Republicans and Science

by Cliopatria

Many Republicans (and I am sure some Democrats) want abstinence to be the primary answer to sexually transmitted disease and unwanted sex in general. Some Republicans also want scientists to abstain from research that evaluates that policy. This article on how one congressman altered a scientific panel at a CDC conference is a testimony to that.

And I don’t want to hear that this was only one Republican. If he did not have colleagues who supported him, he could not have accomplished what he did.

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Lisa Casanova - 5/11/2006

I like the devil quote. However, when I hear my fellow scientists bemoaning this or that action the government has taken in science that is not to their liking, the saying I always think of is "He who pays the piper calls the tune." We can't take for granted that government funding must come without strings.

Jonathan Dresner - 5/10/2006

In principle, science should be independent of everything, including economic pressures....

That said, I do think that interference at that level ought to be resisted strenuously, just as we should resist interference in historical hiring and publication issues.

R.J. O'Hara - 5/9/2006

Paul Feyerabend wrote an essay in 1975 arguing that just as there is a separation of state and church, there should also be a separation of science and state. People with libertarian leanings might look at cases like this one and conclude that Feyerabend was right.