News & Views item - September 2005

 

 

Does US President George W Bush Have a Science Advisor? (September 3, 2005)

  Bob Park

    The American Physical Society's man on the beat, Bob Park reports the following in this week's What's New column:

THE SCIENCE ADVISOR: IS THERE A WHITE HOUSE SCIENCE ADVISOR?


Actually, no. The President didn't consult his science advisor about intelligent design because he doesn't have one. George W. Bush eliminated the job when he named John Marburger Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy. Previous OSTP directors held both titles, and WN always referred to Marburger as "Science Advisor." We were wrong, but not alone. We Googled "science advisor" and got 597,000 hits on a nonexistent job.
 

As they used to say at Stony Brook when he was president, "this would never have happened if Jack Marburger was alive."