Excerpts from an essay on science "which should be heartwarming", says its author Colin Tudge, three times winner of the Glaxo/ABSW Science Writer of the Year.
 
The Australian Financial Review 20 April 2001
(reprinted from New Statesman)

Physicist, heal thyself
Science isn't arrogant, but scientists. . .

"The startling truth is that some of the most conspicuous spokespeople for science horribly misrepresent it: what it is, what it is like, what it can helpfully comment upon and where it should be silent.They have in fact misconstrued their own craft. ...
 
"It is false for example, to suggest, as they sometimes have , that people who do not practise science have no right to comment at all, and get it wrong when they do. The corollary, that scientists can equally be relied upon to get it right is equally false. ...
 
"To insist on the specialness of scientists and to appeal to their authority is to adopt the methods of religion at its most pristine, where all ideas must be filtered through the chosen few. ...
 
"When they  are drawn into public debate,scientists like all  of us, should tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. ...
 
"We have been treated again and again to the stock phrase: "There is no evidence that...". I have never heard anyone add: "But absence of evidence does not mean evidence of absence".

"Without that codicil, we do not have the whole truth."
  
Chris Hunter

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