The use of the scientific community to produce a weapon of mass destruction during the Second World War forged a lasting relationship between government and science by which the two are not easily separated. This relationship has been marked by internecine strife with very public arguments. There is a prehistory of this tension that is well known to us through the iconic cases in which political authority has determined that certain scientific ideas must be suppressed in order to safe guard worldviews which supported institutional doctrine. Galileo, who exacerbated his problems with the Church by demonstrating that he was as exegetically equipped as the next favorite Jesuit, is perhaps the most notorious incident. Giordano Bruno, though more a speculative thinker than a scientist was burned at the stake for his controversial multiple worlds view. Similarly, Francis Bacon, who primarily articulated a framework for the sociology of knowledge, became vulnerable to political vagaries. The cases of Galileo and Bruno were driven by the desire to protect a hegemonic worldview. In our time it has been the Oppenheimer case which was fueled by Cold War hysteria that has had such obvious global ramifications. There would be other cases to follow.