Via Bad Astronomy, several of the world's most famous living scientists are taking aim at proposed deep cuts in research and political interference in UK science:

Stephen Hawking has accused the government of making "disastrous" cuts to research funding that threaten the country’s international standing.  ... Brian Cox, professor of particle physics at Manchester University, who is closely involved with the large hadron collider project at Cern, said he supported Hawking’s comments. "The notion that scientists will make a more valuable contribution to the economic and social wellbeing of the world if their research is closely directed by politicians is the most astonishing piece of nonsense I have had the misfortune to come across in a long time.".

My heart goes out to our friends across the pond. But when it comes to scientific illiteracy and willful ignorance among politicians, they got nothing on us. Here’s just a sample:

• Rep. Tom DeLay, former Republican Majority Leader, on the Columbine shooting: "The causes of youth violence are working parents who put their kids into daycare, the teaching of evolution in the schools, and working mothers who take birth control pills." (Source)
• 24 year-old George Deutsch, appointed NASA press officer by the Bush administration: [The Big Bang is] "not proven fact; it is opinion... It is not NASA's place, nor should it be to make a declaration such as this about the existence of the universe that discounts intelligent design ..." (Source)
• Senator James Inhofe, R - OK, on climate change: "Global warming is the second-largest hoax ever played on the American people, after the separation of church ..." (Source)
• Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal and possible McCain ticket VP describing the 'exorcism' and cure for cancer he personally helped perform on a college friend: "Kneeling on the ground, my friends were chanting, "Satan, I command you to leave this woman." Others exhorted all "demons to leave in the name of Christ."  (Source)
• Dr David Hager, appointed by Bush to the FDA Advisory Committee for Reproductive Health, wrote in his book Stress and the Woman's Body "an emphasis on the restorative power of Jesus Christ in one's life" and went to recommend specific Scripture readings and prayers for women suffering everything from migraine headaches to menstrual cramps. (Source)

If these clownish ideologues were scattered anomalies, featured on Ripley's Believe it or Not or scattered through an otherwise lucid and pragmatic political party, we could laugh them off. But they're not: from the grass roots conservative base right through to senior management, this is a caucus that holds science and scientists in contempt. Today's Republican Party is run by little more than unusually successful faith healers, creationists, and industry propagandists. And because of them the fact is, among all industrial nations in the 21st century, when it comes to dissing science and science policy, the good ole US of A is still Number One!