There is increased skepticism throughout the hierarchy. the flat-earthers and creationists are caricatures, but focusing on them misses or disguises the bigger picture. Many people believe that science, and especially the part of it that often informs public policy, is not scrutinizing itself enough , and is often led by groupthink and popularity rather than rigor.

> and is often led by groupthink and popularity rather than rigor.

To a large extent that's true. Funding goes more to groups who publish more positive results. It's well established by now that the incentive structure needs to change to make science more robust, but there's considerable resistance.

Do you know how people become successful scientists? By "scrutinizing" science and coming up with better and more predictive theories. This idea that science isn't "scrutinizing itself" fundamentally misunderstands how science works. This misunderstanding not only affects the "caricatures" like creationists but supposedly "more sophisticated" critics of science such as "alternative" medicine devotees.

> how people become successful scientists? By "scrutinizing"

Some scientists do, but the majority become successful by looking for things that are highly publishable. Hence why you have a reproducibility crisis in some sciences but no shortage of results/claims.

Define successful and define scientist - Lysenko was quite "successful" in the Soviet Union for obtaining funding and influence because he flattered the ideology of the management. His work however was complete bunk and didn't even hit upon real epigenetic interactions.

They may get rewarded for it in dysfunctional systems but it isn't furthering science.

That is the question, yes, and I think that was what jhbadger meant by “successful” - that one is so in science (from this perspective) similarly to any other field; when people buy into your work, give you funding, your reputation increases, etc.

To the level that this is true (the "reproducibility crisis" has been blown out of hand because the general public confuses reproducibility with generalizability), this is because of the exact opposite of what you claimed earlier -- it isn't "groupthink" but the exact opposite -- the individuality of scientists not thinking as a group and wanting to demonstrate their own unique takes rather than just redoing what others have done.

the cynical in me says that many scientists choose to forgo research that would disprove some semi-established research in the fears that their work might get heavily scrutinized as well. I think you 're talking about "great scientists" which are extreme outliers. Scientists often enjoy that mythical appreciation, but the truth is a lot more pedestrian - there are 7.8 million researchers , 0.1% of the world's population.

There's enough people running around claiming the world is a sphere, which is not really true either. At least the flat earthers understand that most people know less than they think they need to.

It's true enough, it's less than one percent wider around the equator. Calling it an oblate spheroid or something isn't relevant it most situations.

See, I didn't even know that?!

Instead of using a metaphor why not quote an example of the 'retardation' you have in mind. I guess you don't think readers here should be overly concerned with folk who claim the world (the Earth) is flat as against being approximately spherical.

> retardation

I hate to be that guy, but that is really not even vaguely appropriate—retardation literally means you are slow at development. This is unrelated to deluded adults, and I’d hazard a guess that most retarded individuals are not deluded about the earth being flat.