Science Under the Rug: How Government and Industry Hide Research and How to Fight Back
Session Type(s): Panel
Starts: Friday, Jun. 21 6:00 PM (Eastern)
Ends: Friday, Jun. 21 7:15 PM (Eastern)
Attempts to suppress and obscure science are increasingly common features of many public policy battles, especially around tobacco, evolution, climate change, guns and abortion. Eighty-five years after the Scopes Monkey Trial, Tennessee just passed another law attacking evolution education—and lumped in climate change and stem cell research to boot. Other legislators have forced doctors to tell patients falsehoods about their pregnancies and abortion and compelled teachers to mislead students about sex and sexuality. At the NRA’s behest, federal funds for gun violence research were eliminated, and basic data on gun violence cannot be gathered. Meanwhile, Big Tobacco and fossil fuel producers are the most prominent, but hardly the only, industries which have conspired to obscure research and attack researchers who reveal their products’ dangers. We’ll learn more about how science is being hidden and attacked, and how we can fight back.
Moderator
Panelists
Michael Mann
Dr. Michael E. Mann is Distinguished Professor of Meteorology at Penn State University. He was awarded the Hans Oeschger Medal of the European Geosciences Union in 2012. He is a Fellow of both the American Geophysical Union and the American Meteorological Society.
Dr. Mann is author of more than 160 scientific publications, and has published two books including Dire Predictions: Understanding Global Warming and The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars: Dispatches from the Front Lines.
Elizabeth Nash
Elizabeth Nash is the State Issues Manager in the Guttmacher Institute’s Washington DC office. She coordinates the efforts of the state team, which analyzes legislative, regulatory and judicial actions on reproductive health issues and develops Guttmacher’s monthly State Policies in Brief series and update of state policy developments. Ms. Nash joined the Institute in 1999. She received her undergraduate degree from the College of William and Mary in 1996 and earned a Masters in Public Policy from The George Washington University in 2005.
Robyn Thomas
Robyn Thomas is currently serving in her seventh year as the Executive Director of the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence. A national non-profit organization founded by attorneys, the Law Center is focused on providing comprehensive legal research and expertise in support of smart gun laws that save lives.
Prior to her work with the Law Center, Robyn served as the Executive Director of the Tikkun Community and Tikkun Magazine and practiced law at Lord Bissell & Brook and Milberg Weiss Bershad & Shulman in New York. She is a graduate of Duke University and University of Miami School of Law, where she graduated magna cum laude.