"An increasing proportion of the population seems to distrust rational inquiry to establish both the facts and the uncertainties; rather they prefer their instincts or even to celebrate anti-intellectualism."
His [Prof Sir Howard Newby, the chief executive of the Higher Education Funding Council for England's] comments reflect concerns of the scientific establishment that the public has lost faith in science. People are less deferential, and less willing to accept the views of "experts" without question, he believes.
[...]
The scientific community has retreated from engagement with society, just as society at large has been excluded from the real world of scientific method.
"The scientific community is mystified by the idea that morals should direct its research, while those who seek to make science more publicly accountable are equally baffled by the logic and methods of science.
"The public now feels that it is reduced to the role of a hapless bystander or, at best, the recipient of scientific advance and technological innovation which the scientific community believes it ought to want."
Could it be that science is beholden to something other than social progress, namely, the globalized interests of power and profit, which work ceaselessly against social progress?
This mystifying article also ignores the substantial influence of religious superstitions in the form of fundamentalism. Regardless of whether they are Christian or Muslim, fundamentalsts who insist upon revealed truth will always fight with those who insist upon scientific truth, and the poor hapless suckers who get caught in the middle are simply further evidence of the impossibility of social progress in a world dominated by politicized religion and politicized technologies.
