The optimist in me says that corrupted science has left a trail of dodgy science in its wake and any one of these might blow up. Once people really understand how science that they have funded in one area can veer off course, the search will be on to find all the other areas, and hopefully these will all have their funds removed. If that brings some universities to their knees, so be it.
I love science in the abstract, but I think right now it needs some seriously tough love.
David, I think you hit the nail on the head with the "they have funded" observation. Science, as a discipline for acquiring knowledge, has always been governed by culture and the imperatives it throws up. As our 'science' becomes more and more dependent on very expensive devices and processes there is a limit as to who can/will fund - and hence an opportunity for those who will fund for profit.
But if we step back from the tight notion of 'science' and consider knowledge acquisition in general - management, administration, politics and so on - all the informal methods - and let's all the 'non scientific' knowledge - e.g. that arts - the same applies.
One thing materialism and atheism did was remove any sense of inherent spiritual or moral context to inquiry, or then application of the fruits of that inquiry. This is why we have the idiocy of 'guns don't kill people, people do.' That makes sense on a superficial level. We may as well say that toxic nerve agents don't kill people, people do, in defence of the proposition that you should be able to buy a Russian drug over the counter. But as we saw, with DTT, that logic does not wash.
I don't know what is happening in the UK, but here in Oz, universities are on their knees begging funding from business for research. Then last thing a uni wants to be known for is fearless truth telling. That's not what business wants. Its bad enough that students have become customers. It is worse that research funding comes from customers of a different stripe, but customers no less.
Put together the two customer groups and any lingering ideal of intellectual integrity falls into the gutter. The esteem that universities once merited lingers as an afterglow in the memories of a diminishing few. Back in 1974 my then Philosophy Professor admitted he'd fail 90% of students based on merit, but he was told he was not permitted to do that. That was my exit interview and he was the only professor I bothered talking to as I quit.
Back in 2000 I read [tried to read] copies of PhD thesis in Social Ecology. They were rubbish - poorly argued and badly written. I graduated with my Masters Honours in Social Ecology in 2010 and I was profoundly grateful to never have to deal with the university again.
I know there are high quality universities that continue to deliver sterling intellectual fruit. But there's now a proliferation of low rent institutions who will compromise the old standards for the sake of survival.
I don't how long ago you got your quals. I graduated in 2001 and 2010 as a mature age student with substantial life experience under my belt. I'd had a go at completing courses in 1974 and 2005 and quit out of boredom and the insistence on PC dogma.
I think that without independently funded research bodies we are screwed in terms of integrity of research. Quality unis still have role to play. First case scenario is that research gets funnelled into fields that are profit generating, and the wider dimension of possibility is ignored. I suppose we might become grateful for US defence research as potentially the only real inquiry into our existential reality on a macro level. Obviously there is a lot of independent inquiry happening as well - Dean Radin among others.
I think we may have to drop seeing universities as sources of much that is useful - not that they necessity are in any case.