When Lillian Hellman refused to participate in Senator Joseph McCarthy’s communist witch hunt in the 1950s, her letter to the House Un-American Activities Committee contained a now famous quote: “I cannot and will not cut my conscience to fit this year’s fashions.” Hellman’s comment should serve as a warning for all those who try to shoehorn scientific evidence into their cultural or political biases—advice that, as we’ll discuss in the last chapter, remains unheeded today.
