Science in an Age of (Non)Reason

In this chapter, we wish to reflect on some of the issues we see as affecting our work, how we see the ethos of our research institutions changing, the role of science in an age in which ‘experts’ are seen as an unnecessary luxury who stand in the way of popular and populist movements but in which, at the same time, people crave the products invented, developed and produced by such ‘experts’. We take a structured approach that uses the norms of science defined by the social scientist Robert Merton (the so-called Mertonian norms) and examine how each of them is affected by the current climate for science. We also look at some cases—historical and current—to help specify the intrinsic and extrinsic challenges that a reason- and evidence-based approach to knowledge is now facing.