Dallas Morning News: The idea that the Bush administration has placed science under attack is so commonplace now that it's almost cliché. It's hard to think of a government agency staffed by scientists that has not seen scandals over the past several years involving the suppression and twisting of information or the intimidation of researchers.

So scientists are resisting, right?

Well, there are a few pro-science organizations that ritually denounce the abuse. Angry statements have been signed by Nobel laureates. And government reforms have been proposed to curtail future misbehavior.

But when it comes to real political action – engaging in strategic communication campaigns on hot-button issues, rating politicians based on their science records, even trying to unseat some of science's greatest enemies – scientists have tended to back away.

If the science community wants to reclaim the ground lost during the Bush administration, it's going to have to accept that the old policy of political disengagement is showing its age.