The most disappointing part of it to me is that our culture is desperately in need of people to explain scientific methodology to the public. The average person's understanding of science is roughly equivalent to a cargo cult. Everything's seen in terms of regurgitated facts and events. But there's little to no understanding of what science actually is.

We're at a point where, when I see someone linking to multiple studies, I just flat out assume that they're not going to be applicable to the discussion. People can toss a few keywords into PubMed but they don't have the education needed to actually understand what they're looking at. They just see it as "science approved!".

The worst part is that the pop-science figures have to be aware of how bad things have become. I might be a little cynical. But it's hard not to think that their silence on actually bettering the public's scientific literacy has a lot to do with the current situation being the most personally profitable.