The tag team of NYU physicist Alan Sokal and my friend Chris Mooney have an excellent op-ed in the Los Angeles Times today on attacks on science from the left and right:

As these cases suggest, attacks on science by ideologues and special interests have a long history in this country. A stance of postmodernist relativism — or, on the part of the media, of giving “equal time” to unequally substantiated viewpoints — weakens us in the face of such strategic campaigns to undercut well-established knowledge.

But the abuse of science has lately materialized in an even more disturbing form, this time within the corridors of our own government. Driven by the Bush administration and its congressional allies, the new American “science wars” have reached an alarming stage.