Times Higher Ed has a report about last night's Sense About Science lecture by Cambridge historian Richard Evans. From the sounds of it, this was pretty interesting, with Prof Evans noting that calls for the public to trust scientists are "inadequate" given the propensity of scientists to get things wrong - he cites the BSE and miasmatism as examples. That said, Prof Evans, like so many others finds it difficult to cope with dissenting voices, and you sense that underneath he longs for consensus and certainty and a nice-neat top-down world. But I wonder if there is some significance in the fact that climate change sceptics were no mentioned alongside the anti-vaccinators (is that a word?,) who he gives as examples of the fringe groups who have taken advantage of the public distrust of scientist.
If someone can lay their hands on the video, do please post a link.