Bush-Cheney administration/anti-science

Overview

The Bush II administration claims to be pro-science, and often makes gestures to that effect, but they are in fact acting on a deeply anti-scientific agenda – of which evangelism is just a facet (and even that facet is more of a tool towards political ends than it is part of a set of actual beliefs by anyone in the administration).

This contradictory stance is also part of a consistent pattern of hypocrisy within the administration.

Links

News & Views

• 2007-07-10 2007-07-10 White House Is Accused of Putting Politics Over Science: "Former Surgeon General Richard H. Carmona told a Congressional committee today that top officials in the Bush administration repeatedly tried to weaken or suppress important public health reports because of political considerations."
• 2007-03-23 Faking science? Bush team must think we're stupid by Leonard Pitts, Jr.: names several examples of prior offenses
• 2006-11-28 How Old Is the Grand Canyon? Park Service Won't Say: "Orders to Cater to Creationists Makes National Park Agnostic on Geology"
• 2005-09-11 'War' dispatches: review by David Brin of The Republican War on Science by Chris Mooney: "It is unambiguous that the GOP Congress cuts funding for the National Science Foundation and NOAA even while calling for "more research" on global climate change." ... "Evidence overwhelmingly points to orchestrated manipulation of both science and public opinion by groups ranging from the Heritage Foundation and the American Enterprise Institute all the way to elements now running both Congress and the executive branch."
• 2005-06-21 The Assault on Scientific Freedom
• 2004-02-18 Restoring Scientific Integrity in Policymaking, a statement signed by "over 60 leading scientists–Nobel laureates, leading medical experts, former federal agency directors, and university chairs and presidents"
• James Hansen:
  • 2006-03-19 Rewriting the Science (from the 60 Minutes TV show) (slashdot)
  • 2006-01-30 Top climatologist accuses US of trying to gag him