I fully disagree with many of the comments I read so far. This is my experience from France, but I guess it was quite similar in most countries. Every time a scientist would be invited to a debate about the status of research, the journalists would find some olibrius who would believe in stars or anything approaching, whom the scientists would have a hard time to counter. The result was utter confusion, and in some cases, some scientists would loose patience and eventually answer with awkward or strong comments. In this context, it was impossible to get any actual information, so much of it was diluted in pseudo-debates. Scientific discourses became an opinion in a sea of misinformation. One of my friend, who had been researching on vaccines for most of his life stopped participating in debates where he was accused to be a murderer or to propagate autism. Of course, there were some scientists with an agenda, but in this context, it is a little bit too easy to put all the blame on people who are not trained for public debates and who were manipulated by the media who played on fear and exaggeration.