> So, when you say the people distrust science, it seems bizarre that they doubt science as philosophy, while in fact they doubt the institution. The vast, vas

> So, when you say the people distrust science, it seems bizarre that they doubt science as philosophy, while in fact they doubt the institution. The vast, vast, vast majority of the Christian fundamentalists whom are the backbone of this movement and the subject of this discussion do not distinguish between these things. They do not distrust "big science," they distrust science, full stop. The fact that science as an institution is subject to the same corruptive forces as every other institution is a convenient post-hoc rationalization for the belief they already had and wanted to justify, just like a lot of other post-hoc rationalizations they have for other beliefs they have. They dislike science now because they are told to by their ministers, no more reason than that, and we know this because science and their religion coexisted peacefully and uneventfully for centuries until it become inconvenient for a segment of the church's politics. Excluding of course Gallileo, and for the same reasons. Science (both as philosophy and institution) gets it wrong, but has built-in mechanisms that correct those issues. Eugenics was discredited by science. Andrew Wakefield's bullshit autism study was discredited by science. Religion gets it wrong and then calls it mystery. It’s especially ironic to hear institutional corruption invoked as a critique of science, when many of the loudest voices in this conversation come from religious institutions that have spent decades shielding their own leadership from accountability for far more egregious abuses.