A Science Adviser is Only as Effective as the President Wants Him to Be. (January 2, 2009)

And a Prime Minister's is only as effective as the Prime Minister wants her to be.

In an extensive Science "News Focus" Eli Kintisch discusses the interactions between various US presidents and their science advisers.

When Dick Morris, an influential White House political adviser urged Bill Clinton to "announce that the United States would send astronauts to Mars to search for signs of life based on preliminary evidence of what looked similar to fossilized bacteria-like organisms on a meteorite of Martian origin, the president's science adviser, John Gibbons, urged Mr Clinton to let "science run its course."

He did.

When Richard Nixon's science adviser, Lee DuBridge, was replaced by Edward Davis he, as did DuBridge, blotted his copy book:  "Ed David … [says] just to give another half-billion to the National Science Foundation. That isn't going to do a goddamn bit of good," Nixon told his advisers in a conversation recorded in June 1971... After Nixon's landslide re-election the following year, he eliminated the post of science adviser, its staff, and advisory committee."

Eli Kintishch goes on to report: "But staying in the president's good graces isn't always enough, either. To be effective, a science adviser also needs chutzpah, says Clinton adviser Neal Lane, who recalls a meeting to discuss upcoming presidential initiatives to which he wasn't invited. Lane showed up anyway and persuaded an aide to put a name card for him on the table. 'It was a very important meeting,' says Lane, who recalls Clinton asking him about a proposed nanotechnology initiative that ended up in the president's next budget request to Congress."

So far Barack Obama's appointments to scientific oversight positions, including presidential science adviser, bode well while his ego and intelligence signal he has no fear of the really bright and articulate. Let's hope that events following his January 20 inaugaration prove that to be so.

Which brings us to the matter the position of Professor Penny Sackett who has been given the title of Australia's Chief Scientist and a staff of nine, but so far as we know has no direct access to Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, does not sit in on cabinet meetings and has a non-existent public image.