Subject: Nazi Science & Republicans: When the editors of the journal Science cried “foul,” accusing the Bush administration of stacking panels on lead poisoning and pollution, they were not weighing in on one side or another of a scientific debate but lamenting the administration’s undermining of the principle behind advisory panels. The idea is for government policy to take scientific orthodoxy into account. That is not now happening. This administration uses science the way a defense lawyer uses expert witnesses. There will always be someone willing to testify for the tobacco industry that no link exists between cigarettes and cancer, but that doesn’t make it a sound basis for government policy. If our conclusions have been reached in advance, we risk repeating the failures of ideological science. We face unprecedented challenges while the world population surges. We rely on modern medicine to maintain our health as we rely on science and technology to help find the balance between supply and demand for food, water and energy. Government policy would be better based on scientific consensus than on ideology and the politics of special interests. MC