I see science as way too fragile a human construct for the role you are ascribing to it. It's dawned on some set of actors our there that the output of science doesn't have to argued for or against, just presented as meme. You can let the graph = this, or you can let the graph = that. Which ever way you want it to go. And science can't do jack shit about it because then it simply becomes another player in the game that's being created. the forces exploring how to use those levers, how to generate divisive cognitive dissonance within our new extended collective conciousness on the internet are the new barbarians at the gate as i see it. turning rationality against itself.