Science has never been more crucial to deciding the political issues facing the country. Yet science and scientists have less influence with the federal government than at any time since the Eisenhower administration.
In the White House and Congress today, findings are reported in a politicized manner; spun or distorted to fit the speaker’s agenda; or, when they’re too inconvenient, ignored entirely. On a broad array of issues—stem cell research, climate change, abstinence education, mercury pollution, and many others—the Bush administration’s positions fly in the face of overwhelming scientific consensus.
In The Republican War on Science, Chris Mooney tied together the disparate strands of the attack on science into a compelling and frightening account of our government’s increasing unwillingness to distinguish between legitimate research and ideologically driven pseudoscience.
Now, in a revised and expanded paperback edition, Mooney brings us up to date on the war on science, relates the phenomenon to the Bush administration’s handling of the Iraq war and Hurricane Katrina—and ends with a call to arms to scientists and their allies.
Chris is senior correspondent for The American Prospect magazine and author of two books, including the New York Times bestselling The Republican War on Science—dubbed “a landmark in contemporary political reporting” by Salon.com and a “well-researched, closely argued and amply referenced indictment of the right wing’s assault on science and scientists” by Scientific American —and Storm World: Hurricanes, Politics, and the Battle Over Global Warming —dubbed “riveting” by the Boston Globe and selected as a 2007 best book of the year in the science category by Publisher’s Weekly. He also writes “The Intersection” blog with Sheril Kirshenbaum.
