---
title: "Criticism of science"
chunk: 3/3
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_science"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T03:36:17.168432+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---

The mass media face a number of pressures that can prevent them from accurately depicting competing scientific claims in terms of their credibility within the scientific community as a whole. Determining how much weight to give different sides in a scientific debate requires considerable expertise regarding the matter. Few journalists have real scientific knowledge, and even beat reporters who know a great deal about certain scientific issues may know little about other ones they are suddenly asked to cover.
Many issues damage the relationship of science to the media and the use of science and scientific arguments by politicians. As a very broad generalisation, many politicians seek certainties and facts whilst scientists typically offer probabilities and caveats. However, politicians' ability to be heard in the mass media frequently distorts the scientific understanding by the public. Examples in Britain include the controversy over the MMR inoculation, and the 1988 forced resignation of a government minister, Edwina Currie, for revealing the high probability that battery eggs were contaminated with Salmonella.
Some scientists and philosophers suggest that scientific theories are more or less shaped by the dominant political, economic, or cultural models of the time, even though the scientific community may claim to be exempt from social influences and historical conditions. For example, the Russian philosopher, socialist, and zoologist Peter Kropotkin thought that the Darwinian theory of evolution overstressed a painful "we must struggle to survive" way of life, which he said was influenced by capitalism and the struggling lifestyles people lived within it. Karl Marx also thought that science was largely driven by and used as capital.
Robert Anton Wilson, Stanley Aronowitz, and Paul Feyerabend all thought that the military-industrial complex, large corporations, and the grants that came from them had an immense influence over the research and even results of scientific experiments. Aronowitz even went as far as to say "It does not matter that the scientific community ritualistically denies its alliance with economic/industrial and military power. The evidence is overwhelming that such is the case. Thus, every major power has a national science policy; the United States Military appropriates billions each year for 'basic' as well as 'applied' research".

== See also ==
Academic bias
Anti-intellectualism
Antiscience
Criticism of college and university rankings in North America
Intellectual inbreeding
Postmodernism
Pseudoscience
Pseudoskepticism
Research paper mill
Scientific misconduct
Empirical limits in science

== Notes and references ==

== Further reading ==