Science: Politics carried to a different venue?

Is there a difference between science and politics?

I think so. I think the difference is that science is about fighting over the ideas - and only the ideas. In politics the fights over ideas include the tactics of destroying your opponent so that he/she can no longer champion his view. This is totally inappropriate in science. Science is about conflict of ideas in which the weapons of conflict are only other facts and ideas, and the conflict is carried out in public so that the judges are the entire group of people interested in the ideas.

The Bush administration considers all conflicts to be nothing more than political conflicts. In such a conflict, if someone presents an opposing idea that threatens your position, then a major tactic is to destroy the person who is presenting the idea.

he distinction between science and politics in this situation is that in science the conflict is restricted to the realm of facts and theories, and the judge of truth is objective, provable reality. In politics the conflict is one of power differences and the criteria of who wins is who has the greater power.

Since Politics is at its base about who has power and how they are allowed to use it, such an process is appropriate. But since science is about describing and explaining reality and factual cause-and-effect, such political power techniques do not lead to an accurate and useful outcome.

So why am I carrying on about the distinction between politics and science? It's because the Bush administration does not understand it. They see everything as pure politics. There is, to them, no reality outside of political power. Here is an article from the Christian Science Monitor which makes this point.

Read the artcle. Then ask if we can accept a government which suppresses science that fails to match ideology.