The Union of Concerned Scientists in a February report pointed out something the science press has known for years: The Bush administration has no respect for science. Ideologues prefer to make up the laws of nature as they go.
Presidential science adviser John Marburger complained that the UCS's account sounded like a "conspiracy theory report." That's because it is one. As the report amply documents, the Bush administration has systematically manipulated scientific inquiry into climate change, forest management, lead and mercury contamination, and a host of other issues. Even as Marburger addressed his critics, the administration purged two advocates of stem-cell research from the President's Council on Bioethics.
When politicians dictate science, government becomes entangled in its own deceptions, and eventually the social order decays in a compost of lies. Society, having abandoned the scientific method, loses its empirical referent, and truth becomes relative. This is a serious affliction known as Lysenkoism.
