Just too much data out there...

Marburger:

WASHINGTON - The president's science adviser said Wednesday he recommended some changes in global warming testimony by the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention but denied he wanted entire pages cut.

Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., told John Marburger, head of the president's Office of Science and Technology, that the White House had blamed him for deleting all or part of eight pages of the 14-page draft. Boxer heads the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, which heard from CDC chief Julie Gerberding on Oct. 24.

"We were one of a number of commentators on the testimony and we did recommended changes," Marburger said when pressed by Boxer at a hearing. "We did not recommend wiping out eight pages of it."

Kinda puts this 2006 quote in context:

The third "meta-issue" in science policy that caught my eye four years ago is just how weak the tools of science policy really are. I made this point earlier this year in my address to the AAAS Science Policy Forum in April11, and in a subsequent editorial in Science magazine.12 In contrast with tax policy, where economic policymakers have a substantial body of ongoing scholarship to guide them, science policymakers have very few resources that help make choices among policy options. We have more data than we have models for interpreting it, and the data definitions are weak and not keeping pace with the changing practice and content of science. I think the situation is most serious in resolving questions about science and engineering workforce policy. What are the implications of globalization of technical work, rates of graduation in engineering and science programs in other countries, and the impact of information technology on research, design, and manufacturing? Empirical and theoretical bases for policy suggestions in this area are surprisingly weak.