Scientific Method, why not?

Faith in pseudo-science annoys me. As I get older I find myself caring less and less what other people believe and have learned, mostly, to just walk away when people espouse anti-scientific ideas. But every now and then I find myself typing something like:

“While I disagree that there’s anything less than an unprecedented flowering of innovation at an ever increasing pace, there is a risk to further progress in weakened academic structure that has led to an increase in credulity as evidenced by growing embrace of faith in psuedo-science and outright anti-scientific religion. It is not so much that fanciful flights of faith pose any meaningful challenge to good science, rather the pointless waste of resources that ultimately harm the ignorant and drain overall productivity .

“As those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it, so too the directionless flailing of the uneducated repeat past failures and charge enthusiastically into dead ends long ago discovered and mapped in formal curricula. Those who bemoan the exclusion of the uneducated in scientific discourse deserve no more sympathy than obese couch potatoes whining over being excluded from consideration as contenders in marathons. Merely being qualified to appreciate progress requires a modicum of technical literacy, at the least a thorough understanding of scientific method, evidentiary proof, and basic mathematics; an understanding of which is a civic obligation regardless of profession.”

(The comment was not particularly anti-scientific and in true web2.0 abbreviated “update” form, ambiguous and without context. While it is likely a diatribe more in agreement with the original post than contrary to it, so much inspired consonance seems worthy of elevation from throw away comment against an abbreviated status post to the exulted position of “blog post,” in all vanity published glory, untarnished by critical review or editorial attention.)