I agree with your statement. What I am always trying to understand is where does this lead us and how can we get back to belief in the scientific method? Removing cause/effect/data leaves all decisions to emotion and short term rewards. I don't think this will end well, especially against a background of countries and cultures that do believe in science and collaboration.

It's been systematically undermined for decades through cultivated conspiracy culture, with digressions into wellness woo and evangelical movements of all kinds.

The pitch is the usual anti-intellectual narrative: "How dare these people, with their fancy educations, look down on you and patronise you. Everyone's opinions are equally valuable. They're probably in it for the money."

It's been very organised, and both science and academia have completely failed to respond to it.

You can give science a pass because most scientists struggle to understand how craven politics and propaganda are.

Academia should have known better. Hannah Arendt described it far ahead of time. But somehow plain anti-authoritarianism became less sexy, and certainly less of a career move, than Continental Philosophy and Critical Theory, which have turned out to be largely impotent when faced with full-on fascism.