Simon Jenkins

Sir Simon Jenkins is a prominent UK journalist (he was knighted in 2004 for services to journalism) and author, mostly on social issues and architecture. He was chairman of the National Trust from 2008 to 2014. He used to edit The Times and before that was political editor of The Economist. He writes columns for the Guardian and the Huffington Post. Politically he is conservative with a small c, and often comes across as a grumpy old man railing against modernity.

He is a depressing reminder of how anti-science sentiment is not restricted to the religious right. He is of the opinion that scientists and mathematicians are useless, egoistical money-grubbers who demand an undue amount of attention in the popular media and state curricula, and that science is simply a giant scam for cash. When an Italian court sentenced a couple of seismologists in 2012 for failing to predict an earthquake, he didn't miss the occasion to rant again in the same vein.