Those Anti-Science Republicans.

Anthroslug writes:

Hell, it is telling that the Republican Party went from an organization that once respected science and scientists to one where prominent members in elected office can publicly call for the use of criminal prosecution in an attempt to bully scientists into silence.

My Response:

Remember Democrat William Proxmire?

Proxmire was infamous among scientists - and readers of Analog magazine - in the '70s for his "Golden Fleece Award," which was often an exercise in exposing his own ignorance of the state of scientific issues.

But to be fair, Proxmire was a government representative and if money was being spent foolishly, he had a duty to call out such expenditures as foolish.

On the other hand, your link to Inhofe is really unsupportable. The link doesn't demonstrate that Inhofe was engaging in some broad vendetta against science. In fact, Inhofe showed more restraint that Proxmire because he is addressing a particular issue in the contest of particular suspected legal violations. The CRU and other climate researchers appear to have had a policy of violating the Freedom of Information Act. They aren't excused from complying with the FOIA - which as a scientist you should fully support. If they violated the FOIA - or committed fraud while using public money - then they should be prosecuted.

Why would you think otherwise, except for a "circle the wagons" mindset?

On which point,one thing that these scientists are is heavily indoctrinated. Look at the poll data and you can see that the highest number of Dems are in Academia, the lowest in Industry, and that a sizeable percentage declare themselves independent. That means that scientists are formed by people who are Democrat and largely liberal and supported by public money. It is also consistent with a truism of political science that most communities are effectively "one party." Even in the Old South, One-party Democrat states had Republican enclaves that were effectively all Republican. It's a truism of human nature that we like to be popular and part of the in-crowd and that only a minority is willing to accept the social ostracism of belonging to a minority.