Does " These are trying times for truth seekers" refer to...?

Does " These are trying times for truth seekers" refer to "for truth seekers, these problems (arrogance or anxiety) are a period of trial/ordeal"?

Context:

It has become a truism by now that scientists are not mere knowledge-acquisition machines; they are guided by emotion and intuition as well as by cold reason and calculation. Scientists are rarely so human, I have found, so at the mercy of their fears and desires, as when they are confronting the limits of knowledge. The greatest scientists want, above all, to discover truths about nature (in addition to acquiring glory, grants, and tenure and improving the lot of humankind); they want to know. They hope, and trust, that the truth is attainable, not merely an ideal or asymptote, which they eternally approach. They also believe, as I do, that the quest for knowledge is by far the noblest and most meaningful of all human activities.

Scientists who harbor this belief are often accused of arrogance. Some are arrogant, supremely so. But many others, I have found, are less arrogant than anxious. These are trying times for truth seekers. The scientific enterprise is threatened by technophobes, animal-rights activists, religious fundamentalists and stingy politicians. Social, political and economic constraints will make it more difficult to practice science, and pure science in particular, in the future.

More:
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-check/einstein-the-anxiety-of-influence-and-the-end-of-science/