David wrote:

The Republican War on Science
by Chris Mooney

America has long prided itself on its dynamic industrial and
scientific innovation. We boasted of our investment in research to
produce new technology, products and medical breakthroughs, because we
were a country always moving forward. Born of a revolution that
rejected the stultifying constraints of Monarchist governments, we
were unleashed to invent a future without constraints.

So historians, in a few years, may look back on the era of right wing
Republican rule and wonder how we became saddled with a government
that is intent on moving the nation backwards instead of forwards.
It's as if you were a passenger in a car speeding down the expressway
at 60 miles per hour and suddenly the driver threw the gear into
reverse.

In this fascinating dissection of the "The Republican War on Science,"
author Chris Mooney skillfully explores what is behind the GOP attempt
to turn a country on the cusp of innovation backwards into the Middle
Ages of skepticism about science and evolution. Mooney guides the
reader through this unfathomable undertaking that is an organized
Republican effort to undo our national heritage of innovation and
scientific advancements.

There are really two main forces at work in the Republican right,
which has reached its pinnacle of power in the reign of George W.
Bush, Dick Cheney and Tom DeLay. On the one hand, you have the
extremist religious "base" that supports Bush no matter what his
latest egregious failure or betrayal is. To them, science is an enemy
because it, ipso facto, deals with discoveries, research and
explanations of life and the world that conflict with literal
interpretations of the Bible. Forget about the canard of "Intelligent
Design," which is just another Frank Luntz euphemism -- in this case
for creationism. The religious right fully endorses the war on science
because science is born of human research, and human research
inevitably comes into conflict with the fundamentalist interpretation
of divine intent.

The second major camp behind Bush's war on science is the corporate
world, particularly the depletable natural resources companies who are
championed by Dick Cheney. They believe that science gets in the way
of their pillaging and plundering the environment for a quick profit.
If science proves, as it has, that global warming is accelerating
rapidly, then what good is it? It will only lead these companies --
headed by big Republican contributors -- to a short-term reduction in
profits. Or so they believe.

In Bush's world, as with the war in Iraq and economic forecasts,
science is only of value when the books are cooked on research so as
to support a specific Bush policy that either endears him to the
fringe religious right or to the "loot and pollute" corporations.

In a tragically ironic way, these two Bush groups of supporters
synergistically support each other. Because if the earth's environment
is truly being destroyed by unfettered industrial pillaging, it might
only hasten the Armageddon so ardently anticipated by the holy
rollers. Who cares what happens to our planet, if "good Christians"
will soon meet in heaven?

Bush is certainly a man with a lot of wars on his hands. But Mooney's
book reminds us that the Iraq War shouldn't overshadow the severe
damage that the Busheviks are doing to America's extraordinary
heritage of scientific accomplishment. With a few more years, they
will grind it into dust.

This is an Administration that wants us to return to a period before
the Age of Enlightenment, which some might call the "Dark Ages.''

And of course everything will just be peachy once a left-wing liberal government
is elected.

How do you find all this BS, Rickets?

dxAce
Michigan
USA