What is prompting this for me is how Energy Secretary Steven Chu told BP how to get images of their failed oil well. That's right - a government official helped a private company because the government knew more.
See TheAtlantic: How Steven Chu Used Gamma Rays to Save the Planet
An eternal fact of Washington is that government gets much more attention when it performs badly than when it performs well...
Now consider Chu, the Nobel Prize Winner who has been at BP headquarters in Houston with a team of government scientists trying to figure out how to stop the leak. According to a government official, BP initially "dismissed" Chu's gamma ray suggestion, but came back a week later and admitted "Chu's right."
Ha! And I believe this is an example of epistemic closure:
