The kind of intellectual cynicism you describe is often a prerogative and mode of those highly educated in the sciences, and therefore of a very small majority

The kind of intellectual cynicism you describe is often a prerogative and mode of those highly educated in the sciences, and therefore of a very small majority of humans generally, who otherwise in my experience do tend to think of themselves as agents free of statistical determinations and as having wills and minds rather than cogs of any sort.