Every once in a while, I’ll notice a liberal blogger querying why libertarian bloggers, who, after all, tend to be rationalistic, scientifically oriented, and not especially religious folks, aren’t up in arms about the Bush Administration’s politicization of science, generally on behalf of the Christian Right–everything from the rigged Kass bioethics panel to the delays in making the morning after pill available over-the-counter to insistence on “abstinence only” sex education programs regardless of the underlying evidence of their effectiveness. Of course, Conspirator Jacob has chimed in a few times (most recently here), as have Virginia Postrel and Glenn Reynolds, and some of the alleged politicization of science, particularly with regard to environmental issues, is a matter of dispute. Nevertheless, there is a limit to actual libertarian outrage for a simple reason: unlike liberals, who expect better from their government, libertarians expect this sort of nonsense as a result of government funding of science. Libertarians would, in fact, be surprised if government funding of science did not lead to its politicization, if not by Bush than by someone else; the sorts of thing the Bush administration has been doing, are, in fact, what libertarians have warned liberals who support government subsidies for scientific ventures about for years. To those who have supported massive government subsidies for science and social science, and are now tearing their hair out as government plays fast and loose with the scientific process and threatens scientific progress, I say, “Well, d’uh, what exactly did you expect?” Or, more productively, “How about starting a movement for the separation of science and state?” Scientific progress is likely to be the better for it.
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