SCIENCE! It isn't what you're told it is, and that's important.

"Science and Technology" -  The words go together like bread and butter, horse and carriage, lightning and thunder.  Decades of media coverage, on the news, on TV, and in movies, have lumped the two together. And because, of the two, technology tends to be the more sensational, media has focused more and more on the technology, until we are no longer, as a society, really aware of what science is, on it's own.

For example, if you look at the science section of google news, or BBC news, you will see many stories about science and technology.  Sort of.  Chinese lander on the moon?  An impressive feat of technology.  NASA asteroid probe?  Another impressive engineering accomplishment.  Baby seal's birth watched around the world via live web cam?  Technology.  There is no science being done at all in these stories.  With the space probes, and yes, with the baby seal, there are likely scientists collecting data using this technology, but that isn't the focus of the story.  In fact, it isn't even mentioned.

And then there are movies.  Since the 1950s, Hollywood has given the hero-scientist the same basic plot line:  A series of calamities befall the movie's location.  A scientist is desperately racing the clock to solve the meaning and put the pieces together at the last moment to avert disaster, either by stopping it, or warning the population of the region.  This scientist will have no evidence of his theory, other scientists will not agree with him, and his only vindication will be that he happens to be right.

 In other words: Worst. Scientists. Ever.

Let's just take a moment to review what science is, and what it isn't.

1. Science is about why things work, not how they work. Science is not technology, and it isn't engineering. Science isn't necessary to build complex machines.  Mankind has been building complex, intricate machines for thousands of years.  The technologies used to build these machines are impressive, and their construction demonstrates engineering skills that should not be belittled, but they did not require science.  Our lack of scientific understanding of fire, for example, hasn't held us back in using it, very precisely, to make other amazing engineering feats like refined metals, glass, and baked goods.
2. All of science has to fit together, like a jigsaw puzzle.  There are many fields of study in science, and scientists have to focus in order to know enough to do their jobs, but science itself is completely holistic.  If a scientist puts forth a theory about weather patterns, and this theory contradicts what we know about ground squirrels, then the theory must account for that before it can be accepted.  This cross-checking reveals gaps in our knowledge, and gives scientists direction.  It also brings me to the next point:
3. Science is slow.  In order for a bit of science to become an accepted theory, many, many things have to happen.  Firstly, other groups must be able to repeat the science to get the same results.  If that doesn't happen, then obviously the scientists made a mistake somewhere and need to go back and rework things.  This happens fairly often, which is why scientists don't release their findings until they have been thoroughly checked and duplicated by other groups.  This scientific proofreading is called "peer-review", and it helps reduce errors in data, errors in techniques, and errors in thinking.  Then once that happens, the science is published, and the real debate begins.  Scientists from other branches of science begin to study how this new theory fits into what they understand, looking for gaps and contradictions.  This can lead to new experiments, updated theories, and so on, all of which go through the same process of peer-review, publishing, and debate until scientists begin to reach a consensus about why that part of the universe works the way it does.  This process can take hundreds of years. It often takes decades, but that's OK, because the "whys" of the universe don't change.
4. Understanding does not always lead to prediction. Sometimes, the more we understand about a process, the better we can predict it.  This is true for things like the fundamental forces of nature:  Electricity, Magnetism, Gravity.  Other times, however, the complexity of a system makes them unpredictable in spite of our understanding, because you can't know everything about the system and small changes can avalanche into big ones (an avalanche being a great example).
5. Inside a rapidly changing event is a terrible place to study it.  The best time to study a volcano is after it erupts.  You can review the data you've gathered, make theories, and suggest other volcanoes for other scientists to study to verify your work. It would be very difficult to complete your studies inside the volcano while it was erupting.  Even if you did complete your theory and record it in time, how do you validate it?  How do you repeat the experiment? This is where Hollywood fails us.  The hero-scientist is trapped inside the event, which is usually going to kill everyone, and so he can't do good science.  He has to guess, coming to conclusions without peer-review, duplication, or debate. Somehow, his guess is always the correct one, despite the odds against it. The only movie I've ever seen that gets this right is "2012", where the science done inside the event is full of errors which almost kill everyone in the movie.  Of course, it's worth noting that Climate Change scientists are trapped within the event as well.  If you know any, you might want to send them a condolence card (or a pickup truck - the vehicle of choice for Hollywood hero-scientists).

Our culture has become used to rapid changes in what technology and engineering can produce. I think we often assume our scientific progress has accelerated apace with it. Certainly, technology has allowed scientists to do more experiments, and to debate results much more easily. But science itself has not changed fundamentally, and it still takes decades for a theory to find its place in the jigsaw of science.  Accelerating this pace requires a massive amount of resources (such as the resources put towards Climate Change science) and does not automatically ensure faster science.  But because we've come to equate science and technology, the steady pace of science has been masked by the accelerating pace of technology.

By continuing to equate technology with science we place unreasonable expectations on the science community.  Science should never move at the pace that technology has recently, and if we keep expecting it to, our disappointment will continue to lead to distrust.  Even Hollywood science can't tell us where that will eventually lead.