Science and scientific expertise are more important than ever

I'm not sure what you're actually proposing, but it sounds dangerously close to "pilots have been in control of airplanes for decades, and they've caused so many crashes, so maybe it's time to try people who aren't pilots."

> I'd rather be ruled over by elite families than squabbling, territorial, overconfident scientists who can be bought off for nothing and blackmailed easily.

Do you really look at history and conclude that, because some scientists are corrupt or dishonest, you'd rather have monarchs control things like safety regulations for medicine, industrial activity, architecture, food, etc.? Again, that sounds very much like the "let's give non-pilots a shot at controlling aircraft."

Absolutely true, but examine the power dynamic. The scientists are only able to provide results (whether for or against) if they have bread on the table. The funders (as private entities) provide an almost inescapable dilemma then for the researchers. So who's more at fault, the scientist or the ones holding the purse strings? Why would we expect scientists to live up to some lofty ideal while others seek only personal profit through them?

Really, this is just a greater indictment of what our system has morphed into, where science and R&D is increasingly seen as the province of private companies, and not to be funded publicly.

(Or worse, to be funded publicly and then gatekept for profit)

I do agree with most of what you said, though. I left a PhD program without finishing after six years because:

1. I wanted financial security to start a family

2. I was not dealing well with the stress of navigating the Kafkaesque graduation process

3. Turns out market salary outside of research is pretty high even if you don't finish the degree

And I do feel vindicated in that as a software developer I'm getting positive performance reviews and feel like I'm making an impact on the organization.

One thing I want to add:

People's perception of scientific institutions will always be inextricably tied to their perceptions of schools (all levels of schools!) and K-12 schools are troubled institutions that mistreat a lot of young people, to say nothing of teaching misleading content or outright falsehood in (e.g.) history class. I, with my early-blooming aptitude for everything bookish, privileged college-professor parents, and serviceable athletic talents, had a pretty easy time in school. So trust in institutional science came naturally to me and eroded only painfully.

People from different backgrounds have harder times, and those with the least aptitude for (say) science have the hardest time.

> After all, the real target of these kinds of articles is obviously the supposedly right-wing extremist "science deniers" who reject the critical theory stuff even more strongly than scientists themselves do.

The National Basketball Association, with its overwhelmingly liberal player base, has all kinds of trouble with the conspiracy theories its players wind up believing and talking about in public (shape of the Earth, moon landing, and of course all kinds of stuff about Coronavirus).

I mention this, not just out of contrarianism, but because K-12 teachers famously mistreat young black men with athletic ambitions (if you follow the human interest side of the NBA you will hear a lot of stories to that effect), and because as they get older they discover what amounts to a conspiracy to cover up wrongs done to their ancestors (it was and maybe still is possible to get a K-12 education in Tulsa without ever learning about the Tulsa massacre for example).

Which is all a long-winded way to say that we're reaping what the education system has sown as well as the institutions of science.

I could list any number of things like witchcraft, homeopathy, various snake oils, superstition causing animal abuse, as examples of what happens without science. Some of these things endure centuries too, because there is no mechanism to correct them.