One thing that does not surprise me about questions from, or discussions with, the general public is the frequency with which some ideas are addressed. However, what does repeatedly get me is the way in which these ideas become fixed, that is whenever I tell someone that an idea has been rejected, or there is a new theory, or new data, or whatever, they generally seem to be really surprised.
I can understand that ideas get fixed in the public conciousness, that is not a surprise, but why do they think the research itself is static? It is never a surprise to them that we have learned something *new*, but it is that something old has *changed*. This leaves me with the impression that many people think that science progresses almost linearly, and simply piles new knowledge onto old, or branches out into other fields but without actually ever revisiting old ideas, either to challenge them, or simply add new data.
The truth is of course largely the opposite – science constantly, painstakingly and even boringly revisits, revises and checks every single idea (pretty much no matter how well established and supported by theory and data). There are plenty that need further effort and many that have sunk without a trace but will one day be revised or resurrected and given more attention, but in general revision is constant and ubiquitous.
This is in a way slightly disturbing – obviously we are doing the science right, and it is clear that a large part (if not all) of this misconception comes from the public simply not thinking about it, rather than them thinking that we should check our ideas and don’t. Still, this is an incredibly important concept in science and it is a worry that this is not realised. Add it to the list of things the public seem to have missed or misunderstood about science, it’s a long one I fear. That is not me trying to be sneering, but it is unfortunate for *all* concerned just how little of the absolute basics of how science operates seems to be understood by the general public.
Dave Hone's Archosaur Musings 
The progress of science seems to be even. On one hand we have the doctors still struggling to find a cure for AIDS. On the other hand we have, scientists at Intel and AMD doubling the processor speed year-on-year
The way people at the AKMNH talk, it’s more like they can’t trust scientists because they’re always changing their minds. The example I always hear is that one minute, those scientists are telling you that eggs are good for you, and the next minute, they’re bad and you shouldn’t eat eggs. I don’t even know where that came from.
I think the public perception is that since science is always changing, you can’t depend on it. Maybe? It’s frustrating. I try to explain the scientific method to people, but at least once I’ve gotten back “why didn’t they figure that out in the first place?”
Maybe that’s what people find so great about religion–its tenants NEVER change.
That is another aspect of it certainly. There is a scitzophrenic thing of ‘science is always changing’, vs ‘common knowledge’ which is characterised by stasis. It all coems doewn to a fundamental lack of understanding of how science works and things are reported.
YOu might get the reports saying “eggs are good” and “eggs are bad”, but how? Are they ‘good’ at treating diabetes but ‘bad’ for your cholesterol, or ‘good’ and building mucles but ‘bad’ in stimualting cancer, it’s pretty different really, the key word int he report is always good or bad, not the whays and wherefores.