The problem still remains where people in power, or people with vested interests pick and choose which bits of “science” they like, and which bits they dislike!

Richard Feynmann was and still is my hero. Here’s a neat quote, one of many he made in his long eventful life.

The scientist has a lot of experience with ignorance and doubt and uncertainty, and this experience is of very great importance, I think. When a scientist doesn’t know the answer to a problem, he is ignorant. When he has a hunch as to what the result is, he is uncertain. And when he is pretty damn sure of what the result is going to be, he is still in some doubt. We have found it of paramount importance that in order to progress, we must recognize our ignorance and leave room for doubt. Scientific knowledge is a body of statements of varying degrees of certainty — some most unsure, some nearly sure, but none absolutely certain. Now, we scientists are used to this, and we take it for granted that it is perfectly consistent to be unsure, that it is possible to live and not know. But I don’t know whether everyone realizes this is true. Our freedom to doubt was born out of a struggle against authority in the early days of science. It was a very deep and strong struggle: permit us to question — to doubt — to not be sure. I think that it is important that we do not forget this struggle and thus perhaps lose what we have gained.

………and here’s another, my absolute favourite;

It doesn’t matter how beautiful your theory is, it doesn’t matter how smart you are. If it doesn’t agree with experiment, it’s wrong.

And that’s the point about ignoring your scientific advisors. They’ve done the experiments and analysed the results.

If you don’t like the answer then don’t blame the scientist because that’s the truth you are looking at, or as close as you are gonna get.

It’s like the God Squad Creationists. They snip, snip, snip little bits of information to promote their version of truth. Yet they’ll quite happily use their mobile phones and televisions, fire their cruise missiles and make nuclear power stations.

All of these last use quantum theory to work, and it’s the same quantum theory that can be used to age the Earth, for example.

Don’t pick and choose what you want to hear. If the truth hurts, don’t blame the truth.