you go out and try to prove a cause and reject the null hypothesis.
Certainly the scientific community is prone to coming to broader conclusions than the findings suggest, but every scientific paper's discussion section can be prone to this. And, that isn't where the conversation ends, as follow-on research will often pick apart those conclusions.
Meanwhile, the NRA has effectively bullied the CDC into not doing any research at all related to guns, as you can tell from how they respond to the NRA:
> Following the January 2011 shootings in Tucson, Ariz., (in which Rep. Gabrielle Giffords was injured), the New York Times published an article reporting that the CDC went so far as to “ask researchers it finances to give it a heads-up anytime they are publishing studies that have anything to do with firearms. The agency, in turn, relays this information to the NRA as a courtesy.” In response to this report, the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence sent a letter (PDF, 647) in March 2011 to Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius expressing concern that the agency was giving the NRA a “preferred position,” and urging that the NRA not be given the opportunity to exercise special influence over CDC’s firearms-related research.
> In December 2011, Congress added language equivalent to the Dickey amendment to fiscal year 2012 appropriations legislation that funded the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2012 (PDF, 1.3MB), stating that “none of the funds made available in this title may be used, in whole or in part, to advocate or promote gun control.” The NRA’s advocacy efforts that lead to this amendment are thought to be a response to a 2009 American Journal of Public Health article by Branas et al., titled “Investigating the link between gun possession and gun assault,” presenting the results of research that was funded by the NIH’s National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. [1]
In what other domain do we tip toe around research like this?
I think its pretty clear the NRA is simply afraid of the implications of such research - the hard question that comes up when liberties and their societal costs intersect. Maybe we choose liberties, but we have to go into that conversation with our eyes open.
