Scientific research is activities aimed at discovering previously unknown facts, phenomena, processes, mechanisms, etc., using objective, repeatable and verifiable methods. In practice, this means that if we strive to investigate something unknown, it is impossible to precisely plan what we discover, because we do not know it. This human activity differs from all the others, where, although the goals set can be both easy and simple as well as ambitious and difficult, it is possible to precisely indicate the specific end goal of the activity that we want to achieve, specific measures that are needed for this and specific methods what we need to apply. Therefore, if we can predict what exactly is needed to achieve the assumed goals, it can be any human activity but scientific research, because its results cannot be predicted by definition. This has profound consequences, both in the conditions that must be created for the practice of science, and in the results of scientific research. This unpredictability of the results of scientific work causes that, on the one hand, many legal provisions that work well in other spheres of life, become absurd in science and inhibit its development, and on the other hand, obtaining surprising results is relatively frequent in science. Such surprises, sometimes the result of unintentional mistakes by researchers, have led to many groundbreaking discoveries. It is also important to realize that attempts to subordinate science to political goals can lead to dramatic effects, so such actions should never take place. Politicians should support scientific research, point to its enormous social role, but never indicate what the results of scientific work are to be.

In this article, I reflect on recent discussions of the methodological status of scientific knowledge within and outside the Academy. I draw attention to the problem of declining public trust in science (risk and fear society) and the phenomenon of post-truth. In the context of these issues, I present three positions whose authors define the relationship between official academic science in relation to other forms of knowledge (lay people) and forms of knowledge use outside the Academy (politics). The first position termed “elective modernism” was formulated by Harry Collins and Robert Evans in the context of discussions of the third wave of science disputes. Elective modernism defines the way in which policy decisions are made on the recommendations of scholars who have a methodological self-awareness of the possibilities and limitations of scientific knowledge. The second position is Steve Fuller's proposal of protestant science as a form of science in the context of posttruth conditions. In this view, knowledge can be produced by anyone, but it must meet certain specified scientific criteria. The third position is the view of expert knowledge proposed by Mark R. Brown, as a representation of various worldview or cultural options, whose representatives commission experts to make appropriate recommendations for certain political decisions.