Science and politics can not help but be uncomfortable bedfellows. Science, at its best, is the objective unfettered pursuit of knowledge and understanding. Politics, at is worse, subjugates knowledge to the pursuit and retention of power. Mad Cow disease, Meme breast impants, tainted blood, bovine growth hormone, Westray mines, Walkerton water, etc.
Objective science struggles for air under government, university and corporate 'partnerships'.
A recent Globe and Mail article reminded me of a-bomb inventor Robert Oppenheimer, who shared his anguish with Harry Truman about the bomb. Frustrated with how poverty lines make them look bad, the provincial Social Service ministers directed their officials to create a poverty line more to their liking. There is no consensus on the definition of poverty. Various existing poverty measures depend on different perspectives on decency. They range in increasing generosity from the Fraser Institute, to HRDC and Statistics Canada.