But when they don’t like what science has to tell them, those wielding political power of the have another option besides running away from the truth… - Chris C. Mooney

And then there’s religion, the source of the deepest fissure in the science-society relationship.

To be sure, it remains up to policymakers to decide whether the economic costs of such preventative measures outweigh the benefits. But that key question isn’t even being properly debated. Instead, climate change has become an issue on which conservatives have elected to fight over science at least as much as over economics, relying on stunning distortions and a shocking disregard for both expertise and the most reputable sources of scientific assessment and analysis.
If this situation is maddening, it is also tragic. There may be no other issue today where a corruption of the necessary relationship between science and political decision-making has more potentially disastrous consequences. And together, James Inhofe and the Bush administration have made that corruption systematic and complete. Not only do they strive to prevent the public from understanding the gravity of the climate situation, but in sowing confusion and uncertainty, they help prevent us from doing anything about it. And this—this—is what the Right calls “rational, science-based thinking and policy-making.”

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