Quote Originally Posted by wufwugy View Post
Why is it that free market principles are required to ensure the integrity and robustness of science yet not economics or politics (especially since economics and politics are sciences)? What is special about government that keeps those who have its power from needing to be challenged?
Which principles are these exactly? A government certainly needs a way to keep those in power in check, CoccoBillistan would probably be either ruled by a benevolent informed dictator (me), or have much stricter rules on re-elections, oversight ans transparency as current governments. The priorities get skewed if there are career politicians more interested in getting re-elected than doing their job, and external influence (campaign finance etc) should be weeded out, for example. New employees are great for companies because they bring experience and fresh ideas, but that effect is typically exhausted in a few years. After that it's better they find a new job and a fresh recruit replaces him. Same should happen in the government, if representatives and senators served say max 4 years, they might even have an incentive to get shit done.

Quote Originally Posted by wufwugy View Post
Many members of government have significantly more power than any members of private enterprise. If what you want is more human knowledge and less rule by individual decree, how does supporting monopoly power and opposing competition amongst the people do that?
That's debatable, the Kochs for example probably wield effective power quite similar to top brass in government. Without a government they would be the de facto government. POTUS is probably a fairly big exception, but the POTUS has significantly more relative power than his colleagues in other countries. I'm in no way against individual freedom, quite the contrary, I have fairly libertarian views when it comes to regulating individuals. If someone's actions affect only themselves they should be free to do as they please, but if they affect others, regulations are IMO needed.