I'm a freshman in college, and I'm writing a term paper that is going to argue whether or not the Internet is assisting in and accelerating the erosion of American faith in science and scientific institutions.
Is very deterministic to think my response will be address only to what happens in the U.S.
The word science is a term belonging not only to the academy. Unfortunately, that same word is used in other circles to legitimize knowledge that otherwise is only empirical.
That necessity to legitimize vulgar science in the name of the science, it is not a reason to point to the Internet as the sole cause. On the contrary, I think the web has contributed not to the erosion of science but to the foundation of it.
It is thanks to the Internet that people themselves and without having to go to a lab or attend academia, they can verify information, and to contrast, analysis previously only possible in a library or a laboratory.
The interest in positive science, subject to experimental verification then has nothing to do with the sources of information. The one who talks of science must adhere to the principles that determine it. That is why there are not too many scientists and so may appear that centers, where science develops, may be in crisis.
Nothing could be farther from reality.
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