On your first point about uncertainty, I think both scientists and non-scientists struggle with how to have a meaningful conversation where real world decisions

On your first point about uncertainty, I think both scientists and non-scientists struggle with how to have a meaningful conversation where real world decisions and policies have to be made in the face of material uncertainty. I generally see two ways of dealing with this on the ley side, which is to either ignore it altogether or to write if the finding or result completely. Neither is really appropriate and I think it's due to humans not being well wired to appreciate how uncertain everything that we don't have uncertainty parameters for actually is. Establishing a probable interval doesn't actually affect the probability of a thing. On the academic side, the problem is that most academic are cowards. They see a disproportionate cost to being wrong, and culturally, are trained to always be able to give a 'right' answer, even if that answer is useless. Theres a kind of automoton language that is used by researchers that allows them to escape any real consequences that might extend from having an opinion. It's a kind of aloofness that pretends that the science is happening in some kind of white tower vacuum of pure intellectualism. And they aren't wrong from a social perspective, in that academia will enforce a serious cost to them for being wrong. To sum up, my broader point is that both journalists and academics tiptoe around and hide behind uncertainty far too much. Any issue worth having a conversation on is one where decisions will need to be made inspite of uncertainty. As well, everything is uncertain, and just because we haven't/ can't get an uncertainty on something, it shouldn't give you more confidence than something we can establish an uncertainty for.