CSIC: chapapote of Spanish science (or how information is manipulated in ecological catastrophes) *

Abstract

The disastrous information policy of the government on the Prestige catastrophe highlights one of the historical vices of some Spanish rulers: the hijacking of information, which is public, and the use of some scientists related to power to give credibility to political decisions or to load errors of ministers, in exchange for perks. It happened in Doñana: the government ignored the Andalusian universities. In its first crisis committee, most of the scientists were from the always politicized Higher Council for Scientific Research (CSIC).

These days, when the coordination of the greatest number of experts working on how to tackle the chapapote is most needed, professors from Galician universities, which have been joined by others from the rest of Spain, have denounced that their investigations carried out after the Prestige accident "They were ignored by the administrations involved, who did not request their collaboration or advice." Spanish universities have also complained that the government does not provide them with information: they have to work with data obtained by French and Portuguese organizations. Why is the government not interested in the contributions of the Spanish (public) university?.

The Spanish university contributes 77% of scientific production. The CSIC, only 12% of the national production and its researchers barely reach 5% of Spanish scientists. The question is obvious: Why are so many experts chosen from the less numerous quarry? Also the answer: you only want the CSIC or the rest of the public research organizations politically dependent on the government. Why do they ignore the public university so much? The answer is clear: because it is competent and free. If something has been despised again in this new crisis, it is competition and freedom. The CSIC is considered by some means "leader of the investigation" in the case of the Prestige, nevertheless it copies without citing sources, as it happened with the French report.