WIKIMEDIA, KMCCOYWith last November’s midterm elections, Republicans regained majorities in both the US House of Representatives and Senate. This turn of events led many science advocates to fear that the 114th Congress would not be friendly to science (and, therefore, federal research budgets). To assuage this fear, Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) and Representative Lamar Smith (R-TX), penned an essay entitled “No, the GOP Is Not at War With Science” in Politico Magazine this week (January 12).
“To remain a world leader, the United States must ensure that our investments are funding not just any science but the best science,” the legislative duo wrote. “Unfortunately, in recent years, the federal government has awarded taxpayer dollars toward research that few Americans would consider to be in the national interest.”
In true GOP fashion, Paul and Smith go on to decry what they perceive as governmental wastefulness in the research funding arena, providing a laundry list of “questionable grants” and “wasteful projects.” Studies of Mayan architecture and the salt industry, the eco consequences of early human-set fires in New Zealand, and the ancient Icelandic textile industry, as well as a website for Michelle Obama’s White House garden—each of which received more than $200,000 from ...
