Over the past few years, and especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, attacks on science and scientists have been escalating to an alarming degree. Health officials and the broader scientific community have pleaded with policymakers and the public to “follow the science.” Yet such slogans fall flat with those who have little regard for scientific authority, not least because science proponents have been using the same blanket term as those who attack it.
When we encapsulate all of science in a single word, we implicitly equate it with truth.
However, many fields of science are still undergoing constant revision. The importance of this distinction became all too clear during the early stages of the pandemic, when health authorities were charged with providing guidance to the public before all the details about COVID-19 were known.
Science has always come under attack. From Galileo’s demonstration that the Earth is not at the center of the universe to Charles Darwin’s argument that humans descended from earlier apes, scientists have long been seen as a threat to religious authority and its own claims of true knowledge.
One might have thought that modernity would have finally given science a decisive advantage, leading inexorably to more general acceptance of its findings, but a constantly evolving process is not a sure-footed competitor to those trafficking in timeless absolutes. Although it might feel counterintuitive, scientists themselves should resist the popular characterization of science as a body of knowledge.
In his 2019 book The Crisis of Expertise, sociologist Gil Eyal argues that the appeal to “science” and the moral panic about the “assault on science” are beside the point, because not all of “science” is in fact under assault. No one, for example, “disputes quantum mechanics, nor, for that matter, is any solid-state physics discipline under assault.”
Indeed, most of science is widely seen as “settled,” whether formally in terms of fundamental theories and understandings, or informally in the sense that most people assume that planes can fly, gravity is real and hydrogen peroxide can bleach your hair.
And yet, while most people trust medical professionals with everything from annual checkups to cancer therapies, they also subscribe to a wide range of idiosyncratic notions about health, pharmaceuticals and medical procedures.
What science journalist Michael Specter calls “denialism” is reflected in a broad array of biomedical issues, from fear of vaccines to belief in the effectiveness of nutritional supplements and, sometimes, miracle cures.
Eyal points out that most debates about science concern “what is called ‘regulatory science’ and ‘policy science,’ a collection of sub-disciplines, research programs, and techniques that have in common the need to arrive at a policy recommendation.”
These debates tend to reach a fever pitch when contentious public policy issues are inextricably linked with ongoing science — as in the case of vaccine mandates, masks, drug approvals and decarbonization (which entails massive allocations of resources).
In all these cases, the peril arises after experts have made their views known. When the process moves into realms beyond the purely scientific — legal disputes, public policy, even electoral politics — trouble frequently ensues. If expertise is seen to be associated with one side in legal proceedings, political debates and cultural questions (such as diet and lifestyle), that perception tends to undermine rather than buttress the authority of science and scientists more generally.
The dilemma is that the scientific fields most relevant to policy debates are in a constant state of testing, revision and debate by scientists themselves.
However, that is exactly how it should be. As philosopher John Dewey argued in the early 20th century, science proceeds not as a single truth or set of truths, but as a method; it is not a body of knowledge, but a process for developing more reliable knowledge.
This focus on method is meant to ensure that scientific research and discovery proceeds in a rigorous and transparent fashion. The distilled version of the scientific method taught in grade school hardly captures the wide range of ways that scientists practice their disciplines and test their hypotheses.
As important as it is to ensure that science advances methodically, we must also not lose sight of the possibilities opened up by thinking outside the box. Historically, we owe some of the most important scientific discoveries to the imaginative brilliance of visionaries such as Galileo, Darwin, Albert Einstein and Jennifer Doudna, the 2020 recipient of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for her work on genome editing.
Just as good science requires a balance between creativity and method, so, too, building trust in science requires scientists and their public advocates to communicate their findings and processes more effectively. That includes being open about the uncertainties — and serendipities — that are inherent to scientific discovery, and drawing clear distinctions between what is and is not considered settled science.
We must accept, and impress upon the public, that science owes its greatest achievements not only to its expansion into new frontiers, but also to its abiding by humility. Otherwise, the public will continue to be disappointed — and disillusioned — by many scientific claims.
Nicholas Dirks, a former chancellor of the University of California, Berkeley, is president and CEO of the New York Academy of Sciences.
Copyright: Project Syndicate
Within Taiwan’s education system exists a long-standing and deep-rooted culture of falsification. In the past month, a large number of “ghost signatures” — signatures using the names of deceased people — appeared on recall petitions submitted by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) against Democratic Progressive Party legislators Rosalia Wu (吳思瑤) and Wu Pei-yi (吳沛憶). An investigation revealed a high degree of overlap between the deceased signatories and the KMT’s membership roster. It also showed that documents had been forged. However, that culture of cheating and fabrication did not just appear out of thin air — it is linked to the
On April 19, former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) gave a public speech, his first in about 17 years. During the address at the Ketagalan Institute in Taipei, Chen’s words were vague and his tone was sour. He said that democracy should not be used as an echo chamber for a single politician, that people must be tolerant of other views, that the president should not act as a dictator and that the judiciary should not get involved in politics. He then went on to say that others with different opinions should not be criticized as “XX fellow travelers,” in reference to
Taiwan People’s Party Legislator-at-large Liu Shu-pin (劉書彬) asked Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) a question on Tuesday last week about President William Lai’s (賴清德) decision in March to officially define the People’s Republic of China (PRC), as governed by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), as a foreign hostile force. Liu objected to Lai’s decision on two grounds. First, procedurally, suggesting that Lai did not have the right to unilaterally make that decision, and that Cho should have consulted with the Executive Yuan before he endorsed it. Second, Liu objected over national security concerns, saying that the CCP and Chinese President Xi
China’s partnership with Pakistan has long served as a key instrument in Beijing’s efforts to unsettle India. While official narratives frame the two nations’ alliance as one of economic cooperation and regional stability, the underlying strategy suggests a deliberate attempt to check India’s rise through military, economic and diplomatic maneuvering. China’s growing influence in Pakistan is deeply intertwined with its own global ambitions. The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a flagship project of the Belt and Road Initiative, offers China direct access to the Arabian Sea, bypassing potentially vulnerable trade routes. For Pakistan, these investments provide critical infrastructure, yet they also
RSS