Look at me still talking when there's Science to do

The Economist sums up the weird anti-science philosophy of the Bush administration:

One of the stranger beliefs of some politicians is that if they treat nature like a troublesome opponent and ignore it, it might go away and stop bothering them. In the opinion of many scientists George Bush, America’s retiring president, was just such a politician. It would be one thing, for example, to argue that it is too expensive to stop climate change and that adapting to such change is a better course of action. It is quite another, as White House officials have done in the past, to describe climate change as a liberal cause without merit.

Mr Bush’s administration also stands accused of suppressing the publication of research he did not like. In 2007, for example, Richard Carmona, then surgeon general, testified to Congress that Mr Bush’s officials had delayed and tried to “water down” a report which concluded that even brief exposure to cigarette smoke could cause immediate harm. It has been criticised, too, for preferring AIDS-prevention techniques based on abstinence (which don’t work, but have a moral appeal to Mr Bush and his supporters) to those that use condoms (which do work). His attitude to research on embryonic stem cells did not endear him to many scientists, either, and although the disagreement in this case was about a matter of principle rather than one of scientific truth, the decision to stop funding such research was seen as yet another example of how low the stock of science had fallen in the government.

The article neglects to mention Bush's tacit support of "intelligent design," or the weird pressure Bush appointee George Deutsch put on NASA to always call the Big Bang a "theory." But the point is made.

Why was Bush so anti-science? I believe it can be traced to tribalist thinking. In a tribalist view of the world, "correct" and "incorrect," like "moral" and "immoral," are merely stand-ins for "us" and "them." A moral principle is good if it helps the tribe and bad if it hurts the tribe - that's why Southerners were able to convince themselves for centuries that slavery and segregation were morally justified. Similarly, a scientific theory whose implications work against the tribe's interests must be disavowed and suppressed. Global warming and environmental science threatened the business plans of Bush allies, and evolution and the Big Bang threatened the community power of Bush's Baptist religious allies. Hence, Bush worked to suppress and discredit these perfectly valid theories. Tribe came before truth.

Fortunately, as the Economist article goes on to say, Obama represents a 180-degree turn from that way of thinking:

[Obama's] appointments...mark a shift in political attitudes towards scientific advice...Mr Obama [has] said that promoting science is not just about providing resources (though he has promised to double the budget for basic science research over the next decade), but also about promoting free inquiry and listening to what scientists have to say, “especially when it is inconvenient”.

I especially like that last part. We do science because to not do science is to ignore important information about the real world around us. In the long run, that can only hurt our tribe. Politics can suppress the truth for a little while, but the truth hits back in the end. Better to use the real world to our advantage than to deny it exists.