A couple of weeks ago, a puzzling piece appeared on The Conversation: the title “Restoring science’s place in society will help us resolve the big debates” naturally caught my eye, and I started reading it expecting to find some hints on how to surpass the common attitude that grants the same weight to opinion and evidence. Reading it, however, quickly became puzzling and made me experience a sort of dissonance discomfort. As a result, I posted the link on Reddit, with a very short and critical disclaimer (further explained in a subsequent comment), and then tweeted my disappointment directly to The Conversation.
To my surprise, Tom McLeish, the author of the original article replied to my rather blunt tweet (it’s official, Twitter is fine for praise, but it really doesn’t work for criticism, constructive or not), and we engaged on a short and very civilised exchange