Politics Is About More Than ‘Following the Science’

There’s also the problem of scientists trying to think like politicians.

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In our increasingly secular age, being on the side of science is similar to being on the side of God—a way to settle an argument by not actually making an argument. Just enlist an unassailable authority and move on.  

That’s how Joe Biden campaigned for president, vowing to “follow the science” on the COVID-19 pandemic wherever it led him. Only now it seems like he’s leading the science as much as the science is leading him. And that was inevitable. 

First, as with God, it’s sometimes difficult to know what science says. This isn’t meant as an anti-science talking point. Science is good. Science is real. But science doesn’t speak on every issue with a booming voice that clears all doubts like a thunderclap scattering pigeons. Sometimes scientists—the high priests charged with telling us what science says—disagree with each other. (Priests also have their disagreements. You can look it up.)

And sometimes science gets things wrong. Phrenology—basically palm-reading applied to your skull—was briefly considered cutting-edge science. It’s now widely recognized as pseudoscientific quackery. Today’s “settled science” is often tomorrow’s “I can’t believe we said that.”

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  1. Avatar photo
    Erlend N

    It’s worth remembering also that any credentialed individual can abuse the authority that said credentials confer. As I recall the “scientific” consensus in the early 20th century championed (on rather dubious grounds) Malthusian eugenics as a remedy for all sorts of social pathologies. I think it’s a mistake now to let up on mitigating strategies like masks but I also think the guidelines could stand to move at a faster than glacial clip in response to vaccination tallies. Do like Israel and grant the vaccinated some reprieve from pandemic restrictions. I would love not to wear a mask after getting a vaccine, but I’m perfectly willing to entertain a debate on when as how we should contemplate a relaxation of masking requirements given that (according to Dr Yamashita’s article) we don’t quite understand the relationship between vaccination and propagation of the virus among the inoculated.

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  2. Bubba

    We can agree on the facts without agreeing on what trade offs we should make.

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  3. Bubba

    No obvious changes in texas. The major chains still require masks. People haven’t obviously changed behavior. Some wear them. Some don’t. Lots of people in a middle ground of not wearing masks correctly or pulling them down to sneeze.

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  4. Mary Stine

    Well, my family is here on the Texas gulf, where the science/religion divide is painful. Too many folks in my small beach town are avid supporters of Trump and refuse to mask up, scaring those of us who do. Up in Houston, more people are masked, but the ones who won't are more belligerent in public places. As a former small business owner, I feel sorry for the small business owners here that are caught in the pinballing between clients of different passionate opinions on masking. Retail is hard enough without that.
    The only reason Florida appears to have done better during this pandemic may be due to that state's very sloppy recordkeeping and flat out lying about some of their statistics. Doing better than California and New York is hardly a recommendation.
    I rarely disagree with Jonah, he's brilliant and nearly always right, but I don't have a problem with President Biden calling Governor Abbott a Neanderthal. Abbot had four science advisors and barely consulted one, while also ignoring the CDC guidelines. And he had Dr. Peter Hotez right here in Houston, who was quite appalled. Abbott reopened Texas too soon earlier this year and nearly overwhelmed all the hospitals back then. Family members and friends that worked in those hospitals feared for their lives, as well as those of their patients. Physical therapists and others were pressed into duty on the front lines without adequate PPE, due to short supply.
    I understand there are "competing notions for the public good", but there is no public good in impatience that risks lives. Few of the communities of color in Houston have been reached with vaccines, mostly due to lack of access. Improving that, even with more vaccines, will still take a month at least. Not waiting to lift masking and social distancing endangers those communities even further. My husband says Abbott obviously just doesn't care about anyone's life, so perhaps calling him a Neanderthal is too kind. We have scientific evidence that Neanderthals
    cared about their kin and buried them lovingly.

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  5. Avatar photo
    Xaveria

    I’m all for Texas reopening. Reopen the bars, the movie theaters, the restaurants, sure. Get the money flowing, get people vaccinated and employed, give people hope. But keep the mask mandate, for the love of God. Even if the science is wrong, people will feel more safe if everyone is at least trying not to sneeze all over them. What good is an open restaurant if everyone is afraid to go?

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  6. MikeS

    On this, I would greatly appreciate it if politicians and people would just develop a rudimentary understanding of probability. All scientific truth claims include some degree of probabilistic reasoning, few more so than climate and epidemiology.

    If one could just express scientific results in these probabilistic terms and have the public understand them, we'd be far better off.

    In the absence of this, we don't rely directly on SCIENCE, but on scientific experts who have a nuanced understanding of results and their contexts, and seek to inform us in the deterministic language that we find satisfying. Of course this gives the politically minded all kinds of room for mischievous misinformation.

    This is not the same as saying that science is all political, as Jonah seems to claim with the example of economists(?!?).

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    1. Michael Johnson

      I completely agree that a "rudimentary understanding of probability" should be seen as an essential characteristic of an "informed citizenry" in the 21st century. You're also right on target in pointing out that what often gets characterized in policy forums as "the science" is actually scientists attempting to communicate probabilistic insights in non-probabilistic terms. However, although the inherently contingent and defeasible characteristic of scientific understanding is often characterized as a weakness (and I think it's fair to say that Jonah's column has that tone), it is actually a fundamental strength of the scientific enterprise. It's why we can say with complete confidence that 21st century physics is "better" than 19th century physics. That's one of the things that distinguishes science from art, music, literature and (unfortunately) politics.

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    2. Kevin Harris

      Criticizing science by pointing to an economics is like criticizing math by pointing to oil painting

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  7. Avatar photo
    Bel Aves

    The problem all along has been WHICH science. The science of infectious disease? Got it. What about the science around economics. What about the science of a living in a welfare state that relies on revenues derived from opened and functioning businesses. The three blatantly non scientific issues currently in front of us? NEA opposing school openings, the non-COVID, years out portion of the boondoggle bill, and Cuomo faking data. Those, not TX reopening, are blatant politics over science. Better to be an honest Neanderthal than a fallacious Homo Sapien.

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      Pat Riot

      Both political parties in the US fully support our welfare state. I don't see what your point is.

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      1. Avatar photo
        Bel Aves

        Not my point. There is science that says lockdowns prevent spread and save lives. Agreed. But science, or fact, says that the American economy, and the tax revenues produced therein, support 44 million medicare recipients and 71 million enrolled in medicaid. But if there is no revenue these healthcare providers will be underfunded. If they are underfunded there will be issues all over the place. The point of governance is not to "follow the science." The point is to balance the different sciences available at a moment, and try to make the best decision based on those competing information.

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          Pat Riot

          Well, taxes can be raised or lowered, so I don't think it's as simple as this. We can also finance expenditures with debt, which we're doing.

          There's economic science behind the stimulus as well... So I'm still a bit lost here...

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          1. Avatar photo
            Bel Aves

            Thanks for considering my positions. I hope I understand yours. Three ways to fund government: taxes as you note but there is science that high taxes can limit growth. Print money which we have been doing, and borrowing. Our debt to GDP levels are currently higher than at any other time excepting WWII. And the gov just passed another $1.9 trillion (https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/government-debt-to-gdp). There is also science questioning the Keynesian multiplier with stimulus. The one, absolutely guaranteed way to fund this is through real economic growth. Which is why too long lockdowns are problematic.

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  8. Richard Fulmer

    There are lots of ways in which to abuse science. One of the more popular is to try to force fit the physical sciences onto human action. Newton’s “clockwork universe” was tortured into predestination and the denial of free will. Darwin’s theory of evolution “proved” white superiority, but only if one forgot or was ignorant of all those millennia during which whites weren’t superior (Mesopotamia, Egypt, Ethiopia, China, Mongol Empire, Islamic Empire, etc., etc.). Einstein’s theory of relativity was extrapolated into cultural relativism.

    Physical science applies to physical things, it does not apply to ideas. Nations, companies, cultures, and institutions are ideas, not physical objects. The Second Law of Thermodynamics dictates that a Chevy Corvette will eventually dissolve into dust if it’s not properly maintained, but it has nothing to say about the General Motors Corporation.

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  9. Chris Exantus

    You're not wrong that people shouldn't blindly "follow the science;" I think you fall into the "Man in a doctor's labcoat" issue where you believe everything that comes from the mouth of that person simply because he "looks respectable." A degree of skepticism is always needed because science itself is not infallible. That being said, I take Biden's response as less suggesting that his administration will simply follow the science, and more of a reassurance that he will not be following in the footsteps of his predecessor. Trump and the MAGA party increasingly adopted anti-intellectualism as a virtue, and we can clearly see the consequences of that.

    I think any administration needs to pair it's ambitious policies with well-researched material and invite an atmosphere that can allow science, psychology, criminology, sociology, etc to have a place to influence policy.

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    Jeff Greene

    The biggest problem in "believe in science", is that while science may be able to tell us why we are getting sick, and how to treat us, and whether a vaccine is effective, or what diet is healthiest for us (though there is much dispute there), or that global temperatures are rising, or that humans are contributing to that warming (some dispute about that), but what they can't tell us, even when the science is certain, is how to respond to those things. Those are political and economic decisions, neither of which is a hard science. Public policy is about costs and benefits and tradeoffs and unintended consequences and the art of the possible. Science should play a role in informing those decisions (where possible), but cannot tell us the "right" policy prescription. Global warming scientists would unanimously agree that banning gasoline vehicles would be a good thing, but we don't allow them to do that. Public Health doctors tell us raw cookie dough is bad for you, but we don't criminalize that. Public Health would make all vaccines mandatory, but that comes with serious political problems. Public Health would have us never hug friends outside our household again, and recommend we wear masks indefinitely indoors, but there is a limit to what we are willing to do to protect ourselves---and that doesn't make you a science denier.

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