You haven't addressed his actual point, which is that progress is not inexorable—it may not even be monotonic—and it certainly does not occur through the pure a

You haven't addressed his actual point, which is that progress is not inexorable—it may not even be monotonic—and it certainly does not occur through the pure application of reason and logic. Your view is of course a very popular one. In fact, that's what he's saying is the problem. But it's far from the only philosophy of science that's out there. And it's a particularly naïve one in my opinion. It's a shame that as soon as you encounter someone with a different philosophy you stop taking them seriously; otherwise you might learn something. Personally, I no longer have much time for the "inexorable progress through reason and logic" theory, which essentially boils down to the idea that if you just make sure you follow the One True Scientific™ Method to the letter then the right outcome is guaranteed. I've seen people claim that if you just make sure you follow the Waterfall Method to the letter then good software is guaranteed to come out of it. I don't have much time for that either. Before you complain about the comparison, note that both are essentially projections of the same philosophy (logical positivism) into different spheres. I attempted to summarise some of the history and why it matters here: http://www.zerobanana.com/essays/politics-of-reason/ http://www.zerobanana.com/essays/politics-of-reason/ but in short, I disagree that the problem is just with journalists (or just with scientists, for that matter). It's a problem for all of us as a society in how we think about science.