A friend writes this:

The idea of scientists being in an ivory tower is ludicrous.

How is the grimy work of drilling holes in the mud and ice, sweaty trenching and hauling rocks, rooting around in caves, coring trees, and probing all this stuff with every tool in the laboratory resemble an “ivory tower”?

That term suggests being insulated from the outside world and not caring about it.

Nowadays, it is much more appropriately applied to Joe and Jane Sixpack, watching celebrities with fake body parts on their big screen TVs in their climate-controlled living rooms and driving to the air-conditioned mall in their air-conditioned SUVs.

Another anti-intellectual framing trick that needs to be reversed.