The Republican War on Science
Author: Chris Mooney
Science has never been more crucial to deciding the political issues facing the country. Yet science and scientists have less influence with the federal government than at any time since Richard Nixon fired his science advisors. In the White House and Congress today, findings are reported in a politicized manner; spun or distorted to fit the speaker’s agenda; or, when they’re too inconvenient, ignored entirely. On a broad array of issues-stem cell research, climate change, evolution, sex education, product safety, environmental regulation, and many others-the Bush administration’s positions fly in the face of overwhelming scientific consensus. Federal science agencies-once fiercely independent under both Republican and Democratic presidents-are increasingly staffed by political appointees who know industry lobbyists and evangelical activists far better than they know the science. This is not unique to the Bush administration, but it is largely a Republican phenomenon, born of a conservative dislike of environmental, health, and safety regulation, and at the extremes, of evolution and legalized abortion. In The Republican War on Science, Chris Mooney ties together the disparate strands of the attack on science into a compelling and frightening account of our government’s increasing unwillingness to distinguish between legitimate research and ideologically driven pseudoscience.
The New York Times - John Horgan
As the title indicates, Mooney's book is a diatribe, from start to finish. The prose is often clunky and clichйd, and it suffers from smug, preaching-to-the-choir self-righteousness. But Mooney deserves a hearing in spite of these flaws, because he addresses a vitally important topic and gets it basically right.
Kirkus Reviews
A litany of indictments of misuse and abuse by the current administration, painstakingly documented by a journalist who has made science and politics his beat. Mooney (a writer for Mother Jones, Slate, the Boston Globe) traces the "war on science" back to the Reagan days (remember Star Wars? acid rain? the ban on fetal tissue research?). He goes on to chronicle the anti-science movement that gained momentum in the Gingrich-led Congress of the '90s, which dismantled the Office of Technology Assessment and stacked hearings with fringe scientists ready to deny the ozone hole, global warming and dioxin risks. Mooney catalogues the players, the right-wing think tanks and the administration spokespeople who continue to deny a human role in global warming or species destruction, who argue that condoms are unsafe, that abortion is linked to breast cancer and that "Plan B" will encourage teen sex. Add to these abuses the litmus tests for candidates for government science advisory councils and political censoring of what gets posted as health information on the Web. Perhaps the most chilling quote is from a Ron Suskind interview with a "senior advisor," who defined Suskind and others as people who "believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality," adding, "That's not the way the world really works anyone. We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality." One can fault Mooney for damning all Republicans in the title-he admits there are the John McCains, for example, as well as problematic Democrats. Sharper editing to eliminate some repetitiveness would also help. Mooney has put the right-wing handwriting on the wall, and the prospect is scary.
New interesting textbook: Low Carbohydrate Cooking for Health or Domestic Cookery Useful Receipts and Hints to Young Housekeepers
Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte: Volume II
Author: Louis Antonine De Bourrienn
This incredible set begins with Napoleon's birth in Corsica in 1769 and ends with his entombment in the Invalides in Paris in 1840, further set off by an additional section back of Volume IV, Napoleon's Will. (And, no, he didn't leave it all to Josephine. They divorced in 1809. Four months later, he married Archduchess Marie Louise. She didn't get anything either.) That aside, these four illustrated volumes include chronologies, text, letters, and many insights, both personal and professional, into the life and mind of a titan in world history.
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