Cameron English at PolicyMic.com has a review of Science Left Behind up.
In the debate over who is the biggest group of anti-science hacks, I'm happy to call the contest a draw. Whether we frame the debate as Democrats vs. Republicans or progressives vs. conservatives, no influential political organization on either side — whether a party, think tank, or special interest group — takes scientific stances on every relevant policy issue.
What's telling are the comments; critics of the idea that the left can be anti-science pull out the usual 'we are not anti-science, we are anti-corporation' argument, which makes very little sense because it requires a belief that funding invalidates research. So should Republicans in America disbelieve science funded by the Obama administration? Was 8 years of research funded by Bush wiped out because the funding source was a political party they don't like?
Vaccines, for example, require the paranoid belief that Obama's FDA and Big Pharm are all in cahoots to make evil profits at the expense of children - like other conspiracy theories, it falls apart rather quickly. The FDA is not swapping out government union employees willy-nilly, that isn't actually possible. And most government employees are left, not right - and they should be, they are in government unions and the government gives them money to buy lobbyists to lobby government for more money.
So the idea that science is out to save us when it comes to global warming but out to kill us when it comes to vaccines and food is rather silly. Here's hoping more people notice - and they might, they just won't be in academia doing the noticing.
How Progressive Politics Are Killing Science by Cameron English, PolicyMic.com
