Attacks on scientific expertise have been increasing, especially in politics. Health and Human Services nominee Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is among the more prominent people who have done that.
There’s new approaches to it. You would usually hear creationists say things like “true science agrees with us”. It was nonsense and they never understood how science works, but there was this assumption underlying it that science was correct. They existed in a culture that at least conceptually embraced science and were coming at it from that angle. They were trying to co-opt the aesthetic of science rather than dismissing it entirely.
With attempts at funding freezes in health care and agencies under gag orders, we’re seeing a much broader attack on science as a concept.
There’s new approaches to it. You would usually hear creationists say things like “true science agrees with us”. It was nonsense and they never understood how science works, but there was this assumption underlying it that science was correct. They existed in a culture that at least conceptually embraced science and were coming at it from that angle. They were trying to co-opt the aesthetic of science rather than dismissing it entirely.
With attempts at funding freezes in health care and agencies under gag orders, we’re seeing a much broader attack on science as a concept.