Any time 'science' abandons basic principloes -- like reproducibility of results --in favor of consensus of opinion, it has ceased to be 'science'.
I just slogged through the January issue of Scientific American, (yes, I still subscribe) and it fairly reeks of the sort of 'junky science' Crichton writes about in this article. If you have access to a copy, take a look at the full-page illustration on page 85 and, please, tell me WTH that stupid graphic has to do with anything remotely resembling science...
(FWIW, I did check sciam.com to see if the stupid image was online -- but the website is still stuck on the December issue.) What I did find was a headline about "ultrasound" on the sun -- and an article about vibrations at 100 milli hertz. Last time I checked, millihertz frequencies were in the Infra (not "ultra") sound range...
Junky, junky, junky "science", indeed!
principloes
My fat fingers frequently provide more letters than you pay for... '-}