> I think there are a lot of different reasons people today have a problem with science and technology. Some are scared of it. Some just don't trust it, which can be entirely fair depending on the degree/situation. Some see that the regulations, oversight, and accountability we expect and depend on to keep us safe aren't working like they used to or like we thought they would.
We often forget that many people have been genuinely negatively affected by technology or science or know someone who has. Let's not forget that many technological and medical advances have come at a real human cost. People have been poisoned by harmful chemicals either during their occupation or because an entire community has been exposed. Entire communities have been devastated by the opioid epidemic which the medical community is directly responsible for. Not to mention the countless people who have lost their jobs or will lose them soon to automation.
There are people with genuine concerns about the way science and technology are heading and pretending anyone skeptical of modern science is simply uneducated or stupid is extremely counter-productive.
I think things like the opioid crisis where doctors were getting outright bribes from pharmaceutical companies who knew they were killing people has done a massive amount of harm to the trust people had in medical science. It's been a problem for a long time, even going back to the tobacco industry hiring researchers to lie about the dangers of smoking. Those researchers didn't lose their jobs and become unhireable in their fields. They just went on to work for the oil companies to lie about how climate change isn't real and are now working for companies currently trying to convince the FDA about the safety of food additives.
Between corporations being able to buy whatever research they think will get them a favorable headline, peer reviewed journals accepting any paper if you pay them to publish it (this one being a personal favorite https://www.sciencealert.com/a-neuroscientist-just-tricked-4...), the reproducibility crisis more generally, the total lack of any meaningful consequences when companies are caught outright knowingly poisoning people or selling dangerous drugs, it's really getting harder to explain to people at the fringes like antivaxxers why they should have more faith in the data we have and on the systems put in place to protect them.
If the people aren't held accountable for causing harm and scientists don't do a much better job self-policing I think the situation is only going to get much worse. Even if things do change it will likely take generations to undo the damage already done.
We often forget that many people have been genuinely negatively affected by technology or science or know someone who has. Let's not forget that many technological and medical advances have come at a real human cost. People have been poisoned by harmful chemicals either during their occupation or because an entire community has been exposed. Entire communities have been devastated by the opioid epidemic which the medical community is directly responsible for. Not to mention the countless people who have lost their jobs or will lose them soon to automation.
There are people with genuine concerns about the way science and technology are heading and pretending anyone skeptical of modern science is simply uneducated or stupid is extremely counter-productive.