Science, in political hands, has become a religion, a sledge hammer, a means of dividing populations in order to get votes, and more. When I was a kid my late

Science, in political hands, has become a religion, a sledge hammer, a means of dividing populations in order to get votes, and more. When I was a kid my late grandfather always said: Never believe politics or religion, at the core, they are the same, dirty, manipulative, dishonest extremes of the human experience. When politicians use "believe science" there's also the reality that some (most?) don't actually practice what they preach. This weeks our Vice President handed anti-vaxers and vaccine doubters some of the most powerful ammunition they could have ever hoped for. For those who don't know, Harris was scheduled for an in-person interview at a popular TV show in the US called "The View". Moments before she was to join the hosts live on set, two of the four hosts tested positive for COVID-19. What did they do? Believe the science? No, of course not. The two hosts were removed from the set. Harris conducted the interview remotely from another room in the building. They squandered an opportunity to "believe science". She is vaccinated. Everyone in her circle is vaccinated. Everyone in the TV studio is vaccinated. And yet, she, effectively, ran away and hid. Believe science? Any doubter watching this can rightly ask: You ask us to believe what you say, get vaccinated, and you don't even trust the vaccine yourself? And masks? You tell us to use masks, you are vaccinated and you didn't even trust the science enough to put on a mask and hold the interview? My entire family is vaccinated. I have no problem at all walking into a location where someone tests positive. At all. For me it isn't about belief --that's religious-- it's about intellectually understanding what's going on and, yes, trusting the system, methods and scientific process to deliver scientific truth to the extent possible. This is where these politicians come of as the fake manipulators they actually are, all of them. Every time I hear one of them use "believe the science" as some high and mighty pedestal on which they stand I want to barf.