Dear Congress: Why Are You So Anti-Science?
U.S. Capitol At Night Wikimedia CommonsNew criteria for choosing NSF grants is the latest salvo from our anti-science government. Of the many and varied things going wrong in Washington today, the frontal assault on science is one of the most alarming. Sequestration will be a blip compared to the setback that could result if Congress makes science--the peer-reviewed, community-checked, fact-based realm of science--all about politics. The chair of the U.S. House of Representatives' science committee is floating a bill that would eliminate peer review at the National Science Foundation, essentially replacing it with a Congressional stamp of approval. President Obama has signaled he opposes this, and the bill's future is unclear right now. But Republican lawmakers are nothing if not tenacious. Science has been suffocating in a toxic political atmosphere for years, with national leaders outwardly denying climate change is happening, celebrities pushing dangerous anti-vaccine (and anti-science) views on a frightened...