 The discussion so far has focused on the VNT, the practical attainability of the VFI, but little has been said about whether a value-free science is desirable in the first place. This subsection discusses this topic with special attention to informing and advising public policy from a scientific perspective. While the VFI, and many arguments for and against it, can be applied to science as a whole, the interface of science and public policy is the place where the intrusion of values into science is especially salient, and where it is surrounded by the greatest controversy. In the 2009 “Climategate” affair, leaked emails from climate scientists raised suspicions that they were pursuing a particular socio-political agenda that affected their research in an improper way. Later inquiries and reports absolved them from charges of misconduct, but the suspicions alone did much to damage the authority of science in the public arena.