Blinded or at least baffled by science, the uninitiated majority imagine it as the sort of impersonal process a robot might carry out. Days before the Copenhagen climate conference "“ where scientific reasoning will make strenuous demands on everyday life "“ we have all been reminded that the frontiers of technical knowledge are not in fact advanced by automatons, but by fallible human beings.

The emails hacked out of East Anglia University's Climatic Research Unit did not undermine the evidence that mankind is remaking the weather, but some of those who uncover the facts have adopted tribal attitudes. The effect is already evident "“ "The Big Climate Change 'Fraud'" was splashed on yesterday's Daily Express. The aftermath may also have helped...