TODAY, many people value their own judgement on everything from climate change to mass vaccination more highly than that of specialists. A reaction to the reverence for science that typified much of the 20th century was, perhaps, inevitable: the idea of an infallible science is dangerous – like glass, one chip and it cracks. And when those cracks come into contact with the complexities of climate, health, pollution, economics and social life, just watch that glass shatter.
Even so, because reaching a scientific consensus takes time and practical decisions must be made, we need something more like concrete than glass, perhaps…
