What is the reason for the recent upsurge of antiscientific passion? My own view is that it is, in part, a result of the anger, fear, frustration and humiliation suffered over the years by the losers in the culture wars: Those who would have kept women in the kitchen, blacks in the back of the bus, and gays in the closet. It is also a consequence of the deep and terrible universal fear of old age and death. But I don't believe these emotions, by themselves, could have created the antiscientific backlash of recent years. The fault may well lie in the ease with which these emotions can be cynically manipulated. It is pretty clear that the battle was engineered by provocateurs who may not even have wanted to win the battles they provoked. What seems much more likely, in view of the gingerly way that politicians have skirted such issues as Roe Vs Wade, is that the provocateurs want to lose the battles and in that way keep the anger and humiliation at fever pitch.

How should scientists respond to this strategy? I have to admit that I'm conflicted about this question. One response that might be effective is to simply ignore the battle. The usual derisive treatment of the "Know Nothings" tends to whip up the fury and thus play into the hands of the cynical political forces who know so well how to use it. Both sides, it seems, are being manipulated. So, then, what if we scientists refuse to play the game? After all, what great harm would come from teaching intelligent design in Kansas? Most likely, within a couple of years, parents worried about their children's ability to get into good universities would be petitioning their school boards for better biology classes.

Unfortunately, I suspect there is more at stake than biology textbooks in Kansas. As a longtime observer of the science-government-politics triangle, it looks to me as if there is another hidden agenda: to discredit the legitimate scientific community. A well-respected scientific community can be a major inconvenience if one is trying to ignore global warming, or build unworkable missile-defense systems, or construct multi-billion dollar lasers in the unlikely hope of initiating practicable nuclear fusion. (...) Today we have the ridiculous comedy of a Yale- and Harvard-educated president who plays to his antiscience audience by (deliberately?) mispronouncing the word "nuclear."
- Leonard Susskind, 2006

Or insist that it's even physically, let alone practically, possible to build a wall that will keep migrants out and magically solve all problems, I guess.

** Those were the days, eh?