The scientists eagerness to serve and please renders them pliable to NRC management and the customer agency in a way that no NAS member would probably accept. This pliability is evidenced by the NRC practice of driving subcommittee members to reach consensus on an issue. While consensus-building is a sensible political move, it is antithetical to science. In politics, differing sides may reasonably compromise. Science, though, is about the search for truth.
Viewpoints are ultimately right or wrong.
Instead of issuing reports describing the different scientific views of subcommittee members, the NRC forces reports to present compromise conclusions that satisfy few, other than the NRC and client agency, and short-circuit science. An example of this phenomenon goes to the heart of the arsenic in drinking water controversy. There is no dispute that studies of human populations with high levels of arsenic in drinking water have higher rates of cancer. Some scientists advocate use of mathematical models to predict cancer risk from these lower levels of arsenic exposure. The assumptions used in these models are critical.