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I think you're missing the fact that this is a new libertarian talking point. Laissez-faire approaches tend to result in the tragedy of the commons, where the

I think you're missing the fact that this is a new libertarian talking point. Laissez-faire approaches tend to result in the tragedy of the commons, where the commons is some environmental factor -- fish stocks, etc. -- and science has been consistently pointing out the problems caused as a result. Therefore, to defend itself, libertarianism must discredit science. The solution is to associate science with government; since, by libertarian definition, anything a government does is wrong, it follows that science is wrong and, by the fallacy of begging the question, libertarianism is right.

scrod 17y ago
This is perhaps the most salient observation in the entire thread. Free-market libertarians have an ideological imperative to deny any causality between activity in the pursuit of profit and environmental catastrophes. It's no surprise that a framework based almost entirely on individual property rights is unable to protect that which is impossible to own, to say nothing of the incorrectness of treating land as partitionable property when we know the ecosystem to be a globally-connected process. By claiming to champion rationalism, their pretenses shine through; when the scientific method reveals the impracticality of their philosophy, they attack science itself. You know, maybe we need a less-biased source of scientific funding — how about Exxon Mobil? I'm sure they'd have enough to pay for some real independent research. Oh, actually, it looks like they've been pretty busy already: http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=ExxonMobil_funding_recipients http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=ExxonMobil_fundin...