Tragedy is often born of oedipal acts. Is the philosophic father of modern empiricism and scientific methodology in an Oedipal position? Will the scientific sons have to turn the sword on their skeptical fathers? I doubt it. Few scientists are really interested in disbanding skepticism, even if it often leads to extremes. Hume foresaw the Pyrrohnian skeptic as a future opponent. He didn't provide much of a solution, except cloisters and starvation. Though a philosophic worry, the Pyrrohnian skeptic was never strong enough to stop scientific inquiry. And it seems to be a nearly necessary mental mechanism for the scientific pursuit. Why else would we seek the intellectual rigor, which finds itself up against the hedonistic cause? Why not just eat cake?
But now, coupled with religious fervor - skepticism's former enemy - practical consequences are appearing. Global warming skeptics, AIDS skeptics (I've only heard about this one recently), Flouride fears, obesity? Jesus. On the other hand, skepticism showed us that AIDS was not a gay disease. Skepticism compelled us to inspect the consequences of our industry. Worries are not just annoyances, they are requirements. They guard against arrogance, mistakes, and avoidance.
What's missing, importantly, is an intention to do something deceitful. (Of course, what is also missing is any form of responsibility - we can and ought, under empiricism, hold people responsible, at least to some extent, for their mistakes, regardless of intention.) This is where conspiracy theorists buckle. They normally require massive cooperation surrounding intentionally problematic decisions. Maybe a few will agree in dishonest usurpings, but most will feel enough moral pressure to prevent the wide spread cooperation required for broad conspiracy.
Deceit is the important point, I think. Because most people seem to agree that there are often people who know better than us. And we're okay with this. We listen to and take their advice. We give up some of our discretion in order to be guided by someone who can specialize and know more about a give field. But what we ask in return, is that, when we ask, they can provide reasoning for their decisions. In particular, that they give honest reasoning which can be held up to the standards of, if not the population at large, the large population of their peers. After all, if they claim to be knowers, then they claim to have justification for their beliefs. And if they have good justification, why would they worry that someone might question their belief?
Obviously, there is always a bit of wiggle room for the Straussian to step in with the city's need for a noble lie. But they tend to work under the assumption that the statesman's art is not an art that can be taught. And if this is the case, it seems to undercut any credence we would like to give to science. Science doesn't have to worry about this concern because science is precisely an transferable methodology. Otherwise it would lose repeatability and falsifiability.
Definitional distinctions are not going to solve all of the problems and worries that one might have about the scientific community. Nothing prevents there from actually being a a broad conspiracy. But we have to, again, resort to semi-scientific methods of making such determinations, otherwise we are left with conspiracy theories that do not have any standards of falsifiability and we fall into a vicious circle.
