IT SEEMS AS if we’re experiencing unending crises, rolling over us at such pace that we can’t catch our breath before the next one hits. Bushfires so large they create their own storm systems; pandemics of global proportions; the climate emergency, which threatens consequences worse than we’ve ever witnessed. But one thing can (and does) assist us to curate hope: our combined knowledge and intellectual power as the species Homo sapiens. Science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM, collectively) have been revered, but also often placed in ivory towers so as to equate them with superpowers derived from radioactive spider bites rather than accessible, egalitarian, well- paid and exciting areas of study.

In STEM we trust. Or so we thought. The rise of conspiracy theorists on social media – be they anti-vaxxers, short-Earthers, flat-Earthers or Holocaust deniers (still) – all point to a worrying increase in the noise and attacks made by anti-science protagonists. And it’s not just those influencers attacking, misinterpreting, undermining or ignoring people with PhDs and expertise: senior public and political figures have launched major attacks against listen- ing to the advice of ‘experts’ over recent years.