Trouble is...
(I missed your ironic smiley, so presume you didn't even see the need for one. Robinson's book is ALL ABOUT the failure of rational science to send rational people to colonise a new world, but instead a diverse set of vested interests each exporting their agendas and complexes to the new world where they compete aggressively, against the "common good")
New colonies tend to self-select for zealots of one form or another. Look at America, for instance, with its almost rabid religous right, or Australia with its racist colonial attitudes...
(by the time there's more than one dome on Mars and they start breeding their own Zealots, the recipe is ripe for inter-dome warfare!)
"Wherever you go, there you are"