5 ms·

Trust was harmed because people were asked to trust scientists who were in no place to make well grounded statements. Robust science takes years to produce. T

Trust was harmed because people were asked to trust scientists who were in no place to make well grounded statements. Robust science takes years to produce. The whole "trust the science" mantra from the covid years was a complete publicity nightmare for science as an institution, as the scientists eventually ended up contradicting themselves when additional data came in. Science ultimately does not operate on faith, but on skepticism and doubt. This is its greatest asset, that you can question it freely and it will have answers to all your questions (though sometimes they are "we don't know"). Propping it up as dogmatic truth that must be trusted and never investigated is probably the most anti-scientific thing you can do.

amluto 2y ago
I think it’s even a little worse than that. A bunch of the people saying “trust the science” actually meant “trust a particular policy.” Science is not policy, and policy is not science.
- marginalia_nu 2y ago
  Oh yeah, it's been an ongoing problem for years. The name of science has been used to lend credence to all sorts of unscientific nonsense, usually by slapping some citations onto it and calling it facts-based or science-based.
- taylodl 2y ago
  We began developing modern germ theory in the mid-19th century. We've gotten really good at retarding the transmission of infectious disease. We know what works. Just like we've known for well over 100 years that CO2 absorbs infrared radiation. To your point, science is not policy - but policy that is not informed by science is just wishful thinking.
  - amluto 2y ago
    Let’s pretend for a second that we absolutely, unequivocally, know and knew what would prevent transmission of COVID-19 [0]. It still does not follow that anyone in the government saying “stay home” or “no non-essential travel” or “wear a mask indoors” is science. It’s policy. It may or may not be well informed by science and it may or may not be a good idea. Science might be able to determine how disease spreads, but deciding what to do with that information is outside the scope is most science. [0] At least judging by what various branches of the government said and still say, this requires a lot of suspension of disbelief.
    - taylodl 2y ago
      Exactly. It's then on the public policymakers to inform the public how the policy was driven by science so that the public understands why the policy is being adopted. Policy answers what? Science answers why?
  - Izkata 2y ago
    The main competitor to germ theory, terrain theory, has come back over the past twenty years or so under different names, such as gut health.
- Eddy_Viscosity2 2y ago
  There were also people saying "science is a scam, scientists can't be trusted, do your own research" and I'm sure that didn't help.
techfeathers 2y ago
I'm curious about the "next crisis" and whether or not there's a swing in the other direction though. I feel like we're stuck in hindsight bias, and forgetting that a lot of decisions weren't made in ideal circumstances. That's not to say that there's not things to learn, and that's not to say that these lessons shouldn't be analyzed. But during a crisis you have to balance skepticism and doubt with the need to take decisive action. The fact that we seem to be focusing our blame on the scientific community, rather than politicians, is this magical judo that politicians have made. The scientists goal is to share the data and it's impacts, the politicians is to shape that data and impact into policy.
aredox 2y ago
Wrong analysis. We have robust science about climate change for decades now and yet it is pushed against all the time. Also, we don't relitigate everything all the time. E.g. is germ theory a "dogmatic truth" for you? Science doesn't work on scepticism but on zeteticism. Scepticism is just a gateway drug to nihilism, were nothing is ever true.
- marginalia_nu 2y ago
  > We have robust science about climate change for decades now and yet it is pushed against all the time. There's economic incentives against the politicial policies interwoven with climate change studies, so of course there's pushback. But how is this relevant to covid? > Is germ theory a "dogmatic truth" for you? Why would it be? I'm allowed to ask any questions I want about germ theory, and there are no shortage of answers. Nobody is asking me to just believe in germs, I can look in a microscope and see the lil' critters with my own eyes. > Scepticism is just a gateway drug to nihilism, were nothing is ever true. That's a category error. The skeptic position is until demonstrated otherwise, things are not known. Nihilism is the position that all values are unfounded and nothing matters. One makes statements about what is known, the other about how we should act. That is not the same.
  - aredox 2y ago
    sigh >how is this relevant to covid? As if there hasn't been any economic incentives during COVID... If you want to debate, do it in good faith. I will reply to your other points, but I am not going to go any further when you aren't honest. >I can look in a microscope and see the lil' critters with my own eyes. That's not the proof of germ theory, as spontaneous generation will pretend those "little critters" appeared after the illness, aren't the cause for it. And how does that work for viruses? There is AIDS denial at the higher levels of science (like Duesberg, or the very "inventor" of PCR, Nobel prize Kary Mullis) who argue that aids is caused by "lifestyle" and antiviral treatment, not by HIV. Have they not "seen" HIV in electron microscopes? >The skeptic position is until demonstrated otherwise, things are not known. And then doubt any "demonstration" ad infinitum. Sceptics just answer any proof - any data that would shut down their doubts - with more doubt, until it is all a planetary conspiracy by the New World Order.
taylodl 2y ago
> Propping it up as dogmatic truth that must be trusted and never investigated is probably the most anti-scientific thing you can do. Honestly, that's what all the science-denying cranks say. You may not be such a person, but you need to be aware of the mindset of many people making this claim. With regards to the retardation of the spread of infectious disease, that is robust science. We've spent over 100 years developing and practicing it, too. Our success rate has been incredible. Also, this wasn't even humankind's first rodeo with the SARS coronavirus. We knew what we needed to do, we failed to do it, and hundreds of thousands of Americans needlessly lost their life as a result. That's the nightmare.
- aredox 2y ago
  Not only infection disease science is robust with humans, but it is also a veterinary science. And with livestock outnumbering humans and being a huge industry where every dollar counts, we have a good idea on the efficiency of e.g. vaccines.
- marginalia_nu 2y ago
  > Honestly, that's what all the science-denying cranks say. You may not be such a person, but you need to be aware of the mindset of many people making this claim. It's also what science advocates like e.g. Carl Sagan[1] says, because it's true. "Science deniers" may be wrong about other things, but not about this. The truth does not fear questions, and does not require people to believe in it. > With regards to the retardation of the spread of infectious disease, that is robust science. We've spent over 100 years developing and practicing it, too. Our success rate has been incredible. We don't seem to really be making significant headway stopping these respiratory diseases. There's a new seasonal influenza every year, and then there's the common cold sloshing around on top of that. These annual global epidemics seem to be washing over us with such regularity they're a fact of life in modern society. Most of them less severe than Covid, for certain, but I think you're overstating our ability to stop them. [1] e.g. "If we are not able to ask skeptical questions, to interrogate those who tell us that something is true, to be skeptical of those in authority, then we’re up for grabs for the next charlatan, political or religious, who comes ambling along."
_fat_santa 2y ago
It's that plus statements they made where you could clearly see the statement was in service of politics rather than science. One particular example I remember is during the protests after the death of George Floyd, there were several scientists saying something along the lines of "you shouldn't attend large crowds, but it's OK if you are going to the protest" [1] [2] [3] It was just so blatant and such an insult to people's intelligence and was just so obviously fueled by politics and not public health. IMO the real villans of the pandemic were the doctors out there trying to make themselves famous and shooting up the credibility of their field in the process while also giving fuel to the other side to make their points. [1]: https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/06/04/public-health-protests-301534 https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/06/04/public-hea... [2]: https://www.axios.com/2020/06/10/black-lives-matter-protests-coronavirus-science https://www.axios.com/2020/06/10/black-lives-matter-protests... [3]: https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/05/health/health-care-open-letter-protests-coronavirus-trnd/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/05/health/health-care-open-lette...
- tzs 2y ago
  The kind of crowd matters. 1000 people attending an indoor concert is a massively more effective spreader of COVID than 1000 people marching outdoors at a protest. The chances of getting infected from someone nearby who is spreading the virus depends on how much of the virus got in you which is a function of how long you are near to them, the rate they are expelling viruses, and how long those viruses stay around you. In a crowd all of those factors depend heavily on what the crowd is doing and where they are doing it and what percent of the crowd is infected. I remember seeing papers that looked at the actual results of various large crowds and found that the George Floyd protests in fact did very little to spread COVID.

amluto 2y ago

I think it’s even a little worse than that. A bunch of the people saying “trust the science” actually meant “trust a particular policy.” Science is not policy, and policy is not science.

marginalia_nu 2y ago
Oh yeah, it's been an ongoing problem for years. The name of science has been used to lend credence to all sorts of unscientific nonsense, usually by slapping some citations onto it and calling it facts-based or science-based.
taylodl 2y ago
We began developing modern germ theory in the mid-19th century. We've gotten really good at retarding the transmission of infectious disease. We know what works. Just like we've known for well over 100 years that CO2 absorbs infrared radiation. To your point, science is not policy - but policy that is not informed by science is just wishful thinking.
- amluto 2y ago
  Let’s pretend for a second that we absolutely, unequivocally, know and knew what would prevent transmission of COVID-19 [0]. It still does not follow that anyone in the government saying “stay home” or “no non-essential travel” or “wear a mask indoors” is science. It’s policy. It may or may not be well informed by science and it may or may not be a good idea. Science might be able to determine how disease spreads, but deciding what to do with that information is outside the scope is most science. [0] At least judging by what various branches of the government said and still say, this requires a lot of suspension of disbelief.
  - taylodl 2y ago
    Exactly. It's then on the public policymakers to inform the public how the policy was driven by science so that the public understands why the policy is being adopted. Policy answers what? Science answers why?
- Izkata 2y ago
  The main competitor to germ theory, terrain theory, has come back over the past twenty years or so under different names, such as gut health.
Eddy_Viscosity2 2y ago
There were also people saying "science is a scam, scientists can't be trusted, do your own research" and I'm sure that didn't help.

techfeathers 2y ago

I'm curious about the "next crisis" and whether or not there's a swing in the other direction though. I feel like we're stuck in hindsight bias, and forgetting that a lot of decisions weren't made in ideal circumstances. That's not to say that there's not things to learn, and that's not to say that these lessons shouldn't be analyzed. But during a crisis you have to balance skepticism and doubt with the need to take decisive action. The fact that we seem to be focusing our blame on the scientific community, rather than politicians, is this magical judo that politicians have made. The scientists goal is to share the data and it's impacts, the politicians is to shape that data and impact into policy.

aredox 2y ago

Wrong analysis. We have robust science about climate change for decades now and yet it is pushed against all the time. Also, we don't relitigate everything all the time. E.g. is germ theory a "dogmatic truth" for you? Science doesn't work on scepticism but on zeteticism. Scepticism is just a gateway drug to nihilism, were nothing is ever true.

marginalia_nu 2y ago
> We have robust science about climate change for decades now and yet it is pushed against all the time. There's economic incentives against the politicial policies interwoven with climate change studies, so of course there's pushback. But how is this relevant to covid? > Is germ theory a "dogmatic truth" for you? Why would it be? I'm allowed to ask any questions I want about germ theory, and there are no shortage of answers. Nobody is asking me to just believe in germs, I can look in a microscope and see the lil' critters with my own eyes. > Scepticism is just a gateway drug to nihilism, were nothing is ever true. That's a category error. The skeptic position is until demonstrated otherwise, things are not known. Nihilism is the position that all values are unfounded and nothing matters. One makes statements about what is known, the other about how we should act. That is not the same.
- aredox 2y ago
  sigh >how is this relevant to covid? As if there hasn't been any economic incentives during COVID... If you want to debate, do it in good faith. I will reply to your other points, but I am not going to go any further when you aren't honest. >I can look in a microscope and see the lil' critters with my own eyes. That's not the proof of germ theory, as spontaneous generation will pretend those "little critters" appeared after the illness, aren't the cause for it. And how does that work for viruses? There is AIDS denial at the higher levels of science (like Duesberg, or the very "inventor" of PCR, Nobel prize Kary Mullis) who argue that aids is caused by "lifestyle" and antiviral treatment, not by HIV. Have they not "seen" HIV in electron microscopes? >The skeptic position is until demonstrated otherwise, things are not known. And then doubt any "demonstration" ad infinitum. Sceptics just answer any proof - any data that would shut down their doubts - with more doubt, until it is all a planetary conspiracy by the New World Order.

taylodl 2y ago

> Propping it up as dogmatic truth that must be trusted and never investigated is probably the most anti-scientific thing you can do. Honestly, that's what all the science-denying cranks say. You may not be such a person, but you need to be aware of the mindset of many people making this claim. With regards to the retardation of the spread of infectious disease, that is robust science. We've spent over 100 years developing and practicing it, too. Our success rate has been incredible. Also, this wasn't even humankind's first rodeo with the SARS coronavirus. We knew what we needed to do, we failed to do it, and hundreds of thousands of Americans needlessly lost their life as a result. That's the nightmare.

aredox 2y ago
Not only infection disease science is robust with humans, but it is also a veterinary science. And with livestock outnumbering humans and being a huge industry where every dollar counts, we have a good idea on the efficiency of e.g. vaccines.
marginalia_nu 2y ago
> Honestly, that's what all the science-denying cranks say. You may not be such a person, but you need to be aware of the mindset of many people making this claim. It's also what science advocates like e.g. Carl Sagan[1] says, because it's true. "Science deniers" may be wrong about other things, but not about this. The truth does not fear questions, and does not require people to believe in it. > With regards to the retardation of the spread of infectious disease, that is robust science. We've spent over 100 years developing and practicing it, too. Our success rate has been incredible. We don't seem to really be making significant headway stopping these respiratory diseases. There's a new seasonal influenza every year, and then there's the common cold sloshing around on top of that. These annual global epidemics seem to be washing over us with such regularity they're a fact of life in modern society. Most of them less severe than Covid, for certain, but I think you're overstating our ability to stop them. [1] e.g. "If we are not able to ask skeptical questions, to interrogate those who tell us that something is true, to be skeptical of those in authority, then we’re up for grabs for the next charlatan, political or religious, who comes ambling along."

_fat_santa 2y ago

It's that plus statements they made where you could clearly see the statement was in service of politics rather than science. One particular example I remember is during the protests after the death of George Floyd, there were several scientists saying something along the lines of "you shouldn't attend large crowds, but it's OK if you are going to the protest" [1] [2] [3] It was just so blatant and such an insult to people's intelligence and was just so obviously fueled by politics and not public health. IMO the real villans of the pandemic were the doctors out there trying to make themselves famous and shooting up the credibility of their field in the process while also giving fuel to the other side to make their points. [1]: https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/06/04/public-health-protests-301534 https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/06/04/public-hea... [2]: https://www.axios.com/2020/06/10/black-lives-matter-protests-coronavirus-science https://www.axios.com/2020/06/10/black-lives-matter-protests... [3]: https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/05/health/health-care-open-letter-protests-coronavirus-trnd/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/05/health/health-care-open-lette...

tzs 2y ago
The kind of crowd matters. 1000 people attending an indoor concert is a massively more effective spreader of COVID than 1000 people marching outdoors at a protest. The chances of getting infected from someone nearby who is spreading the virus depends on how much of the virus got in you which is a function of how long you are near to them, the rate they are expelling viruses, and how long those viruses stay around you. In a crowd all of those factors depend heavily on what the crowd is doing and where they are doing it and what percent of the crowd is infected. I remember seeing papers that looked at the actual results of various large crowds and found that the George Floyd protests in fact did very little to spread COVID.