Science is always nonpartisan, but it is always political: Fool Me Twice

[Geek]

Shawn Otto's book, "Fool Me Twice: Fighting the Assault on Science in America

" was officially released last night in Minneapolis with appropriate fanfare and celebration. Everyone who gets to know Shawn likes him from the start and quickly learns to respect him and eventually hold him with a certain amount of well-earned awe, and like any book, we've all seen this one coming for quite some time. (I have an old pre-release copy in which every page is "00" but, surprisingly, the front cover is just like the final form.)

Shawn gave a talk at the release party, but since he is held in such high esteem, there was a problem deciding how he would be introduced. A book as important as "Fool Me Twice

," which examines the increasingly insignificant role science plays in the policy making process, written by the much beloved Shaw Otto would require an equally important and beloved personage to make the introduction. And, if such a person were to go on stage to introduce Shawn, there would have to be a fairly significant and widely respected person to introduce that person as well. And so on and so forth. I hear there were several meetings about this, and the UN was called in briefly to settle the evening's program, and a solution was worked out that was more than acceptable.

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