War on Science

Salon posted an interesting article/book review about the Republicans and the religious right's campaign to undermine the findings of science. It has been at its most visible in the evolution debate, but it covers a wide variety of subjects including stem cell research, global warming, abortion, food and health issues, evironmental issues, you name it. Science is increasingly labeled as sound or "junk" based on whether our ruling elite happens to agree with it or not. This is a very disturbing trend. It is frighteningly similar to the position science had under Soviet Russia in which science was labeled as "proletarian" or "bourgeois" based on whether the government agreed with it or not and supported or attacked accordingly. See Lysenkoism, Japhetic theory, and Russia's environmental problems for how well that worked out.