My innocence is crushed like a beautiful unicorn being harpooned by a Norwegian whale gun:
I think we scientists can shift the focus here all we want and blame the funding situation or public perception. But in the end, we are the ones largely to blame for doing poor jobs at explaining our work to the public and for not having good leadership showing how important basic science is. The fact is, basic science needs to be promoted more and more to the public. Instead, we take the easy way out and unfortunately lie about the applied aspects of our work.
As incredible as it may seem to the horror-stricken evolutionist, I’m actually a pretty big fan of non-applied science; I just dislike scientists and their all-too-common idea, inherited from the philosophers, that the world would be a better place if everyone else would just shut up and let them run it.
But this sort of thing is why those who insist that the noble and sacred profession is above all reproach tend to make me laugh. And you’d think they’d realize that having people like Dr. Myers running around and shouting at everyone about how stupid they are for not sharing his belief in evolution and his lack of belief in God isn’t exactly the best advertisement for science or scientists, especially not in the eyes of those stupid people who are taxed to pay for his salary.