$25 Million Down; $175 Million to Go

By ARM @Adobe Stock

Running an Echo Chamber

In that Governments have become the dominant source of “science” funding (as well as NGO funding and education funding), “scientists” find it difficult to avoid sticking their fingers into politics, particularly when Leftist governments want the “science” to provide them with results that support their progressive agenda.

By Franis Menton’s calculations, there isn’t much, if anything, about the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) that is worth preserving. At the Manhattan Contrarian, Mr. Menton gives his reasons why NAS should not receive a dime of taxpayer funding.

A headline from Science magazine, 2 June: “National Academies, staggering from Trump cuts, on brink of dramatic downsizing.”

President Marcia McNutt transitioned from editor-in-chief of Science magazine to president of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) late in 2015. Mr. Menton (aka the Manhattan Contrarian) focused on what he calls an “epidemic” of “orthodoxy enforcement in the U.S. scientific establishment.

Menton identifies Ms. McNutt as the leader of this epidemic.

In 2025, Mr. Menton received what he considered an extraordinary email from Peter Woods of the National Association of Scholars. Woods explained why he opposed Ms. McNutt’s candidacy. He identified major areas of scientific inquiry, all with huge money at stake.

Ms. McNutt, editor of Science, is accused of trying to suppress all dissenting evidence and data, especially in three areas:

1. the so-called “linear no threshold” hypothesis as to the effects of pollutants and carcinogens (including radiation).
2. the health effects of very small particulate matter (2.5 microns or smaller) in the air (known as “PM 2.5”).
3. the so-called “consensus model” of climate change driven by CO2 and other greenhouse gases.

Francis Menton received a long excerpt from an email from Peter Woods:

Dr. McNutt has in her career found herself faced more than once with the challenge of what to do when an entrenched orthodoxy meets a substantial scientific challenge.  The challenge in each case could itself prove to be mistaken, but it met what most scientists would concede to be the threshold criteria to deserve a serious hearing.  Yet in each case Dr. McNutt chose to reinforce the orthodoxy by shutting the door on the challenge. . . .  Dr. McNutt’s dismissive treatment of scientific criticisms is disturbing. . . . 

1. The status of the linear no-threshold (LNT) dose-response model for the biological effects of nuclear radiation.  The prominence of the model stems from the June 29, 1956 Science paper, “Genetic Effects of Atomic Radiation,” authored by the NAS Committee on the Biological Effects of Atomic Radiation.  This paper is now widely questioned and has been seriously critiqued in many peer-reviewed publications, including two detailed 2015 papers.  These criticisms are being taken seriously around the world, as summarized in a December 2, 2015 Wall Street Journal commentary.  In August 2015 four distinguished critics of LNT made a formal request to Dr. McNutt to examine the evidence of fundamental flaws in the 1956 paper and retract it.  However, on August 11, 2015 Dr. McNutt rejected this request without even reviewing the detailed evidence.  Furthermore, Dr. McNutt did not even consider recusing herself and having independent reviewers examine evidence that challenges the validity of both a Science paper and an NAS Committee Report. 

Empirical Observation Goes Awry

Peter Woods continues explaining why the tie with the LNT model needs to be seriously addressed:

The consequential matter that bears on a great deal of national public policy, as the LNT model has served as the basis for risk assessment and risk management of radiation and chemical carcinogens for decades, but now needs to be seriously reassessed.  This reassessment could profoundly alter many regulations from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Environmental Protection Agency, and other government agencies.  The relevant documents regarding the 1956 Science paper and Dr. McNutt can be examined at www.nas.org/images/documents/LNT.pdf.

2. Extensive evidence of scientific misconduct in the epidemiology of fine particulate air pollution(PM2.5) and its relationship to mortality.  Since 1997 EPA has claimed that lifetime inhalation of about a teaspoon of particles with diameter less than 2.5 microns causes premature death in the United States and it established a national regulation based on this claim.  Science has provided extensive news coverage of this issue and its regulatory significance, but has never published any scientific criticism of this questionable claim, which is largely based on nontransparent research

Mr. Menton, how does Mr. Woods square the evidence of misconduct by the PM2.5 researcher? This seems especially troubling in that the EPA relies on this info.

At their leisure, readers can examine the relevant documents regarding this controversy at https://www.nas.org/images/documents/PM2.5.pdf.

3. Earlier this year, nine accomplished scientists and academics submitted to Science well-documented evidence of misconduct by several of the PM2.5 researchers relied upon by EPA.  The evidence of misconduct was first submitted to Dr. McNutt in a detailed June 4, 2015 email letter, then in a detailed July 20, 2015 Policy Forum manuscript “Transparent Science is Necessary for EPA Regulations,” and finally in an August 17, 2015 Perspective manuscript “Particulate Matter Does Not Cause Premature Deaths.” Dr. McNutt and two Science editors immediately rejected the letter and the manuscripts and never conducted any internal or external review of the evidence.  This a consequential matter because many multi-billion dollar EPA air pollution regulations, such as, the Clean Power Plan, are primarily justified by the claim that PM2.5 is killing Americans.  The relevant documents regarding this controversy can be examined at https://www.nas.org/images/documents/PM2.5.pdf. 

Ms. McNutt ends the debate at Science, July 2015:

The time for debate has ended. Action is urgently needed. The Paris-based International Energy Agency recently announced that current commitments to cut CO2 emissions [known as Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs)] from the world’s nations are insufficient to avoid warming the entire planet by an average of more than 2°C above the preindustrial level. To set more aggressive targets, developed nations need to reduce their per-capita fossil fuel emissions even further, and by doing so, create roadmaps for developing nations to leapfrog technologies by installing low-CO2–emitting energy infrastructure rather than coal-fired power plants as they expand their energy capacity.

Ms. McNutt and the NAS have been central actors in suppressing dissenting voices in the climate debate since 2016, according to Mr. Menton in the 2 June Science issue:

The presidents of those three honorific societies that together with NRC comprise NASEM—McNutt, John Anderson, and Victor Dzau—each earned more than $1 million in 2023. . . . At a time when hundreds of jobs are at risk, “It is galling that the leadership of the institution makes that kind of money,” says one senior program officer with a decade of experience at the institution. 

Richard Feyman Sums It Up 

Why did Richard Feynman reportedly refuse to join the NAS?  As Feynman notes, the function of NAS was only to decide who was august enough. Bottom of Form

Defund the NAS

Admitted Steven Schneider, notorious as the High Priest of the Global Warming Cul:

“Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest.” In a more complete interview with Discover Magazine (the October 1989 issue is mysteriously absent from their online archive) he spoke about a “double ethical bind.” Within one paragraph he said both “we have to include all doubts” and “we have to … make little mention of any doubts.”