It’s basically impossible to make a career as a scientist these days without constantly promoting yourself and your work unfortunately. It’s very tiring and makes it difficult to focus on science. This is one of the reasons I changed careers.
Unfortunately science is unavoidably a political hot topic. Climate change denialism is the norm in the United States, we've somehow decided Tylenol causes autism in the past week, etc.
If you think either of those represent any meaningful portion of science you need to re-evaluate your understanding of science because it’s based on a layman’s perspective.
If you’re not actually involved in science you only see the scientists making news, which disproportionately selects for politically intersecting areas of research.
When I was working at a major US research university in the early 2000s, it was a big deal if the scientific publications got any mainstream press at all.
Countless papers push the boundaries of science in major journals and conferences every year and you never hear about them because they have no political implications and usually no immediate practical applications.
That's true, but the other professions don't tend to be associated with (or clearly vindicate) the “above-the-crowd/holier-than-thou” attitude – and I say that as an ex-scientist, for the same reason (among others) as the poster above.
