Just before July 4, I was lucky enough to be at the University of Michigan's Biological Station on beautiful Douglas Lake. Affectionately known as the UM Bug Camp, this collection of old cabins and newer classrooms near Pellston gave me a rush of nostalgia for my days as a kid camper in Northern Michigan decades ago. At this camp, however, most of the campers are college students or graduate school researchers, and the big old camp cafeteria serves a lot more vegetarian food than we had as kids.

I was at the camp to participate in the "Douglas Lake Summit on Scientific Integrity," a program sponsored by the Bio Station and the Union of Concerned Scientists. My fellow panelists all worked as scientists or science administrators in Washington. All had been subjected to political pressure to alter or suppress elements of their work in order to make their reports comport with various political agendas. One panelist had refused to endorse a report on a two-year project he'd directed. Another had resigned her position. All had struggled to maintain their independence in the face of pressure to do otherwise.

Environmentalists have been aware of attacks on scientific integrity for years. One of the best-funded and most sustained campaigns against independent science has been directed at the science of global warming. For two decades, major industrial interests have funded a campaign against the science of global warming, supported by politicians and certain religious organizations. Long after scientists have come to a well-formed consensus on the important elements of global warming, these science subverters have successfully been able to maintain the fiction that there is substantial scientific uncertainty about global warming.

A triumvirate of fundamentalist religious interests, conservative political groups and a substantial number of commercial/industrial interests have pushed this country to discount the value of independent science as it relates to public policy formation.

Over the last three decades, with money and discipline, conservative think tanks and political allies have been able to literally shift the national debates toward a pre-Enlightenment approach on issues of national concern. The recent attacks on The New York Times and the periodic efforts to intimidate the programmers of National Public Radio are part of this movement.

The Douglas Lake symposium was a good reminder that if MEC, our members and allies want to succeed in our work, we'd better be prepared to take on those who are battling to subvert and distort independent science.