The Republican War on Science by Chris Mooney. New York:
Basic Books, 2005, 351 pp.
The Republican War on Science offers a catalog of Republican-led
confrontations with mainstream science, ranging from attacks on
evolution and denial of climate change to the stacking of government
advisory committees with industry scientists and the blocking of
federal funds for stem cell research. As an unapologetic critic of the
Bush administration, I was eager to read a penetrating political
analysis of how the current regime has sought to wring partisan
advantage from the complex and difficult relationship between politics
and science. Alas, what I found was a tiresome polemic masquerading as
a defense of scientific purity.
The Republican War on Science offers a catalog of Republican-led
confrontations with mainstream science, ranging from attacks on
evolution and denial of climate change to the stacking of government
advisory committees with industry scientists and the blocking of
federal funds for stem cell research. As an unapologetic critic of the
Bush administration, I was eager to read a penetrating political
analysis of how the current regime has sought to wring partisan
advantage from the complex and difficult relationship between politics
and science. Alas, what I found was a tiresome polemic masquerading as
a defense of scientific purity.
