In my utopia, we would not have large amounts of money being spent to discredit science. The start of this anti-science movement seems to have been rooted in self-interest by large corporations, trying to convince people of things like “tobacco doesn’t cause cancer,” “coal doesn’t cause global warming,” “DDT doesn’t kill birds.”

But now, probably encouraged by creationism, it has spread to all of science. For example, the fact that there is widespread anti-science sentiment has let the anti-vaccination movement arise, which I don’t believe has any large corporate sponsors and which most organized religions don’t support; this movement is currently undoing some of the great success we have had towards eliminating disease.

Peter Shor is a mathematician and poet.

https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-check/quantum-computing-for-english-majors/