Crooked Timber is having another of their excellent seminars, where several of the contributors gang up and discuss the work of someone else, who they often persuade to contribute. In this case they are discussing The Republican War on Science by Chris Mooney — well worth checking out. (Although PZ does yelp, with justification, about the inclusion of Steve Fuller. I’m sure that there are respectable pro-science Republicans who could have been brought in to critique the book.)
I never did a proper review of TRWoS myself, as I’ve been reading it piecemeal rather than properly from start to finish. Frankly, it’s too depressing to read too much at once. Like Ted Barlow, I approached the book gingerly, because it certainly is polemical and tells liberals like me what they want to hear. But ultimately I don’t really want to hear it — even if I would prefer Democrats in power rather than Republicans, I still don’t want to think that the current administration is so craven and dishonest as to blatantly distort the scientific process for political ends. But they are, and it’s important to keep our eyes open about it and resist politicization wherever it pops up. Chris’s book is an invaluable contribution to that project.
March 28th, 2006 at 11:58 am
I had the same problem with the book, I haven’t even finished it yet. Too depressing and I have to think about my blood pressure too. But it is interesting to read it in small pieces. I have read a lot about the book though.
March 28th, 2006 at 12:43 pm
> I’m sure that there are respectable pro-science Republicans who could have been brought in to critique the book.
I would suggest Lubos M.
March 28th, 2006 at 1:25 pm
Sean, when oh when are you going to write that how-to-choose-a-graduate-school thing?
March 28th, 2006 at 1:25 pm
That is deliciously droll – and naive. Look up One True Church high management refusing to look through Galileo’s telescope at four moons of Jupiter not revolving about the Earth. Remember Giordano Bruno when next you are subject to warrantless search and seizure by Homeland Severity at an airport. El Ultimo Presidente Boosh is Borne Again.
There isn’t a plant or animal on any US farm that has not been gene-gineered to perform. Only god can demand that greenhouses are holy and 96-well plates are damned. Do you think having a Project Head Start annual budget 1/3 larger than that of the NSF is a clever thing to do? Or a $20 billion/year War on Drugs? Or dumping $30 billion into New Orleans to have it vanish without a burp? Or dumping $800 billion into a Middle East compote of Vietnam + Northern Ireland?
The H*Y*D*R*O*G*E*N* economy, gasohol, biodiesel, tar sands… does thermodynamics have a vote in Bush the Lesser’s politics?
March 28th, 2006 at 2:19 pm
student, it will appear tomorrow, I promise. And it will be less helpful than you had hoped.