"Scientists know how to test theories, how to tell fact from fiction, and how to hold one another accountable. Smart leadership and policy should depend on similar processes."
Organizing scientists sounds like herding cats, but then the scientific community has been doing a lot of caterwauling about politics and politicians. On issue after issue, many scientists charge that politicians are bending, spindling and mutilating the study of the natural world:
Is global warming "the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people," as influential Sen. James Inhofe said, or the defining environmental issue of our time, as a growing chorus of climate scientists is warning?
Is research with embryonic stem cells murder, or a promising source of medical treatments?
Are contraceptives being evaluated by scientific criteria, or has the Food and Drug Administration followed a political agenda and prevented access to safe contraceptives?
Is the Endangered Species Act a senseless impediment to development, or a last-ditch defense against species extinction?
