> All of the
> major political candidates take this as a given; the real action is at the state level.
One of the reasons it is necessary to maintain the distinction between ideology and systematic knowledge ("science" is too loaded a term) is to allow identifying those forms of ideology that are immediate blocks to political action. As (official) politics are constituted in the U.S. today it is impossible within the structure of the Democratic and Republican parties to break through this "given." At some point (I would presume) it will or might become possible for left politics to be pursued partly through electoral activity, but not as long as the Democratic Party remains custodian of "the given."
I would like to see the battle over "Science or Ideology" (with "systematic knowledge" replacing "science") waged over some such proposition as "In the United States the chief barrier to significant reform is the Democratic Party."
Carrol