By democratizing science it gives power back to the people to decide on what they want the scientific community to study.
Which people? The same people who vote this political system into existence? First people must be educated, then they can vote and decide on which research to fund etc. As it is, I worry that "giving the power to the people" will bring the same results as giving the power to another arbitrary group of rich people.
I agree that people need to be educated, however the system we have no fails at this. The gap in knowledge between common people and scientist has become increased drastically. Thats why people like Trump and Brexit happened, because common people feel that they are left behind by the elite that governs now and thus are easily influenced by populist ideologies. Its the fault of the educated that such a gap exists and it has to be fixed.
True. I myself didn't pursue an academic career because I didn't want to preach to like-minded individuals in Ivory Towers.
The only solution I see is "intellectuals" (whatever field they're in) going into the media, in whatever form. Ricky Gervais for instance studied philosophy and biology, and yet he's spreading his message to the masses. In ancient Greece there wasn't such a big divide between the people who "thought" and those who didn't. That's because the Greek theater was there to close that divide. The modern intellectuals have relinquished control of his omnipotent weapon to the demagogues, and they're paying for it now. That's partly because an intellectual is by his nature shy and withdrawn: not all scientists can suddenly go Bill Nye or Carl Sagal or Neil Degrasse Tyson on your ass! There's a lot to be done, but mostly I think religion is the first thing that needs to go away, because that's primarily (I think) the thing that keeps most people in one camp, closing their ears to whatever the other camp has to say. They don't want to listen to the educated, if educated = atheist.
I agree on most of your points. Especially on media bridging the gap between the "elite" and the people. Thats why I think steemit has such a potential, but its also dangerous because information on steemit is seen as valuable if the community likes it. But if you have a uneducated community = uneducated information being appreciated. And yes, most scientists are shy and withdrawn but they need to work on opening up towards people to bridge this gap!
Very well put.