Washington's Abortive Scientific Renaissance | Smart Journalism. Real Solutions. Miller-McCune.

The momentum away from bipartisan climate agreement is puzzling because it flouts the linear trajectory that scientific findings typically take from laboratory to public arena. Generally, scientists conclude that the Earth is round, or the ozone is damaged, or that lead can poison, and the rest of us eventually come around to the idea, too.

“I used to believe that,” Mooney said of the pattern. “But I totally don’t believe that any more. I think there’s no clear relationship between an increase in scientific knowledge and increasing public acceptance, if the issue is controversial. They can completely go in the opposite direction, and in fact climate change is a great example. We need to give up on the idea that truth finally triumphs because science figures something out. It triumphs within science, but that’s very different from having it triumph within society.”

So what will happen when a Congress newly stacked with scientific skeptics clashes next year with an executive branch staffed by Nobel-winning scientists like John Holdren and Steven Chu?

Mooney could give no answer. But he predicts that the ensuing scene, a bottom-up “war on [junk]science” driven by grassroots conservative anger, will look different from the top-down “war on science” that existed during the Bush administration. Then, the political meddling was largely a public relations push to align the government’s scientific output with the president’s position on climate action (or his supporters’ position on contraception or stem cell research).

This time, Mooney said, scientific skeptics are not trying to control the administration’s message, but to derail an administration’s goal. Instead of quietly rewritten climate reports, we may get theatrical congressional hearings investigating scientific research.

“It’s getting to the point where it’s important to do some pretty fundamental rethinking of how it is that we promote a reasonable society,” Mooney said.

Why is it that public acceptance doesn’t follow scientific consensus? Why do some people cling to beliefs in the face of contrary evidence? [Like what, specifically?]

“Restoring Science to Its Rightful Place”: Where It All Went Wrong | The Intersection | Discover Magazine

What happened? Well, ClimateGate happened. Then the Tea Party happened. Climate science got stronger, but the issue became highly politicized and resistance became stronger than ever.
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Where does this leave us? Not a good place, but we’ve got to learn something from what happened. Now’s a time for figuring out where the rails of rationality were when we left them.