A while back, I organised a seminar at Crooked Timber, on Chris Mooney’s The Republican War on Science. Now, thanks to Parlor Press and the tireless efforts of John Holbo, the seminar has appeared in book form, and the presentation is beautiful. I’m looking forward to getting a physical copy, and to the promised appearance of more in the series.
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John Quiggin 
This sounds like a fair read. The ideological guff perpetrated by the superstitious right over science, knowledge and environment is usually exploited as tabloid black propaganda. It imposes a smoke screen where by the fears of the ignorant are highlighted to distract further attention on abuse or misplacement of resources by the more worldly.
There has just been another example of the problem surfacing, with the antics of the Exclusive Brethren fundamentalists in Tasmania, New Zealand and Victoria, against people like Bob Brown and Helen Clark. Smear “morals” campaigns are run on behalf of neo con interests who wish to be distanced from these sordid antics, or are able to exploit the “noise”.
Much the same thing happened in the nineties in the US, against Clinton.
Real issues, like CSIRO and education funding, ads on public broadcasting instead of information, and the way resources corporations and “ethical” pharmaceuticals multinationals and their lobby groups, abuse correct resources use; or use patents to avoid releasing valuable new resources, are then ignored. Meanwhile, those capable of changing things are tied up with legal issues, or discredited.
The Tassie rainforests is one example; another the surreptitious withdrawing of funding away from antibiotics research to more lucrative but less essential areas. The public thinks it “needs” bo toxes, but only because it has been so brainwashed, through lost access to real facts that give a sense of proportion to its thinking.
As Hobsbawm said, it’s the “death of (cultural) memory”.