For a very long time, American scientists have found themselves pitted against both our businesslike, can-do attitudes and our piety. - Chris C. Mooney

But it is only half the story. If powerful religious commitments lead to politically driven abuses of science, so does an unswerving commitment to the bottom line.

The emergence of the religious right onto the political stage in the 1970s—motivated in part by its adherents’ resentment of the nation’s intellectual and scientific elites—was also a major factor in curtailing the role of science in public policy.

In 1957, he appointed the first official presidential science advisor, MIT president James Killian, and launched the distinguished President’s Science Advisory Committee. As Eisenhower would later put it, “this bunch of scientists was one of the few groups that I encountered in Washington who seemed to be there to help the country and not to help themselves.”