Let’s stick to facts – not form opinions based on nonsense
“WHERE is the evidence?” “Following the science...” “Publish the data!”
These are the phrases that we are hearing time and again in the UK’s political discourse.
Suddenly, following the best ideas from the cleverest people in the country on their particular area of expertise is all very in vogue.
It has suddenly become sexy for our elected representatives to make informed decisions about our lives.
In some ways, I find myself wanting to celebrate this.
After all, to ignore these people is to ignore literally the best ideas that humanity has.
The other part of me wants to yell from the top of my lungs: “Why the hell haven’t you been doing this all along!”
But this is the real problem. The reason so many politicians have suddenly jumped on board the evidence train (from which they disembarked en masse during the Brexit debate) is because of the nature of the crisis they are now facing.
Coronavirus can’t be shouted at on Twitter. It can’t be tricked or ignored.
In the spring it was killing people by the thousand, and all the signs point to the fact it is going to be doing the same as we head through the autumn.
No amount of spin can hide the death toll, and therefore getting it wrong is a disaster for our politicians’ careers.
In short, the decisions that our representatives make will have a direct impact on their future careers.
By comparison, let’s take another issue where there is a huge body of evidence on how to tackle it – drug use.
The overwhelming body of evidence suggests that creating drug consumption rooms – which are basically safe rooms where people can take illegal drugs without fear of prosecution and are given clean needles and medical care – help massively in tackling drug issues in towns and cities.
They help for a whole host of reasons, the main ones being they hugely reduce the number of deaths or transmission of disease through dirty needles, they stop those needles being left in communities and parks, and they help keep addicts in contact with support networks maintaining engagement.
The evidence for these rooms unequivocal.
But it is politically difficult for a politician to sell to the electorate the idea of helping drug users shoot up.
Add to that the fact that it is not an issue which will directly impact on the career prospects of said MP/MS, and they are free to ignore the clear evidence that, in the cases of Covid, they are relentless in saying they are guided by.
We should therefore take all the protestations that they “respect science”, “follow science” or are “guided by evidence” with a pinch of salt so big it is the equivalent to the contents of an entire shop-bought ready meal.
We see the disdain for evidence in all areas of policy.
Anybody really looking at the evidence around the action needed on is climate change would hardly be able to sleep at night after seeing that most of the UK’s ambition seems to extend to a few electric car charging points and putting some extra insulation your nan’s attic.
If you don’t think there is a problem with scientific literacy in Westminster look no further than the tweet last week from Nadine Dorries who said: “If herd immunity existed, measles and chicken pox would have been wiped out years ago. There is no such thing as herd immunity.”
This woman is a minister for health in the UK Government.
We should not simply be demanding increased evidence-based policy and scientific literacy in our politicians in because it will self evidently improve our lives, but because of the standards it will set for the rest of society.
We know that misinformation circulated on Facebook in particular is making it harder to fight the virus.
Take, for instance, the utter tripe that 5G masts are driving the virus. As anyone who has looked at the evidence (there isn’t any) will tell you, this is clearly rubbish.
But the problem is, when ideas like this take root they prove to be great fertiliser for other wild conspiracy theories.
With these theories, one small one can lead to a bigger one and so on. Take star signs. If you are able to divorce yourself from your senses enough to believe that the position of Mars will affect your love life, you can make yourself believe that climate change is not happening.
If you can believe that, you can believe 5G causes Covid.
If you can believe that, you can think that vaccination will give your child autism.
If you can believe that, you are not far off believing in the deep state and a global Jewish plot.
As soon as you are able to form opinions in the absence of fact, there is no limit to the amount of nonsense you can believe.
For the good of our nation and our future as a country, we need to get off the platform of bull and board the train of evidence (...which is probably privatised because they ignored the data that said you shouldn’t sell off a natural monopoly).
When ideas like this take root they prove to be great fertiliser for other wild conspiracy theories
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