I think a better title would have been 'science funding is political, and that's a bad thing'. Perhaps it should be political, to some extent, assuming a well-

I think a better title would have been 'science funding is political, and that's a bad thing'. Perhaps it should be political, to some extent, assuming a well-educated public that understands why studying infectious disease outbreaks, earthquake seismology and patterns, historical drought/flood patterns, etc. is important. However, if control of funding of scientific research is taken over by specific sectors - fossil fuel interests, established depression treatment interests, mortgage security interests, etc. - then one can expect low-quality science resulting in an academic system where the willingness to fudge data to please one's corporate owners on their next-quarter stock profile becomes more important than scientific rigor, in terms of career advancement. That's how Soviet biological academics worked under the control of Lysenko for about three decades... just replace Lysenko with Wall Street and you have the current American research program.