Is there any risk that we (as a society) may lose science (or rather scientific literacy) in the medium run to religous or other anti-science factions?
This has been a background worry for me ever since I saw C.S. Lewis bring up the possibility.
Science is essentially a moral enterprise—scientists (and those who fund them and those who use scientific results) need to engage with the difficult real world rather than just seek status and convenience.
I’m more concerned about science just deteriorating to the point where it isn’t useful (we see a fair amount of that in medical research already) rather than it being taken down by active opposition.
This has been a background worry for me ever since I saw C.S. Lewis bring up the possibility.
Science is essentially a moral enterprise—scientists (and those who fund them and those who use scientific results) need to engage with the difficult real world rather than just seek status and convenience.
I’m more concerned about science just deteriorating to the point where it isn’t useful (we see a fair amount of that in medical research already) rather than it being taken down by active opposition.
I don’t see the medical case as much different from other science. And it is not clearcut either. The problems being
corporations wanting/needing to reap gains
unhelpful incentive structures
missing meta science (efficiently driving or aggregating research) and missing base level expertise
and of course politics