Why has the public view on scientists changed in recent years?

[CleffedUp]

I don't think anyone has mentioned what is probably the single most dramatic and controversial invention in the history of man: The atomic bomb.

Do a search in Google (+"atomic bomb" +einstein) and you get some 300k hits, even though he had nothing directly to do with it. I don't have the time to do the chronology here, but having your name associated with a device that ended "The War" in the fashion it did would logically stand to get you a lot of attention.

 

[Astronuc]

I heard a journalist just yesterday talk about the scientists who use Einstein's relativity to create nuclear weapons, and if the general population can even make the connection, that's what they will believe.

 

[D H]

As an outsider looking in (an engineer, not scientist), it appears that the most basic of the sciences (physics) is in disarray. String Theory seems to be a symptom of this disarray and then it is defended as the "only game in town". What kind of defense is that? Even QM doesn't seem to me to make sense. Yes its formula are powerful, but it does take on a feature of mystery and seeming magic when it talks about things like particles going through two slits at the same time (but only when you aren't looking!).

I think the public is responding to that disarray. People are thinking: "Well if you guys don't know what is going on, how can we trust you?"

Just because QM "doesn't seem to me to make sense" doesn't mean it is disarray. The standard model of physics describes observations extremely well. It might be wierd, but disarray? No. We plucked most of the easy fruit off the physics treeby the mid-to-late 1800s. The same goes for most other sciences. Since then scientists have been attacking domains far removed from our everyday world, giving us half-dead cats that morphed from slime. Just because you (speaking generically) don't understand quantum mechanics or plate tectonics or evolution or whatever doesn't mean scientists don't understand and agree on these topics.

Modern science is far removed from the everyday world. Human reaction time is about half a second. Physicists look at time spans as small as a picosecond. Human lifetime is less than a hundred years. Astronomers, geologists, and biologists look at time spans that make those hundred years look infinitesimally small. Physicists have some disagreements regarding what happens during their incredibly small time spans. Biologists have some disagreement what happens during their incredibly long time spans. That does not mean disarray. It just means they don't have all of the details worked out.

An extremely small minority of scientists don't agree with the modern views. The modern media is won't to find the two quacks out of one thousand scientists who disagree with modern physics / modern geology / modern biology. This creates a perception of disarray when in fact none exists. Quacks have been around as long as humanity has. Until recently, we knew what to do with them: Ignore them.

Another problem is that we (speaking generally again) have come to expect problems to be resolved instantly. Science doesn't work that way. Science is slow. Nearly a century passed between the discovery of X-rays and the completion of the standard model. Similar time spans occur in other sciences. Just because we don't know the hairiest of details of how the universe works doesn't mean we don't know anything. This is not disarray; it is how science works.