Science is Under Constant Siege in the Bush Administration

Now the issue is the reality of the Big Bang. NASA scientists are under pressure by Bush political appointees to refer to the Big Bang as just a "theory" (meaning in this sense a hypothesis) in order to placate fundamentalist religious sensibilities. The story of this latest round of Bush-driven lunacy is here.

This is one of the most frightening and disturbing aspects of Bush's reign. The assault on evolution, the attempt to stifle evidence related to global warming, the booklets at national parks that tout creationist explanations for the age of the earth, are nothing less than an attempt to subordinate reason to religious dogma. The denial of reality when that reality contradicts cherished beliefs is the fundamental basis of insanity. Josh Marshall is right. It's as if empiricism itself is under assault by these people. No wonder 48 Nobel laureates endorsed Kerry in 2004. No wonder that such popular magazines as Scientific American have severely criticized Bush on these issues. No wonder the scientific community is appalled by Bush and his ignorant, scientifically illiterate thugs.

Bush and the Religious Right are the enemies of science. They are determined to destroy astronomy, cosmology, physics, chemistry, biology, geology, and all the related subfields of those areas. Why? Because the findings of these fields are not in line with the radical right's preposterous mythology. This fight for science, therefore, is nothing less than a struggle to maintain the integrity of rational inquiry itself. Upon the outcome of this struggle rests the future of our civilization.