Sadly, this outcome would simply reinforce the premise that only professional scientists have the credentialled right to speak their minds on scientific matters that affect all of us. Nor are these concerns extrinsic to the practice of science itself. Prior to deciding whether science intrinsically tells the truth, we must ask, again and again, whether it is possible, or prudent, to isolate facts from values. This is a crucial question to ask, because it bears upon the kind of progressive society we want to promote. Because its power, as a civil religion, as a social and political authority, affects our daily lives and the parlous condition of the natural world more than does any other domain of knowledge.
All hell breaks loose, however, when the following question is asked.
After centuries of scientific racism, scientific sexism, and scientific domination of nature one might have thought this was a pertinent question to ask.