From acid rain to global climate change, from “creation science” to “intelligent design,” conservatives had been meddling with science for years, lar… - 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.

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

Healthy skepticism is an essential and treasured feature of scientific analysis," Gibbons added. "But willful distortion of evidence has no place at the table of scientific inquiry.