We have learned from encounters with such ventures as 'creation science,' which purportedly refutes the theory of evolution, that we must be sceptica… - Chris C. Mooney

The success of science depends on an apparatus of democratic adjudication—anonymous peer review, open debate, the fact that a graduate student can criticize a tenured professor. These mechanisms are more or less explicitly designed to counter human self-deception. People always think they’re right, and powerful people will tend to use their authority to bolster their prestige and suppress inconvenient opposition. You try to set up the game of science so that the truth will out despite this ugly side of human nature.

Whereas good science is rewarded for being painstaking and nuanced, politics is the enemy of subtlety.

In part, the divorce of science and politics can be explained by the very different worldviews that inform each field.