Science...The Search for Truth, and Those Who Love It

It's a sane position to think that science should answer to science and not religion. How many times have we watched some religious leader make fools of his congregation when the world didn't end at the appointed moment of his biblical calculations? Religion is a dismal failure at predicting scientific events, but a master at the destruction of rational thoughts that contradict its teachings. I think the church still holds a grudge against Galileo. Science asks questions, posits answers, and ruthlessly tests each component of those answers to determine if any of them belong to the body of work dedicated to the search for truth. Religion has no such scruple.

In a similar manner ti follows that science should answer to science and not some commercial venture dedicated to the generation of confusion and blather aimed at supporting a forgone point or position. In today's world we call these commercial ventures "Think Tanks". They are basically public relations machines but have massive sway over public opinion. In a just society they wouldn't. 

Here is today's must read (Well maybe should read is more like it. Massimo goes all professorial at times but there's great stuff in here) :

...intellectuals have a duty to be so engaged with society because often their vantage point is the result of a privileged position granted them by society, most obviously in the case of academic intellectuals (but also journalists, some artists, and assorted others), who are somewhat shielded from most direct political influence or financial constraints, and whose professional ethos requires intellectual honesty and rigor.

(Gee, wouldn't it be nice if journalists were all intellectually honest and rigorous?)

Science by Think Tank
The Rise of Think Tanks and
the Decline of Public Intellectuals

by Massimo Pigliucci