Good post, Rhys. Science has always been corrupted by the availability and sources of funding. In the early enlightenment the money went into labour-saving stuff like steam engines and machines. That’s where the money was. Most money and research today goes into stupid stuff like weapons development and cosmetic stuff.
Let nobody here try and pretend that by their very nature scientists are intrinsically noble or crusaders or anything like that. You’d have at least as much of a chance of finding noble crusaders cleaning toilets for a living as you would in the scientific community.
Medical science in particular has a history of involvement in genocide, experiments on humans (not to mention animals), body snatching, and other stuff that ought to keep you awake at night. Most of the big developments derived from wartime experiences.
I don’t have the knowledge/brains to make a call on climate change, whether or not it’s real, man-made or not. I see it as a middle class thing, much like the preponderance of healthy eating shows on radio and TV. All they care about is prolonging their miserable lives and money.
When the middle classes start acting responsibly towards the poor and the third world, when they stop turning a blind eye to and voting for murdering bastards like Blair, etc., I’ll consider caring about climate change. In short, if they start acting like responsible human beings, I might give it a try myself. Until then I reserve the right to regard the whole subject as an affront.