[BigV]

ym65--it is not politics as usual. It is politics on crack, on steroids, cartoon politics. I find actions like this tantamount to redefining words, rewriting the rules of arithmetic. It is dangerous. How can we know about the truth about the world if inconvenient facts are simply discarded? You can believe what you want, me too. I don't really care how thoroughly private citizen A or lobby organization B does their fact checking.

But our government is charged with serving all of us. When they cavalierly, no, cravenly change the conclusions to suit their pre-established goals, it does great harm in three ways:

First, it is simply a lie. A Big Lie. A lie so "colossal" that no one would believe that someone "could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously".*

Second, it reduces the government's (already low) credibility. That wellspring of goodwill is replenished so slowly, that such a profligate waste should be a crime, injuring the public trust today and the citizens of tomorrow.

Second, it corrodes everyone's confidence in Science's ability to discover and express objective truth, and to do so in a verifiable way, that leaves room for the possibility of integrating new knowledge.

This is an attack on the very foundation of knowledge. they would rather be able to define any conclusion they present as truth. A Wolf in Science's clothing if you will. After Science has been eviscerated. They'll trade on the memory of science's reputation for articulating objective truth. But it will be all hollow inside, filled only with lies.







* Unattributed to avoid violating Godwin's Law.