Hello, I'm City Journal editor Brian Anderson.

Thanks for joining us for the Ten Blocks podcast featuring urban policy and cultural commentary

with City Journal editors, contributors, and special guests.

In his 2009 inaugural address, President Barack Obama promised to restore science to what he called its rightful place.

The implication, of course, was that under Republican President George W. Bush, science had been forced to take a back seat. As evidence that Republicans are allegedly anti-science, Democrats like

Obama point to polls showing conservatives harboring skepticism about man-made climate change,

as well as to the religious views of traditional Christians

who make up a sizable percentage of the GOP base.

The accepted narrative about anti-science conservatives and science-loving progressives, aside,

who is actually holding back scientific progress today?

I'm Matthew Hennessy.

Joining me to discuss the politics of science is John Tierney.

John is a contributing editor at City Journal.

And before joining us here, he was a reporter and a columnist for many years at the New

York Times.

His piece in the autumn issue of City Journal was titled The Real War on Science.

John, thank you for joining me on the Ten Blocks podcast. Thanks, Matt. You say in your piece that while

conservatives are often accused of being anti-science, it's actually the left that has waged a war on

science. What do you mean by that?

If you look at who's actually impeded scientific progress, virtually all the threats come from the left.

Now, as Democrats like to say, there are a lot of Republican creationists. There are also, I happen to be a lot of Democratic creationists, too.

But they don't affect the way science is done.

...