I think part of the problem is that science has portrayed itself as proving things, when in fact there is primarily only theory and a small sampling that ‘appears’ to validate. Also, if most Americans are getting their scientific information from mainstream media, it becomes a diet of what is most dramatic or makes for a good story and as you stated, then private funding of science or even public, partisan funding of studies will tend to skew the information towards what they wanted it to be anyway. Social sciences are important, if imperfect, perhaps even more important because we are now dealing with the realm of human beings and how we relate to each other. We could do a lot more work there…