I think before Einstein, scientists pretty much went about doing their thing. A lot of great things were funded through the 1% and their foundations. Things like the polio vaccine.
Einstein wrote a letter to FDR urging him to fund the A-Bomb research. This is the first notable intermixing of big (really big, especially for the time) govt. money and science. Sure, it was for a good cause.
After the bomb was used, Einstein (and others) realized that the genie was out of the bottle and could not be put back into the bottle. They went political and urged an international committee to oversee the atomic stockpiles and further research. This is scientists becoming outside their place in the order of things - they became a political force beyond the actual science. No, they didn't get their way.
At the time Ike left office, he made his famous "military-industrial complex" speech. Some people know that the phrase was "military-industrial-scientific complex" up until the last minute when it was removed from his speech. Ike warned us, and he sure seems visionary considering the kinds of govt. funded research that's gone on (from hallucinogens to stealth technology to "invisibility" to smart bombs...). Granted, many of these things are engineering feats, but so was the A-Bomb. Science at one end of the spectrum develops the theories and engineers put them to work, in action, in the real world.
So why is it that corporations on the govt. dole, those defense contractors, GE, et al, are evil, but scientists who are interested by similar things (money, power, cool toys) are not?
When it comes to global warming, the science is not settled. There are measurements that look like the sky is falling, and there are measurements that look like there's no problem whatsoever. The thing is, the sky is falling crowd gets massive amounts of funding globally, and those who doubt the unsettled science get none or lose their funding. This is political pressure on the scientists to do the bidding of the politicians.
On top of that, the research shared among the scientists who dominate the literature and review process becomes an echo chamber, much like the left-wing blogosphere. Those who disagree are labeled "tools of evil corporations" (like Exxon or other oil or chemical companies). Yet, I personally respect that a top chemist Dow Chemical is sure to know chemistry as well as anyone and deserves to be heard equally.
This is not a knock against science, it's a view of the state of the relationship between science, funding, and govt./corporations.
As with any scientific claims, I feel we all should be enormously skeptical until the evidence is truly conclusive and vetted.
When Al Gore goes around making speeches about how there's some "consensus" among scientists and/or that the science is "settled" he's making an ass out of himself and anyone who buys what he's selling. He's already had to make numerous corrections to his PowerPoint presentation that won him an Oscar and a Nobel prize. His predictions of doom have come and gone, much like the 2012 is the end of the world ones.
Oddly, the thing about "consensus" is that it's a political thing by nature. A VOTE (or survey). Voting is not part of the scientific method, nor should it be any part of science or convincing anyone about anything based upon science.
The science isn't settled. There are numerous hypotheses about the cause of perceived global warming that haven't been truly vetted. Just as the ones that claim they know the cause haven't been truly vetted.
In the end, it's scientists doing the Einstein thing. Pushing the politicians to do what they feel is moral or ethical or just "feels good."
