This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2017, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

Our politicians treat science like a joke. We, the nation which produced the telephone, the light bulb and the atom bomb, which hosted such minds as Thomas Edison and Albert Einstein and the Wrights and Jonas Salk, now ignore the warnings of those who made our nation what we are today, for no reason than because we don't like what they are telling us.

It is infuriating to watch thriller writers and supplement salesmen stand on the House floor and lecture scientists about science. One wonders if they are composing a treatise to Michael Jordan telling him how little he knows about basketball.

Our government has become a place where money trumps the mind, and re-investors are heeded over researchers. It is clear that the businessmen who migrate to government positions have no intention of owning up to the truth about vaccines or climate change. Scientists and researchers need to take the initiative and run for public office. We need intelligent, well-informed people filling these seats.

"But isn't my time better spent doing science?" In a better world, it would.

But what's the point of science if those in power do not heed it?

Bronson D. Beatty

St. George