The report on the front page of today's (Monday's) Wall Street Journal of political correctness in natural science goes a long way to explain the penetration of the state and its agents into the science of economics. The wistful affectation of positivist economists to ape the physical sciences seems more misplaced than ever in light of this brouhaha over what the earth's temperature(s) have been over the past millennium. And the fuss has to do not with the first 900 years of that millenium, but with the last hundred, throughout which people have been reading thermometers and writing down what they saw.
The use of the academy as a sword against truth is well demonstrated in the behavior of Climatologist Michael E. Mann in rebuffing inquiries from a person, Stephen McIntyre, not so annointed. This is accompanied, as it so often is, by ad hominem attacks, withholding data and techniques, and getting caught in "minor" errors and inconsistencies.
Political Science
