It is hard to be rational in the way the New Yorker intends because we are constantly being lied to and having information hidden from us by institutions and so

It is hard to be rational in the way the New Yorker intends because we are constantly being lied to and having information hidden from us by institutions and so we have lost trust in them. President Dwight D. Eisenhower put it succinctly in his farewell address to the nation: "The prospect of domination of the nation's scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present and is gravely to be regarded. Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific technological elite."