THE TRANSITION FROM PROGRESSIVE TO CONSERVATIVE POLITICS WHEREIN GEOLOGY BECAME PART OF THE PUBLIC POLICY PROBLEM

Global warming being met with skepticism by Congress; Yucca Mountain geologic reports bringing outrage among Nevada politicians; increased opposition to teaching evolution in elementary and secondary schools at the state and local levels. There is clear evidence of geologic research being dismissed as irrelevant to the public policy debate. Or worse, geologic principles are touted as part of the problems associated with big government in the 21st century.

Geology aligned itself intellectually, ideologically and politically with progressive reform politics in the first third of the 20th century. The political positioning by geologists such as J.W. Powell, combined with their scientific work resulted in a widespread belief by a majority of Members of Congress by mid-century that science could provide “non-political” answers to intractable policy problems associated with resource development. At the same time, geology benefited from the successful independent arguments that government support for basic research was a national priority. Generous budgetary support of the USGS, NSF, and other federal scientific agencies quickly followed. The Conservative movement that gained political power by 1980 rejected Progressive trust in science, the meritocracy, and government subsidy to research and development. In the electoral switch to free market economics solidified by the Contract with America in 1994, science was just another bloated public agency to be attacked by the conservative revolution. The transition from being part of the solution to being part of the problem in government was nearly imperceptible to geologists. But that transition is clearly a consequence of interactions between the policy life cycle and demographics: maturation from innovative to anachronistic policy, compounded by an agenda to eliminate big government.

In the policy arena a dispute is not resolved by the preponderance of evidence, and a policy revolution is not Kuhnian. Instead, Snow's mid-century warning that the two cultures are unable to meet the public policy challenges of modern technological society appears to be prophetic. The decline in geologic influence in the policy process can be linked to a demographic trend in congressional ideology being incrementally moved by electoral results having nothing to do with good science.