The single most anti-science stance in government and industry is the prohibition on hemp. The chemurgists of the 1920s and 30s had figured out that anything ma

The single most anti-science stance in government and industry is the prohibition on hemp. The chemurgists of the 1920s and 30s had figured out that anything made from a hydrocarbon can also be made from a carbohydrate. This knowledge, combined with George Schlichten's decorticator (the cotton gin of hemp), was about to revolutionize both agriculture and manufacturing (as detailed in this 1938 article in Popular Mechanics: http://books.google.com/books?id=e9sDAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA238#v=onepage&q&f=false http://books.google.com/books?id=e9sDAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA238#v...) when industry, using its power via its control of the American Congress, outlawed an entire plant. The anti-science attitude starts in the worlds of entrenched business and government interests that have little to no wish to see humanity progress beyond those interests.