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The root of this discussion is about whether science is necessary or suitable for public policy, and we should probably accept that policy is not scientific, an

The root of this discussion is about whether science is necessary or suitable for public policy, and we should probably accept that policy is not scientific, and nor should it be. The alleged scientific findings used as a basis for policy justifications today is mostly compromised and irreproducable junk designed to befog, mesmerize, and browbeat average people into submission, while an elite for whom words have no fixed meanings struggle among themselves for control of bureaucracies. When policymakers say they defer to "the science" it is forfeiting their responsibility to act with wisdom and good judgment. Democracy predates science by some three millennia, and to say that we can or should create a scientific democracy is nonsense. Democracy is an ideal and a quality, it is not a system that can be engineered from data with scientific findings or processes. Further, if you engineer a society with policies based on data and laws that only a few initiates understand, that is the specific antithesis to democracy. In the west, we use democratic processes to produce our elite classes, but unfortunately we do not produce wise ones, and they're happy to dodge accountability by blaming scientists or the weather. Science doesn't create trust in authority either, it produces verification, reproducibility, and models for new tools. Science and data are neither sufficient, nor necessary conditions for wise policy that supports life and creates growth, even when it has made some great contributions to our well being. To say that science shows a given policy is good because it has a scientific justification is circular reasoning. When you say you believe in science, either you practice it, or you trust its institutional practitioners, which basically means you trust the systems of academic administrators to make policy. Again, not democratic at all. We actually don't need a public understanding of how science works, we just need to hold policymakers to a standard of accountability where they can't slither behind binders of gibberish when called to account for their decisions.

rayiner 6y ago
This is a really important point--exemplified by COVID. You can't delegate governance to scientific experts. That's not their job and they're not qualified to do it. Don't get me wrong--public officials should base policies on the scientific consensus, when it exists. But a scientific consensus can't tell you what to do about it. It can't tell you what trade-offs to make, or how to integrate a scientific truth into a social framework. Most important, politicians must deal with the fact that science often doesn't have clear answers on important matters. Something as simple as "should pregnant women get the COVID vaccine?" is the subject of dispute.

rayiner 6y ago

This is a really important point--exemplified by COVID. You can't delegate governance to scientific experts. That's not their job and they're not qualified to do it. Don't get me wrong--public officials should base policies on the scientific consensus, when it exists. But a scientific consensus can't tell you what to do about it. It can't tell you what trade-offs to make, or how to integrate a scientific truth into a social framework. Most important, politicians must deal with the fact that science often doesn't have clear answers on important matters. Something as simple as "should pregnant women get the COVID vaccine?" is the subject of dispute.