by William L. Anderson
“Science” is now indistinguishable from politics. As the “acid rain” hysteria showed back in the 1970s and 1980s, “follow the science” is just a political slogan, unrelated to actual science.
I don't know what the solution is to this problem, but science as an enterprise needs to grapple with the actual incentives at play by the actors within it. It's downright utopian to imagine scientists to simply be dispassionate investigators seeking the truth.