A reader writes in response to this item yesterday:

As part of my membership in the American Physical Society, I get to endure regular diatribes on how Bush is destroying science, how his funding is never enough, how his increases are too little, on and on ad nauseum. Even when he proposes big increases and Congress kills them, he is portrayed as not doing enough and blame it on Republicans. (Which is fine when Republicans are in charge.) Well, I was reading my October issue of Physics Today, p 26, I find that Congress, in a spirit of revenge, cut Presidential spending priorities in retaliation for Bush putting in spending caps. All sorts of science has been shot to hell by unnamed parties in Congress for petty reasons, and no political parties are named let alone criticised, and it is all Bushes fault. This includes cutting U.S. support of ITER, the international fusion collaboration that is under construction now, from $160 million to $10 million.
So much for safe clean power.
In the past, they have detailed budgets and who was for or against to properly ascribe blame. But now that their guys are running the show . . .

I note in Red Hot Lies how APS is little different than the AMS and other membership organizations placing high-stakes bets with the global-warming industry and, as part of that, a partisan crowd. They diminish their internal credibility with complaints such as that described above, and other stunts – like issuing statements that the membership never voted on, though clearly purporting to represent the membership’s position. These and other practices slowly erodes the seriousness with which the public views them but, more importantly, also how the public start to distrust and then tune out “science” as just another interest group siphoning taxpayer money.

The Left may own the partisan shrieking about how they are the enlightened ones while others hate knowledge, but I make a pretty persuasive case in RHL how the institutions of science run a great risk of killing science.