For weeks, President Donald Trump disdainfully resisted credible scientific opinion about the contagiousness and risks posed by COVID-19. That self-indulgent reliance on his uninformed intuition cost precious time, resources and suffering.
Gradually, the president — we are deeply grateful — started to heed his long-suffering advisers, Drs. Deborah L. Birx and Anthony S. Fauci. He even walked back his all-will-be-well-by-Easter cheer. While Trump’s legitimate fear of hollowing out the economy is a vital counterpoint to the restrictive public health measures our governments have imposed, fighting the virus and saving thousands, probably hundreds of thousands of lives is the higher priority.
The Trumpian skepticism toward scientific opinion is but the latest and most prominent instance of the uneasy tension between policymakers and scientists in informing and formulating public policy. There is fault on both sides of this fight. Politicians usually aren’t ideologically flexible enough to allow scientists to tell them “inconvenient truths.” Only the wisest among us hold our own opinions and biases at arm’s length to be influenced by objective evidence. Still, ignoring or minimizing the accumulated wisdom of a Dr. Birx or Dr. Fauci would be malfeasance. A politician’s job is to consider good counsel from all credible quarters and then make informed decisions, and the “consider good counsel” part is a duty not a suggestion.
Although science has proven so much about our world beyond argument, scientific discipline nonetheless requires modesty in proffering new claims both because some of the most elegant hypotheses have been proven wrong and because scientists are not elected representatives of the people. Modesty also requires them to keep this truth in mind.
Ironically, in this most enlightened of ages, the essential process of developing scientific truth has been short-circuited and sometimes corrupted. The villains are academic hubris and politics. Our liberal democratic compact requires society to maintain the academy (which we have done at increasingly great cost) and protect scholars from political meddling and reprisal through tenure. In turn, academics are to conduct important research and offer up the benefit of their findings to policymakers and the society who pays them. However, far too many scientists have left the laboratory for the lobby and thus forfeited their status as impartial pursuers of truth; they have become rank-and-file citizens who must compete for political attention like any other opinionated voter or lobbyist. Having breached their responsibilities under that compact, they cannot insist that society give one-sided fidelity by continuing to pay them and maintain their tenure.
Too many scientists have thought that the unanimity of opinion among their fraternity would overwhelm politicians’ doubts and dithering. However, that vaunted unanimity all too frequently arises less from true scientific consensus than from politically-driven orthodoxy. Studies show that in most universities’ departments of history, journalism, psychology, economics and law, Republicans and conservatives are vastly outnumbered by liberals. One study concludes the ratio is 11.5 to 1, and if you exclude economics, the ratio shoots up to more than 15 to 1.
Even if all eminent scientists in a field come to a consensus on a controversial issue, the fact that most of them are confirmed political liberals will naturally color that consensus as politically subjective, be it ever so purely intended and worthwhile. The military is always at risk of moving in philosophical lockstep because of its rigid command and control structure. But the U.S. armed services have worked assiduously to eradicate groupthink. Consequently, our military has become far more welcoming to dissenting philosophical views than academia.
We should all work to restore science to its essential role in society.
Yes. It is distressing to watch politicians ignore and deny mainstream science in favor of populist shams and conspiracies theories. But one can check fringe website claims on Snopes.com, whereas so many academic opinions today are offered as undebatable knowledge, which the great unwashed must not question. But so much of the science we see comes larded with liberal political imperatives. Of course, right-of-center policymakers reject these out of hand.
We should all work to restore science to its essential role in society. That will mean politicians must agree to listen to credible science. It also means scientists must stick to the lab and leave off policymaking. Universities may also want to try to hire some credible academics who aren’t liberal look-alikes.
Greg Bell is the former lieutenant governor of Utah and the current president and CEO of the Utah Hospital Association.