Seminar on Mooney's book

Crooked Timber is hosting an online seminar on Chris Mooney's The Republican War on Science. Mooney's thesis, in short, is that the current campaign being waged by ideological conservatives over scientific knowledge (including current "controversies" like the existence of climate change or the potential benefits of embryonic stem cell research, and long-settled issues like evolution or the hazards of DDT) has gone from a public relations battle over science (i.e. an effort by the so-called "Sound Science" campaigns to discredit settled scientific judgments, often as part of a broader anti-regulation political strategy) to a campaign against science itself, with all of the reckless irrationalism that such a war entails. Though sometimes criticized for its polemical tone, Mooney's work is carefully researched and paints a disturbing picture of a political movement that appears to have an utter contempt for truth. A number of commenters (many of them sympathetic with Mooney's claims, a couple of them critical) have agreed to participate, as has Mooney himself, so the result should be worth reading.