A key theme that recurs in this magazine, courtesy of many different great writers, is that the accepted consensus of the academic and scientific ‘expert’ classes are frequently wrong. And not just wrong by a matter of a few degrees or nuances, but spectacularly, wholly and unforgivably false. Why this is so is a matter for much deeper analysis, but on the surface it is clear that for at least a decade or so a confluence of forces has both denigrated (and politicised) the quality of academic research at the same time as the ‘long march through the institutions’ has...