I have long argued that while the kooky, anti-science conservative is a new phenomenon, the kooky, anti-science progressive has a decades-old history. And it basically came into existence due to Rachel Carson's anti-science screed "Silent Spring"(1) - unless you really want to believe someone sprayed DDT, got cancer and died 6 months later.
Jon Entine, appearing at American Enterprise Institute (and Huffington Post) isn't all that thrilled about how 'political science' - yes, pesky humanities people again - are manipulating real science to their own ends. It is not the politicization of science, which has been talked about often, but its twin, the scientization of politics.
The toxic mix of science and politics was on vivid display just last week, when the Food and Drug Administration firmly rejected a "citizens petition" filed by the Natural Resources Defense Council to ban bisphenol A (BPA)...The FDA's decision rested on the science, while the campaigns led by the NRDC and a slew of advocacy groups rested on cherry-picking studies that demonized a chemical.
Nothing new there. BPA is sooooo 2011. Pink Slime will kill us all in 2012 - unless you know anything at all about science. But the advocacy group behind this study is, no surprise, the Silent Spring Institute, which seeks to science up cultural beliefs. Rachel Carson would be proud. Science should be concerned.
Silent Spring, BPA and toxic health scares: Let science drive regulation, not fear by Jon Entine, AEI, April 3rd, 2012
NOTE:
(1) The previous incarnation of progressives had been extremely pro-science, though still to affirm cultural beliefs. Progressives before Carson believed in sterilizing 'loose' women, breeding out dumb people or at least making sure schools trained them solely for manual labor - eugenics and social Darwinism. So at least they are more harmless now.
