As We Welcome Back Real Science

The last eight years really were amazing, weren't they?

President Obama yesterday had the following to say upon signing an executive order lifting severe federal funding limits on human embyronic stem cell research, the very kind of research that could have saved my mother's life or at least made her last years more humane:

"Promoting science isn't just about providing resources -- it is also about protecting free and open inquiry. It is about letting scientists like those here today do their jobs, free from manipulation or coercion, and listening to what they tell us, even when it's inconvenient especially when it's inconvenient. It is about ensuring that scientific data is never distorted or concealed to serve a political agenda and that we make scientific decisions based on facts, not ideology."

More here.

Oh, and fuggedabout those Bush era signing statements that conveniently turned the constitutionally-mandated balance of powers on its ear.

Photograph by Mandal Ngan/AFP-Getty Images