You probably understand that a full answer to this question would require an enormous amount of space (and time), and that it would involve all kinds of diversions into controversial topics. But since you're curious, I will try to provide a cursory outline of my views that are relevant in this context.

About a century ago -- and perhaps even earlier -- one could notice two trends in the public perception of science, caused by its immense practical success in providing all sorts of world-changing technological marvels. First, this success had given great prestige to scientists; second, it had opened hopes that in the future science should be able provide us with foolproof guidance in many areas of human concern that had theretofore been outside the realm of scientific investigation. The trouble with these trends was that around this time, dreams and hopes fueled by them started to seriously drift away from reality, and as might be expected, a host of pseudo-scientific bullshit-artists, as well as political and bureaucratic players with ready use for their services, quickly arose to exploit the opportunities opened by this situation.

This has led to a gradually worsening situation that I described in an earlier LW comment:

The trouble nowadays is not that governments are not listening to scientists (in the sense of people officially and publicly recognized as such), but that the increased prominence of science in public affairs has subjected the very notion of "science" to a severe case of Goodhart's law. In other words, the fact that if something officially passes for "science," governments listen to it and are willing to pay for it has led to an awful debasement of the very concept of science in modern times.

Once governments started listening to scientists, it was only a matter of time before talented charlatans and bullshit-artists would figure out that they can sell their ideas to governments by presenting them in the form of plausible-looking pseudoscience. It seems to me that many areas have been completely overtaken by this sort of thing, and the fact that their output is being labeled as "scientific" and used to drive government policy is a major problem that poses frightful threats for the future.

This, in my view, is one of the worst problems with the entire modern system of government, and by far the greatest source of dangerous falsity and nonsense in today's world. I find it tragicomic when I see people worrying about supposedly dangerous anti-scientific trends like creationism or postmodernism, without realizing that these are entirely marginal phenomena compared to the corruption that happens within even the most prestigious academic institutions due to the fatal entanglement of science with ideology and power politics, to which they are completely oblivious, and in which they might even be blindly taking part. Just the thought of the disasters that our governments might wreak on us by pushing policies guided by this pseudo-scientific input should be enough to make one shiver -- especially when we consider that these processes typically operate on bureaucratic auto-pilot, completely outside of the scope of politics that gets public attention.

Whether or not you agree with this, I hope it clarifies the reasons why I have such strong interest in topics of this sort.