Science has never been more crucial to deciding the political issues facing the country. Yet science and scientists have less influence with the federal government than at any time since Richard Nixon fired his science advisors. In the White House and Congress today; findings are reported in a politicized manner; spun or distorted to fit the speaker's agenda; or; when they're too inconvenient; ignored entirely. On a broad array of issues-stem cell research; climate change; evolution; sex education; product safety; environmental regulation; and many others-the Bush administration's positions fly in the face of overwhelming scientific consensus. Federal science agencies-once fiercely independent under both Republican and Democratic presidents-are increasingly staffed by political appointees who know industry lobbyists and evangelical activists far better than they know the science. This is not unique to the Bush administration; but it is largely a Republican phenomenon; born of a conservative dislike of environmental; health; and safety regulation; and at the extremes; of evolution and legalized abortion. In The Republican War on Science; Chris Mooney ties together the disparate strands of the attack on science into a compelling and frightening account of our government's increasing unwillingness to distinguish between legitimate research and ideologically driven pseudoscience.
#1256160 in Books Basic Books 2013-10-08 2013-10-08Original language:EnglishPDF # 1 9.50 x 1.00 x 6.50l; 1.07 #File Name: 0465021816288 pages
Review
4 of 5 people found the following review helpful. What Seahaven was to Truman Burbank; Minsk became to Lee Harvey OswaldBy Andy Orrock'The Interloper' is a fascinating; well-written; exquisitely researched account by Peter Savodnik of Lee Harvey Oswald's nearly three-year sojourn into the Soviet Union. Ernst Titovets; Oswald's erstwhile Minsk-based friend; calls him "the most deeply researched common man in history." That proves true here: every aspect of this man's otherwise short; regrettable life is picked clean in 'The Interloper' and in numerous other contemporaneous volumes. Many of these new works hit the market late last year to coincide with JFK50 commemorations. Savodnik's work is surely one of the standouts.I love the description of Oswald's life in Minsk - Savodnik speaks to its artificiality and as a "Potemkin village." As the author notes; there's not a single interaction that takes place in Oswald's life that hasn't been somehow planned by one of the country's security organs. My thought turned to 'The Truman Show.' What Seahaven was to Truman Burbank; Minsk became to Lee Harvey Oswald.What distinguishes Savodnik's book are his first-person interviews -- most notably with Titovets and the beguiling Ella German (Tablet magazine asks "Could a Jewish Beauty Have Saved Kennedy by Marrying Lee Harvey Oswald in Minsk?") -- and his expert analysis; noting for example that Oswald's dim view of history doomed his time in the USSR. Oswald went to find a workers' paradise; but Soviet residents by then had been left with a hollowed-out shell of that vision; brutally transformed by its years under Stalin.0 of 0 people found the following review helpful. I can't really complain about this book but there are ...By David CohenI can't really complain about this book but there are limits to what the author had access to; and that is a serious handicap. Still; the book paints a compelling portrait of Oswald; and that is nothing to sneeze at.1 of 2 people found the following review helpful. A valuable portrait of America's most infamous killer - and the 2 societies that shaped himBy Dan"The Interloper" is a highly readable and informative account of Lee Harvey Oswald's life in the Soviet Union from 1959 to 1962. "The Interloper" is essential reading not only as a unique biographical and psychological portrait of JFK's assassin but also as a fascinating exposition of the cultural and political context that surrounded an event that has shaped American consciousness for the last 50 years.Journalist Peter Savodnik comprehensively documents Oswald's time in the USSR based on impressive original research and interviews with those who knew Oswald in Minsk; deep knowledge of the places in the Soviet Union where Oswald lived; and review of the existing public information on Oswald; from the Warren Commission and other government reports to the memoirs of Oswald's Soviet acquaintances.Refreshingly; "The Interloper" goes beyond the typical conspiracy-oriented discussions of Oswald as "the lone gunman" (or not) and examines the disturbed and unrooted psyche that decided to kill President Kennedy. Savodnik convincingly builds the thesis that Oswald's assassination of President Kennedy was the culmination of a lifetime of "interloping;" referring to Oswald's existence as an unmoored loner from birth.As Savodnik shows; Oswald sought refuge in the Soviet Union to escape a chaotic; unanchored life in the US - only to fail to find the home he wanted in the USSR and return to the US more disappointed in himself and unhinged from society than ever before. Understanding Oswald's time in the Soviet Union is thus key to understanding his motives in killing President Kennedy - and "The Interloper" is the first attempt to create a full account of this time.Savodnik's research is thorough; entertainingly taking up questions like the amount of grime expected to be under the fingernails of Oswald's factory co-workers in the Soviet Republic of Belarus - and what Oswald's co-workers thought about the American's clean fingernails. Throughout Savodnik leverages Oswald's extensive diaries to overlay the details of Oswald's daily life and interpersonal relationships in the USSR with his changing emotional and psychological state.At the same time "The Interloper" contains compelling and highly readable social and political overviews of the two most important countries of the second half of the 20th century: America and the Soviet Union.Savodnik builds a detailed picture of the Soviet Union - poorly understood by Americans today - as Oswald would have seen it: from the shabbiness of the Russian countryside when entering by train from prosperous Finland; to the informant "tour guides" that greeted foreigners in Moscow; to the growing bourgeois consciousness of Soviet citizens in the Khruschev era; to; most importantly; the Truman Show life the KGB built for Oswald in Minsk.Oswald found in Minsk a Soviet citizenry who; in contrast to Oswald's communist revolutionary zeal; are seeking material comfort after years of political predation. Savodnik shows why Oswald failed to find the sense of belonging he wanted in the USSR: Oswald was an outsider to Minsk residents bound by a common history forged through war; Soviet deprivation; and the postwar effort of rebuilding a destroyed city. Rejected in Minsk; Oswald returns to the only place he could hope to fit into but which he scorned - America.In its account of Oswald's final months after returning to Texas up to and including the assassination; "The Interloper" offers intriguing conclusions about the significance of Kennedy and his death. Savodnik suggests that Oswald's existential out-of-place-ness was representative of a disillusionment with postwar America prominent in the 1950s subculture but which largely fell by the wayside during the heady days of the Kennedy presidency.Would exposure to that new national mood during his 2+ years in a Soviet radio factory have changed Oswald? While the answer seems a likely no; Savodnik suggests that Oswald; left behind by the new societal optimism; killed a president he poorly understood. The country found a confidence and sense of community during the brief Kennedy presidency that Oswald desired but could never have - and which US popular culture and politics have strived to re-create for the past 50 years.
