Without the Internet, the modern vaccine-skeptic movement probably wouldn’t exist, at least not in it current form. - Chris C. Mooney

Journalists should treat fringe scientific claims with considerable skepticism and find out what major peer-reviewed papers or assessments have to say about them. Moreover, they should adhere to the principle that the more outlandish or dramatic the claim, the more skepticism it warrants.

In 1957, he appointed the first official presidential science advisor, MIT president James Killian, and launched the distinguished President’s Science Advisory Committee. As Eisenhower would later put it, “this bunch of scientists was one of the few groups that I encountered in Washington who seemed to be there to help the country and not to help themselves.”

For a very long time, American scientists have found themselves pitted against both our businesslike, can-do attitudes and our piety.