In a commencement address at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore on May 25, 2006, New York City's mayor Michael R. Bloomberg decried the political manipulation of science to further ideological ends, saying, "Today, we are seeing hundreds of years of scientific discovery being challenged by people who simply disregard facts that don't happen to agree with their agenda ... Some call it pseudoscience, others call it faith-based science, but when you notice where this negligence tends to take place, you might as well call it 'political science.'"
In that context, Bloomberg deplored ongoing controversies over evolution education in Kansas, Mississippi, and elsewhere: "It boggles the mind that nearly two centuries after Darwin, and 80 years after John Scopes was put on trial, the country is still debating the validity of evolution," adding, "This not only devalues science, it cheapens theology. As well as condemning these students to an inferior education, it ultimately hurts their professional opportunities." Intelligent design, he said, "is really just creationism by another name."
NCSE deputy director Glenn Branch commended Bloomberg for his defense of the teaching of evolution, telling the New York Sun (May 26, 2006), "It's not as though he's flying in the face of the established scientific consensus ... Bloomberg's view is at one with the National Academy of Sciences, which is the nation's most prestigious scientific organization. It is also [at] one with the American Association for the Advancement of Science, with the Royal Society of London, and with dozens of other major scientific organizations."