On her December 9 show, Rachel Maddow said “working on science that the right doesn’t believe in.”

Science is not a matter of belief, and must not be judged in that realm. At all. Science is not and should never be ideological.

To adopt and use the phrase “believe in” in reference to scientific work is to cede ground to an ideological world view whose position is that science is something to be believed in, equivalent to a religious faith.

I get that both claim their truths to be unassailable. But the conclusions of scientific research and the assertions of religious dogma are not the same.

I suggest the following wording instead: “working on science that the right is ideologically opposed to” and “the conclusions of which make the policies of the right untenable.”

The wording is clumsy, but we can improve on it. We must improve on it.