BAD SCIENCE, GOOD POLITICS. Ezra's posts on supply-side crackpottery reminded me of its similarity to another brand of crackpottery, intelligent design, specifically the way that supply-side theory and ID are both essentially cultural/political arguments dressed up as science. Just as supply-siders offer various economic rationales for what is, at root, a belief that rich people have a moral right to their money and should therefore be taxed less, so ID proponents provide a lot of science-y sounding language for what is, in fact, according to their own literature, an effort to overthrow Darwinist "materialism" on the way to reinstalling the Christian God at the center of American cultural life. The fact that serious academic types don't take either seriously is largely irrelevant, as both ideas were developed specifically for popular consumption via media elites. --Matthew Duss
