So, if there are any scientists who vote Republican, is that enough to disprove your mindless, well-poisoning generalizations? What if there are any scientists who believe that God created the universe?

Oh, wait, of course, I forgot: that's impossible, because "anyone with half a brain" knows that there is no God, so anyone who thinks there is a God must have no brain. Yeah, yeah, I know, plenty of scientists throughout history have believed in God, but they were all forced to say that; they didn't really believe in God. We're so much more enlightened now.

Can this also be used against climate alarmists, atheists, humanistic cults etc?

I mean, as long as we're labeling people...

Does "-1, Funny" roughly equal "+1, Sad but True"?

You could be right.

But what would be in our favor? Letting the EPA do whatever it wants, without having to justify it to anyone? Don't you know that there are lobbyists on the other side too, and that they manipulate government too?

Really, how can you argue against requiring the government to publicly disclose the scientific studies it uses to justify its regulations?

The GP just said that the bill requires the EPA's research to be made public. The scenario addressed is not that of the EPA's ignoring contrary studies, but the EPA's making regulations and refusing to disclose their own data to back it up. It's more like, "Nope, we don't have to prove that this regulation is based on sound science, you have to take our word for it. Thank you for playing, now go shut down your plants and put your people out of work. (Then they'll need government assistance, and then they'll vote for us, because we took care of them.)"

Don't you get it? Or are you so entrenched in your partisan views that you can't see the other side of the coin?

But Democrats would never believe in conspiracies, not even ones saying that every "right-wing nut"--I mean, Republican--is a corporate sellout.

I know I'm generalizing here, but I think it's telling that so many liberals fall back on ad hominems when conservatives try to have a reasonable, rational argument. One side doesn't need to resort to name-calling to make their point. The other side calls their opponents "nuts" and poisons the well by claiming they believe "nonsense" and conspiracy theories. What's sad is that, as was mentioned before, it seems like a large segment of society falls for it. But I guess nothing's really changed; Barnum was right.

That's basically the purpose of our entire structure of government, to prevent any one part of it from assuming too much power and doing too much damage. Our government is based on the fundamental distrust of people in power and government in general. And the result has been the most prosperous and free nation in the history of the world. I'm mystified as to why people nowadays want to go the opposite direction, why they suddenly believe government knows best--government that is run by people as messed up as everyone else on the planet.

When did the EPA start regulating personal beliefs about the origin of the universe? or school curriculums?

Your hypocrisy is astounding.

How many things that you know have you personally observed or heard first-hand?

Why don't you go read it and find out?

Or you could keep ranting and praising our glorious EPA who would never do anything wrong and must be trusted unequivocally to the point of not requiring them to base regulations with enormous economic and environmental and human impact on actual, reproducible science.

There's definitely no way that you're the dupe.

As far as I know, the EPA doesn't regulate people's beliefs about the origin of the universe.

Well, more accurately, it's the problem with idiots, or more simply, with humanity.

Yeah, it would have the effect of totalitarianism.

Seriously, that would be nice, but it wouldn't be right.

Maybe instead of making dogmatic rules that hamstring either the EPA or everyone else, we need to make rules that get rid of the idiots who make stupid decisions like the ones that affected you.

Neither extreme is reasonable or wise. Some people think that radio waves are cooking our brains and causing cancer. Should the EPA outlaw cell phones because "it was obvious to people who thought about it early on that there was likely to be a problem"? Or should it base its regulations on scientific studies and reasonable evidence?

If the precautionary principle is, "If we (do|don't do) X, something bad might happen, therefore we must (do|not do) X!" then I think the precautionary principle should be thrown out the window. We need to advocate intelligence and wisdom, not dogmatic, arbitrary rules.

Leave it to--well, I was going to say "Slashdot," but I'll just go with "the Internet"--to simultaneously complain about anti-science "denialists" and pro-science "Republicans." Their true colors are showing.