How to undermine science
From the beginning of the pandemic we have been told to “trust the science,” because when it comes to matters of public health it is the only trustworthy guide.
Some of us of a more skeptical bent, or at least having taught courses in research methodology, have tried to point out that science doesn’t always speak with just one voice, that all too often “follow the science” during the pandemic has meant citing only those scientists and paying attention only to those models which support our preferred policy approach — the supporters of rigid lockdowns cite their analyses and data, the critics of the lockdowns cite theirs, and it hasn’t been difficult to find highly credentialed experts replete with Nobel Prizes to back up opposing positions.
Still, as admonitions go, sticking to the science, even if it remains necessarily tentative in its conclusions, is a much better idea than doing the opposite. Scientists sometimes get it wrong, but error is inherent in the endeavor itself, and we like to believe that they are mostly disinterested folks seeking the kind of truth that only fealty to the scientific method can produce.
Which is also why politicized science will always be the greatest threat to respect for science and the broader human progress that science fosters; when the scientists can’t be trusted, we stop trusting science, to all of our loss.
Which is just a roundabout way of asking why anybody hereafter would trust the scientific opinions of the 1,288 public health experts who signed an open letter supporting the mass protests against police brutality that directly contradicts their previous recommendations on the need to engage in social distancing and prohibit mass gatherings.
For those who haven’t heard, the June 1 letter originated among infectious disease specialists at the same University of Washington that has produced the model on the coronavirus relied upon by federal and state officials to formulate their pandemic approaches. It features signatures from “public health officials” and “infectious disease professionals” at a range of other prestigious universities, including Harvard, Johns Hopkins, and the University of Chicago.
The letter specifically requests that government officials permit the mass protests against racism and police brutality even if “an increased number of infections in the days following a protest” occurs because “white supremacy is a lethal public health issue that predates and contributes to COVID-19” and because “infectious disease experts must be clear and consistent in prioritizing an anti-racist message.”
In other words, combating alleged white supremacy is a more urgent public health priority for the signatories than containing the spread of the virus, even though they are the same experts that have been warning us about its dangers now for months and insisting that we shut down much of our society at great cost in response to it.
In a glorious display of double standards, the very first paragraph of the letter condemns any demonstrations against lockdowns on the part of “predominantly white protesters” and warns that the response to anti-racism demonstrations must be “wholly different from the response to white protesters resisting stay-home orders” because the latter are “rooted in white nationalism and run contrary to respect for black lives.”
Put differently, mass protests should be permitted, even if they help spread the virus, so long as the protests are motivated by the struggle against white supremacy. No other demonstrators need apply (especially white ones) because some demonstrators are more equal than others.
The letter-signers therefore spectacularly undermine their own expertise and the recommendations flowing from it — if the ideological agenda is sufficiently admirable, we can forget the science they have previously touted and engage in behavior that might cause the spread of the virus and cost lives.
Based on the logic of their letter, the small-business owner needs to keep his business shuttered, even if it means his ruin, and churches need to be prevented from holding services in order to protect the public health in a land founded on the principle of freedom of religion, but if what you are demonstrating against is racism, by all means get on out there, the more the better.
This isn’t disinterested science, it’s a toxic form of woke politics masquerading under the guise of science that dictates a set of standards to preserve public health for thee but not for me.
Skepticism of science is unfortunate, but it spreads when scientists tell us that science dictates certain policies only to then turn around and abandon that science and those policies when a preferred political cause comes along.
Genuine science doesn’t propose one set of public health restrictions for those demonstrating on behalf of cause A and another for those demonstrating on behalf of cause B and the safety of mass protests during a pandemic doesn’t vary based on what is being protested.
Somehow the science, apparently prodigiously fungible, abruptly changed when a white police officer knelt for too long on the neck of a black man in Minneapolis.
So let’s stop worrying about the protests spreading the virus. “Science” has spoken, and it’s told us everything is fine so long as the protests are about racism.