Contra Chris Mooney's thesis, it's not a unilateral Republican one:

More than anything else, even the misrepresentations themselves, the collective willingness to overlook bad policy arguments unsupported (or even contradicted) by the current state of science while at the same time trumpeting the importance of scientific consensus is evidence of the comprehensive and pathological politicization of science in the policy debate over global warming. If climate scientists ever wonder why they are looked upon with suspicion among some people in society, they need look no further in their willingness to compromise their own intellectual standards in policy debate on the issue of disasters and climate change.

Both sides in politics make war on science when it doesn't support what they like. Republicans are famously squishy on Creationism, and tend to be easy marks for goofy weapon systems like the Hafnium Bomb.

Democrats have nothing to crow about, however. They back bogus medico-legal theories beloved of trial lawyers, are soft on animal rights terrorism, and will fall for any bogus environmental issue. Dems also seem to be worse about letting science education take second place to PC concerns in schools.

The book about the Repub's "war on science" sounds like a massive case of a pot writing a book about kettles.

Cambias

Why does there need to be a consensus on scientific issues? Until someone does some research and gets data, no one is right about a particular question, scientifically speaking. After that one guy gets that first data, then he has some information, when no one else in the world has a clue. After he publicizes it, tests the principle, has it reviewed, has his data reproduced, then there is scientific support. Consensus may happen years after this, when the papers manage to make it into popular circulation. There is experimental support and lack of experimental support. Consensus is a bogus measurement of truth.

It's much a problem of the media misreporting on science. Mainstream and "pajamas".

An example.
Rand reported earlier here, implying something like that global warming is a hoax (calling it "science" with quotation marks), and linked to an article by The Sunday Telegraph: http://www.transterrestrial.com/archives/007963.html#007963

But when that article later proved to have lots of faults, our intrepid reporter stays quiet, implying to readers that the untruths and misquotes there were real and accurate.
Here's an answer to the article:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,1947248,00.html

It would have only been in the interest of truth to publish the latter link. But that doesn't seem to be what is pursued. Instead, articles suiting an agenda are cherry-picked and if they are debunked or found faulty, no retraction is posted, it is simply hoped that the public will never know. It is perhaps hoped that they will go on and propagate the misquotes and fallacies, to drive a policy supported by the media outlet.

"Democrats have nothing to crow about, however. They back bogus medico-legal theories beloved of trial lawyers, are soft on animal rights terrorism, and will fall for any bogus environmental issue. Dems also seem to be worse about letting science education take second place to PC concerns in schools.

The book about the Repub's "war on science" sounds like a massive case of a pot writing a book about kettles."

Re "war on science": My impression is that the vast majority of 9-11 Conspiracy theorists are of the Left.