Good post. I feel vaguely uneasy about unconditional praise for scientists, as I think there are far too many now, and many of them simply belong to a different species of politician, as illustrated in this post. Good scientists are heroes, bad scientists are just as annoying as everyone else (and maybe more so), and it's very difficult for outsiders to tell the difference.

I guess the big issue is: rationality is hard and requires sacrifice, so there's no reason to expect people to be rational unless there's some kind of pressure on them to do so. In most areas of human activity, that pressure just isn't strong enough.