Taking potshots at scientific research that sounds like a waste of taxpayer money is something of a pastime in American politics. The most prominent example was the Golden Fleece awards, conceived in the 1980s by Senator William Proxmire of Wisconsin to point out studies and programs the Democrat found ludicrous.
The recent attacks on climate change by Donald Trump, Senator Jim Inhofe, and others — who declared such research a hoax worked up by rabidly activist scientists — belong to the same meme.
