Following the Science and Its Discontents
The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of ASPA as an organization.
By Burden Lundgren
November 4, 2021
Since the COVID-19 epidemic began, we have been hearing about following the science. Public health experts and the present administration stress orthodox scientific practices while the previous administration and many in the public seemed to be making up a science of their own.
A good portion of the public seems to be stuck between scientists who claim to be accurately describing reality and skeptics who believe the scientists are either fools or lying. The situation is exacerbated by the fact that SARS-Cov-2 is a newly-discovered virus, that official messaging concerning the epidemic has been less than ideal and that a number of politicians have seized on the epidemic as a partisan opportunity. The problems originate in the misunderstanding by both the public and often by scientists themselves as to the nature of science, with some being true believers and others remaining doubters no matter what the evidence.
A scientific fact is a scientific fact yesterday, today and forever. It is bedrock knowledge, right? Well, maybe not so much. First, there is the issue of exactly what intellectual endeavors qualify as “science.” Philosopher Peter Godfrey-Smith notes that:
“…the work done by physicists and molecular biologists when they test hypotheses is science. And playing a game of basketball, no matter how well one plays, is not doing science. But in the area between these clear cases, disagreement reigns.”
Our understanding of what constitutes science has evolved from being limited to mathematical proofs to including such widely disparate disciplines as physics, astronomy, botany and zoology. Then we come to disciplines (e.g., sociology, psychology, anthropology) that are arguably science—or not. What we call science inevitably comes up against the philosophical issues of what constitutes reality and how we can know it.
The logical positivist movement of the early 20th century gave science a strong push toward quantification as being fundamental to scientific endeavor. Reality was that which could be measured, tested and verified. But even if we confine science to what can be measured, tested and verified, we have to ask ourselves if reality (or we ourselves) will remain so unchanged that what we measure, test and verify once will be true forever—a problem recognized long before the logical positivists came along—in fact a basic issue in Greek philosophy and one extensively addressed by David Hume in the 18th century.
Theories are the scaffolding of scientific investigation. Kuhn has famously written about major shifts in theoretical constructions, e.g., the earth moves around the sun rather than the other way about. More minor modifications happen every day. After all, science is a learning experience. But the system has its own limitations. Phenomena not included in the predominant theory are often discounted, e.g., the placebo effect which fits poorly in the biomedical model. And there is a strong expectation that what happened in the past will keep happening—known as the black swan problem. As a Harvard professor has stated, “Scientific research is an almost constant search for ‘better truths’ and not ‘the truth’.”
But that is not an understanding common to non-scientists. After all, we learn in high school chemistry that if we mix x and y, we always get z. We learn the names of biological classes and species, the origins of rocks, the properties of stars. In other words, we learn what scientists have learned up to the time we were in school. But that is not science. Science is a process, not an outcome.
Since March, 2020, the public has witnessed the process writ large. Under the threat of a lethal new virus, scientific methods have become both accelerated and far more public. And much of the public did not like what it was seeing. Where were the “facts,” the eternal verities which science was supposed to reveal? Scientists did not help themselves by continually referring to “the data”—as though data did not itself have to be selected, assembled and analyzed by actual people. There seemed to be too many questions and too few answers.
Then there was the issue of what to do with the science after we had it. Science does not solve public policy dilemmas such as how to distribute vaccines ethically and effectively. Science also does not communicate itself, and it is fair to say that agencies that should have known better committed messaging malpractice when it came to public information.
The late René Dubos, a scientist almost hyperaware of the social environment, stated that, “Science is like an organism that can survive only by adapting itself to the changing conditions of the society in which it functions.” In the current circumstances, science succeeded in producing amazingly effective vaccines within months of the onset of the pandemic, but failed to adapt itself to an environment of political strife, paranoia and disinformation transmitted around the globe at lightning speed. The pandemic is not unique. We have most recently seen this same mix of science, public misunderstanding and toxic politics in climate change. We will see it again unless we fix it.
Author: Burden Lundgren MPH, PhD, RN practiced as a registered nurse specializing in acute and critical care. After leaving clinical practice, she worked as an analyst at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and later taught at Old Dominion University in Norfolk VA. She has served as a consultant to a number of non-profit groups. Presently, she divides her time between Virginia and Maryland. She can be reached at [email protected].
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Following the Science and Its Discontents
The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of ASPA as an organization.
By Burden Lundgren
November 4, 2021
Since the COVID-19 epidemic began, we have been hearing about following the science. Public health experts and the present administration stress orthodox scientific practices while the previous administration and many in the public seemed to be making up a science of their own.
A good portion of the public seems to be stuck between scientists who claim to be accurately describing reality and skeptics who believe the scientists are either fools or lying. The situation is exacerbated by the fact that SARS-Cov-2 is a newly-discovered virus, that official messaging concerning the epidemic has been less than ideal and that a number of politicians have seized on the epidemic as a partisan opportunity. The problems originate in the misunderstanding by both the public and often by scientists themselves as to the nature of science, with some being true believers and others remaining doubters no matter what the evidence.
A scientific fact is a scientific fact yesterday, today and forever. It is bedrock knowledge, right? Well, maybe not so much. First, there is the issue of exactly what intellectual endeavors qualify as “science.” Philosopher Peter Godfrey-Smith notes that:
Our understanding of what constitutes science has evolved from being limited to mathematical proofs to including such widely disparate disciplines as physics, astronomy, botany and zoology. Then we come to disciplines (e.g., sociology, psychology, anthropology) that are arguably science—or not. What we call science inevitably comes up against the philosophical issues of what constitutes reality and how we can know it.
The logical positivist movement of the early 20th century gave science a strong push toward quantification as being fundamental to scientific endeavor. Reality was that which could be measured, tested and verified. But even if we confine science to what can be measured, tested and verified, we have to ask ourselves if reality (or we ourselves) will remain so unchanged that what we measure, test and verify once will be true forever—a problem recognized long before the logical positivists came along—in fact a basic issue in Greek philosophy and one extensively addressed by David Hume in the 18th century.
Theories are the scaffolding of scientific investigation. Kuhn has famously written about major shifts in theoretical constructions, e.g., the earth moves around the sun rather than the other way about. More minor modifications happen every day. After all, science is a learning experience. But the system has its own limitations. Phenomena not included in the predominant theory are often discounted, e.g., the placebo effect which fits poorly in the biomedical model. And there is a strong expectation that what happened in the past will keep happening—known as the black swan problem. As a Harvard professor has stated, “Scientific research is an almost constant search for ‘better truths’ and not ‘the truth’.”
But that is not an understanding common to non-scientists. After all, we learn in high school chemistry that if we mix x and y, we always get z. We learn the names of biological classes and species, the origins of rocks, the properties of stars. In other words, we learn what scientists have learned up to the time we were in school. But that is not science. Science is a process, not an outcome.
Since March, 2020, the public has witnessed the process writ large. Under the threat of a lethal new virus, scientific methods have become both accelerated and far more public. And much of the public did not like what it was seeing. Where were the “facts,” the eternal verities which science was supposed to reveal? Scientists did not help themselves by continually referring to “the data”—as though data did not itself have to be selected, assembled and analyzed by actual people. There seemed to be too many questions and too few answers.
Then there was the issue of what to do with the science after we had it. Science does not solve public policy dilemmas such as how to distribute vaccines ethically and effectively. Science also does not communicate itself, and it is fair to say that agencies that should have known better committed messaging malpractice when it came to public information.
The late René Dubos, a scientist almost hyperaware of the social environment, stated that, “Science is like an organism that can survive only by adapting itself to the changing conditions of the society in which it functions.” In the current circumstances, science succeeded in producing amazingly effective vaccines within months of the onset of the pandemic, but failed to adapt itself to an environment of political strife, paranoia and disinformation transmitted around the globe at lightning speed. The pandemic is not unique. We have most recently seen this same mix of science, public misunderstanding and toxic politics in climate change. We will see it again unless we fix it.
Author: Burden Lundgren MPH, PhD, RN practiced as a registered nurse specializing in acute and critical care. After leaving clinical practice, she worked as an analyst at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and later taught at Old Dominion University in Norfolk VA. She has served as a consultant to a number of non-profit groups. Presently, she divides her time between Virginia and Maryland. She can be reached at [email protected].
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