Ouch! (or other polite replacements for large expletive collections)

Outrage at attacks on NASA science Bad Astronomy Blog run by Phil Plait, an astronomer and sceptic who runs the Bad Astronomy website. Found via vonstrassburg's Slashdot feed.

Quoting from bits of the NYT article

The Big Bang is “not proven fact; it is opinion,” Mr. Deutsch wrote, adding, “It is not NASA’s place, nor should it be to make a declaration such as this about the existence of the universe that discounts intelligent design by a creator.”
[snip]
The Deutsch memo was provided by an official at NASA headquarters who said he was upset with the effort to justify changes to descriptions of science by referring to politically charged issues like intelligent design. Senior NASA officials did not dispute the message's authenticity.

Mr. Wild declined to be interviewed; Mr. Deutsch did not respond to e-mail or phone messages. On Friday evening, repeated queries were made to the White House about how a young presidential appointee with no science background came to be supervising Web presentations on cosmology and interview requests to senior NASA scientists.

The only response came from Donald Tighe of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. "Science is respected and protected and highly valued by the administration," he said.

The censorship of climate research results (what two thirds of the NYT article is discussing), whatever conclusion they support, is also verging on the criminal.