During the Renaissance and Industrial eras science was a way to remove superstition, religious misconception, and irrational fears. The scientific method was proved to be valid and available to anybody who had access to education anywhere in the world no matter what their personal beliefs were. This ultimately lead to a situation in which people trusted the scientists, peer reviewed scientific articles, and scientific magazines even if written by people who had no scientific backgrounds.
In capitalism, credibility is a valuable commodity and science and universities (mostly privately founded ones in the USA) have been targeted by it. Advertising agencies have been using slogans backed up by questionable scientific studies which claim that "if you drink orange juice you won't get a cold" or "a glass of wine everyday is good for digestion" or "eating or drinking specific foods will help prevent cancer." Some magazines claim that some scientists will try to make their studies look more promising or even fabricate data in order to get more funding. Ref here here here and in some cases cure to diseases won't be investigated because the whole business is based on exploiting the disease.
Jeremy Corbyn's brother Piers Corbyn is a MsC weather forecaster who claims that the very idea of human activity being the cause of global warming is a hoax and the scientific community has been corrupted. ref here He also states that some forecasts that predict sea levels rising dramatically are either fraudulent or exaggerated and a carbon tax is a sham.
Richard Gage is an experienced architect and founder of Architects for 9/11 truth which is a group of 3000+ architects and engineers (all with university degrees ref.here ) who demand a new investigation. This organisation also uses 9/11 family member victims ref here and here. They claim that WTC building 7 could not collapse in free-fall for nearly 4 seconds by gravity alone which is a physical impossibility (3rd law of motion), one of many anomalies found.
Psychology and methods of manipulation have been used in advertising blatantly to sell products, ideas, and even wars or shape leaders people vote for. Then again there seem to be no boundaries on how unethical you can be. Distrust in science and mass-media have turn out in cases in which parents decided not to vaccinate their children because of irrational fears. ref here
Are there any relevant authors who claim that penal responsibilities should be demanded or even the lost of academic credentials for those people who engage in such practices? Are there any relevant figures who talk about the credibility crisis the western world is going through?
"They who have put out the people's eyes reproach them of their blindness." John Milton
"Science is the great antidote to the poison of enthusiasm and superstition." Adam Smith
