----------
It was much less so roughly during the post-WWII era (with the exception of anti-communism) when it was generally believed that the then liberal state should help `modernize' society.
For example, in Brown v. Board of Education... many reports, statistics, and sociological studies (empirical evidence, aka factsq) were used as evidence to persuade the court that the concept and value of `separate but equal' was not `equal' by any `objective' measure, and further, that any `separate' public accommodation was inherently unequal. In effect the facts of material conditions were used to override the traditional values presumed to attend segregation. Such bogus values were for example legal precedent, state's rights, and other reactionary values like `because its always been that way' and so forth and so on.
Similar formal arguments were made to reform many public institutions where facts were used to override some so-called traditional value scheme. Women's rights, disability rights, gay rights are other examples were numerous sociological studies have been presented to demonstrate that equality will follow accessibility with reasonable accomodation (i.e material change).
Many of the social policy reforms that come under the general heading of `modernization' followed a similar path where formal and empirical studies were used to push back traditional social values, roles and prescriptions against various categories of people.
I am not saying these reform efforts were always successful, but they were not just dismissed or out shouted---primarily because the use of facts to persuade is standard practice in courts---were many of these reform efforts have ended up.
Let's face it. The Right hates facts, because most facts show they are pig-headed, greedy, vicious, wrong, stupid, mean, cruel, and nasty. According to my traditional values the Right should be shot on sight. But I am trying my democratic enlightenment best to be tolerant about it.
Another example would be the Pentagon Papers where a mostly factual appraisal of material conditions condemned the war in Vietnam and definitely should have overridden any value proposed to support continuing the war. There are probably several such fact-based studies in the Pentagon right now that show Iraq is unwinnable at any reasonable cost of material and personnel. They will probably surface long after it is too late to have any effect on policy.
Now the Right isn't always opposed to facts, if these can be used or spun in their direction. But usually, most of their agenda is so far from reality that a show of facts is usually sufficient to blow their case out of the water. This is why they are so prone to jump on some ideological or value laden rational for doing the opposite of what is realistic and reasonable.
CG