The Democratic War on Science?

Posted on July 13, 2010
Filed Under Sideblog | 2 Comments

The democratic war on science? “We are getting complaints from government scientists now at the same rate we were during the Bush administration” You might recall I predicted this. The problem isn’t ideology but politicians. I’d much rather have open debates on costs and tradeoffs but that’s something politicians don’t want – from either side.

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Comments

2 Responses to “The Democratic War on Science?”

It’s interesting that the specific examples are similar to those under Bush, i.e. relaxing of environmental standards, etc. So it’s not like science is being abused to forward the ‘radical liberal agenda.’

The issue is less ideology, as I said, than practicality. It’s too easy for politicians to not publicly deal with the issues. Democrats have to deal with the practical realities just as Republicans do — which is why so many policies end up being the same. Folks more out of the mainstream on either side might wish bigger changes but that would be controversial and the politicians only have so much capital to fight with. So they pick their battles. This tends to make activists on both sides upset, but once again the practical reasons politicians act the way they do tend to get overlooked or oversimplified by idealogues on both sides.

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