Jonah notes below that Obama “science czar” John Holdren wanted to give trees legal standing to sue in court. As I wrote two weeks ago and later discussed Glenn Beck’s program, the more recent revelation of Holdren’s harebrained endorsement of the arboreal legal rights comes on the heels of learning he had previously advocated:

Laws requiring the abortion or adoption of illegitimate children; sterilizing women after having two children; legally requiring “reproductive responsibility” to those deemed by pointy-headed eugenicists to “contribute to general social deterioration”; and incredibly, putting sterilizing agents in the drinking water.

All this in the name of dealing with an impending overpopulation crisis that never materialized. When the news broke about Holdren’s troubling views, I thought it was particularly telling that despite the fact that Holdren thinks that Dr. Strangelove is a how-to manual, the New York Times ignored the revelations about Holdren’s past writings. The paper did, however, see fit to publish an article about objections to Obama’s appointment of Dr. Francis S. Collins to head the National Institutes of Health:

Collins, who led the effort to map the human genome, is responsible for one of the greatest scientific achievements in history. And yet, some have reservations. Why? Because, like the majority of Americans, he’s a Christian.
According to the New York Times: “He wrote a book called ‘The Language of God,’ and he has given many talks and interviews in which he described his conversion to Christianity as a 27-year-old medical student. Religion and genetic research have long had a fraught relationship, and some in the field complain about what they see as Dr. Collins’s evangelism.” The story was headlined “Pick to Lead Health Agency Draws Praise and Some Concern.”

This past weekend, the New York Times subsequently published another op-ed by noted atheist Sam Harris decrying Collins’s nomination on the grounds that he’s *gasp* a Christian, even though, again, calling Collins’s scientific credentials impressive would be an understatement.

Meanwhile, the Times still hasn’t done one story about John Holdren’s unusual beliefs. Now again, which scientist’s views do you think are more troubling and newsworthy?