Weird Donna Bethell, SEPP, and Sandia National Laboratories

Weird Anti-Science - Donna Bethell, SEPP, and Sandia National Laboratories

by John Mashey, DeSmogBlog, November 1, 2011

Donna Bethell recently complained to The Washington Post about an article that mentioned human causation of global warming:

It also cited two well-known skeptics of this claim. Were those skeptics allowed to explain why they are skeptics? No, they were only allowed to say that climate change is a political issue. Well, duh.”

The “skeptics” in the article were Rush Limbaugh and Marc Morano.  Lawyer Bethell's husband is political writer Thomas Bethell, whose book, The Politically Incorrect Guide(TM) to Science (2005) promoted intelligent design and AIDS denialism, but scoffed at any dangers from global warming, radiation, dioxins, DDT, loss of biodiversity, etc.  It lauded Fred Singer and fictioneer Michael Crichton.  Donna rated it highly and urged people to buy it:

“(5 stars)This guide shows you other people are lost, November 21, 2005 … Most of us are a little afraid of science. We never quite got it in high school and it could be pretty icky, too…But what if the experts are wrong? And how is the non-expert to know? Never fear, Tom Bethell is here to help us separate the wheat from the chaff. …

All this makes perfect sense, given that she told The Post that she "serves on the board of the Science & Environmental Policy Project (SEPP)," Fred Singer 's little thinktank.

The 32-page attachment gives the details, with instructive quotes, including Tom's long arguments against relativity with senior physicists.  His book is a cornucopia of ideological non-science.  The 17-page global warming chapter alone offers 24 of the wrong arguments from Skeptical Science.  Page 4 shows the web of anti-science advocacy in which the Bethells are unsurprisingly enmeshed.

Why would anyone care? Anti-science is all too common around Washington, DC.

But imagine one found an astrologer in a position of influence over NASA or a tobacco executive over the National Institutes of Health.  Would that worry a taxpayer?

Somehow, Donna Bethell has been, for at least 7 years, a member of the Board of Sandia National Laboratories,  a major US national science/engineering resource. 

Who recommended her and kept her there?  Does she get paid for this?  If so, in Meatloaf's words, "… I Want My Money Back."  Put coffee down before reading the attached report PDF.

Image Credit: Sandra Cunningham / Shutterstock.

Related Profile(s) : 

 S. Fred Singer

 Myron Ebell

 Ken Haapala

 William Happer

 Art Robinson

 Edward Wegman

Attachment	Size
weird.anti-science.pdf	1.96 MB http://www.desmogblog.com/weird-anti-science-donna-bethell-sepp-and-sandia-national-laboratories

John Mashey: Weird Anti-Science - Donna Bethell, SEPP and Sandia National Laboratories

Weird Anti-Science - Donna Bethell, SEPP and Sandia National Laboratories


by John Mashey, desmogblog, October 31, 2011


A recent Washington Post article elicited this fascinating letter:

• ―The Aug. 20 front-page article on the political ramifications of the arguments over climate change quoted several people who said human activity is causing global warming and recounted data on global temperature statistics (as if that proves anything about human causation). It also cited two well-known skeptics of this claim. Were those skeptics allowed to explain why they are skeptics? No, they were only allowed to say that climate change is a political issue. Well, duh.

• When will The Post present the real arguments and let its readers decide whether there is a consensus?

Donna Fitzpatrick Bethell, Washington 

The writer was the undersecretary in the Energy Department from 1988 to 1989 and serves on the board of the Science & Environmental Policy Project. SEPP is mostly S. Fred Singer, who has a well-documented, multi-decadal history of driving anti-science campaigns. The skeptics were Rush Limbaugh and Marc Morano, past PR aide to James Inhofe (R-OK).  

Lawyer Donna Bethell shares strong pseudoscience and anti-science views with her husband Tom Bethell, a political journalist who has long campaigned against relativity, albeit without relevant math. His 2005 book "The Politically Incorrect Guide to Science" promoted intelligent design and AIDS denialism, but scoffed at any dangers from global warming, radiation, dioxins, DDT, loss of biodiversity, etc. It lauded Fred Singer and fiction writer Michael Crichton, but denigrated many scientists. She gave it a glowing 5-star review on Amazon. Anti-science seems to have become all too common in US politics, but is distressing to find on the Sandia National Laboratories Board of Directors, where she has been a member since 2003 or earlier.

Sandia is a wholly owned subsidiary of Lockheed Martin Corporation (LMC), which manages it for the Department of Energy, spending $2-$2.5B/year. Its missions have expanded from nuclear-related work into national security, climate, environment and biology. I think Sandia’s ~8,500 employees include many fine scientists, engineers and computing people. They deserve good governance, as do American taxpayers.

She and Board member James Schlesinger (Chairman of MITRE, past Director of Peabody Energy (coal) and Seven Seas Petroleum) have written climate anti-science pieces for think tanks famous for such. Schlesinger has long cooperated closely with the George Marshall Institute (GMI) Chaired by Will Happer, a long-serving MITRE Board member.  Tom Bethell has long associated with Singer, whose SEPP has always been tightly linked with GMI.  Most are connected with Arthur Robinson of the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine.

In this tightly coupled network, strong ideology has long employed antiscience advocacy to bypass real science.

This is not just science illiteracy but well-organized anti-literacy. 

People might be upset to find astrologers in positions of influence over NASA or tobacco executives in power over NIH, but for Sandia to have Board members who reject basic physics is no better.

I hope LMC can satisfactorily explain all this to the DOE, Congress and the American people. It raises serious questions of governance of a major physics-based national asset, when board members reject science they dislike.

[Readers, please go to the pdf file to see the quotes and connections -- extremely interesting and a bit shocking: http://www.desmogblog.com/sites/beta.desmogblog.com/files/weird.anti-science.pdf ]

My summarized opinions may seem harsh, but readers can study the carefully cited quotes, check contexts and form their own opinions.

The  Bethells exhibit science illiteracy and fondness of pseudoscience, but go far beyond that into continual anti-science advocacy.12

Tom Bethell uses high-school math to argue against relativity with senior physicists. The Bethells’ views may be evaluated in light of the friends on whom they rely for “science:” Beckmann, Singer, Hayden, Robinson.

Happer is a distinguished atomic physicist, but strong ideology seems to have totally nullified critical scientific thought on this particular topic.

Singer‘s decades of ideological anti-science have been well documented.13


All are of course free to write what they like.14

I am delighted to find such things on the record.  I hope they write more.  They add evidence for my studies of the machinery of climate anti-science and its penetration into politics and governance of the US.  Given what they say publicly, I’d guess their emails would be really enlightening.15

As a taxpayer and old Bell Labs manager who thought Sandia was a national asset, I think it is utterly appalling, even frightening, to find a dedicated anti-science advocate on the Sandia Board.16 

http://www.desmogblog.com/sites/beta.desmogblog.com/files/weird.anti-science.pdf