Over at The Intersection, Chris Mooney has an interesting discussion about why science is still so massively under attack right now, even though Bush’s anti-science regime is gone, and Obama promised to restore science to its rightful place.
Chris notes things have changed. In an interview he did he notes that before, it was a top-down attack, orchestrated by the White House. Now, we’re seeing more of a bottom-up effort to suppress science. I agree, though I’ll add that a lot of Congresscritters are pushing hard against science; I could easily name a half-dozen Senators and Representatives who are virulently antiscience. But we are seeing it at all levels, from school boards up to state legislatures (and Attorneys General) up to Congress.
There are too many attacks to even list coherently, ranging from climate science to evolution and stem cell research. It’s the same old list, in fact, but a lot of the names have changed since 2008. With this election today, I certainly hope things get better, but if anyone from the Tea Party is elected it certainly won’t help.
I implore everyone reading this to find out where your candidates stand on important issues. Not just taxes and health care and all that (which has become so polarized it’s obvious where people are just by what party they claim as their own) but also on science topics. I am hardly a single-issue voter, but where someone stands on things like global warming and the teaching of creationism is pretty important to me, too.
