Science, Ideology and Public Trust

The limits of science make pubic understanding more difficult and more urgent

Photo by Vlad Tchompalov on Unsplash

The election of Donald Trump has sparked new debate on the role of science in public debate. The nominations of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as Health Secretary and Jay Bhattacharya to lead the National Institute of Health promise to provide ongoing controversy over the response to COVID-19 and vaccine mandates. The Democrats’ support for a transgender rights policy which is based on denial or the reality of sex is seen as one of the reasons for their defeat. Global warning did not play a large role in the campaign but it is not an issue that can be avoided for long.

The debate over science in public policy is taking place at a time when there is growing concern that the scientific community has allowed political concerns of diversity, equity and inclusion and gender ideology to overshadow merit and scientific rigour. The recent resignation of the editor of the Scientific American after a series of social media posts attacking supporters of Donald Trump may be a sign that some opinion leaders in science are starting to realize that partisan politics and science are not a good mix.

What is missing from this debate is a discussion of how the role of science in public policy has changed. Science does not offer clear or easy solutions to our most urgent problems but this only makes reliable science and sound public understanding of science more urgent than ever.

Science and the Law of Diminishing Returns

Trust in science has grown up over the last 200 years as scientific research has driven rapid improvements in technology and medicine. Scientists have produced cures for diseases which have seemed miraculous and technologies which, in the words of Arthur C. Clarke, are “indistinguishable from magic.” By the new millennium technology was outpacing magic. In Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, published in 2003, Hermione impressed her friends by casting creating enchanted coins which where the numbers would change to give the date of the next meeting of Dumbledore’s Army. By this time, texting by cellphone was commonplace and Apple launched the iPhone in 2007.

While the public has been dazzled by the achievements of science, public understanding of how science works remains limited. This is an increasing problem as the era of rapid scientific advance is coming to an end. Science, like every other human endeavour, is subject to the law of diminishing returns.

The law of diminishing returns holds that as an input increases output will increase at a declining rate and may eventually decline. For example, farmers know that increasing the application of fertilizer will increase crop yields but, after a point, the increase in the value of the crop will be less than the cost of the additional fertilizer and too much fertilizer will damage the crop. When a store hires more clerks, customer service will improve up to a point and then additional workers will simply get in the way. Similarly, the will be a point where investing more money in scientific research will not necessarily result in an increase in scientific knowledge.

In The Energy of Slaves, Andrew Nikiforuk argues that we have reached the era of peak science. He refers to the writings of Jacques Ellul and Derek de Solla Price, who argued that scientific is subject to the law of diminishing returns. More investment in scientific research does result in a proportionate increase in the amount of useful scientific knowledge. Nikiforuk says,

Diminishing returns in science are quantifiable and can be seen most obviously in the world’s science leader, the United States. When the National Science Foundation looked at publishing trends in the field in 2010, it found a downward spiral despite increases in funding.

Furthermore, Nikiforuk explains that the quantity of published research is not the same as quality:

Diminishing returns can also be found in dramatic increases in fraudulent science. False tales about cold fusion and plutonium poisoning have been replaced with startling fictions about stem-cell research and snake-oil pharmaceuticals. To many observers, science fraud appears to be growing even faster than financial fraud. The number of retractions for fraud, mistakes or plagiarism in scientific journals increased fifteen-fold between 2001 and 2010 (p. 168).

Scientific fraud remains a major problem, with over 10,000 papers retracted in 2023. So-called “paper mills” produce fake papers, often written by artificial intelligence, which are then sold to students or academics who need to publish in scientific journals to advance their careers.

Even without deliberate fraud, some fields of science and social science, such as psychology, sociology, medicine and economics, have what is called a “replication crisis.” When another group of researchers tries to repeat a published study but does not get the same results, this raises concerns about whether the original conclusions were valid.

This concern about diminishing returns is separate from the concerns about the impact of diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives on science. Deliberate promoting ideologically biased research by under qualified researchers is obviously harmful but diminishing returns apply even to properly conducted research by competent scientists.

The impact of diminishing returns can be seen in the slowing pace of advances in medicine and technology. In medicine, there are no more dramatic cures like insulin and penicillin. Some of the gains of the last century are being compromised by the growth of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. New technologies like the smartphone might seem magical but they are just refinements of technologies that have existed for decades. There have been no breakthroughs in urgent challenges like finding a reliable replacement for fossil fuels.

In this era of diminishing returns, the role of the scientist has shifted from someone who can provide win-win solutions to social problems to someone who provides advice to guide hard choices between options that all carry significant costs. Often, these costs will not be shared equally and any choice will give rise to social and political conflict. Science cannot answer these questions as they require resolution or compromise of conflicting ethical principles and ideological beliefs about the role of the state.

Covid and the New Normal

The COVID-19 pandemic was the worlds’ introduction to a new normal where science offers not easy answers but hard choices. Over the last century vaccination and anti-biotics have eliminated or brought under control almost all serious infectious diseases. The last really serious international pandemic was the Spanish Flu outbreak of 1918-1919. Since then, pandemics have been relatively localized and have been brought under control without having to resort to large scale quarantines. The COVID-19 virus was different. It spread rapidly, had a high mortality rate and required frequent admission to intensive care which strained already overburdened public health systems.

The initial public response was to order virtually everyone to stay home and shut down the entire economy except for essential services. While the initial lockdown could only be sustained for a short time, tight restrictions on larger gatherings remained in effect for nearly two years.

Covid lockdown policies were initially met with displays of social solidarity, but this goodwill quickly broke down. While lockdowns had little effect on salaried public sector employees and other office workers, they were devastating to small businesses in the service sector. Policies were inconsistent in ways which seemed calculated to create division. Churches were shut while liquor stores remained open. As the lockdowns dragged on well publicized incidents of political leaders partying while ordinary citizens could not attend family funerals further strained public goodwill.

As the lockdowns continued, it appeared that although medical doctors and scientists were generally given leading roles in announcing policy changes, the decisions themselves often were based as much on guesswork as scientific data. This is a common problem where scientific understanding is rapidly evolving. However, instead of attempting to promote better public understanding, communications strategies were based on exhortations to “trust the science” and suppression of real scientific debate.

The lockdown strategy attracted criticism early. The Great Barrington Declaration written by Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, Dr. Sunetra Gupta and Dr. Martin Kulldorff argued that the prevailing policy was damaging to physical and mental health and called for a new approached focused on protecting the most vulnerable.

The nomination of Dr. Bhattacharya to head the NIH and of Marty Makary, another critic of the Biden government COVID response to head the FDA means that the debate will continue. It appears that at least some of their criticisms were valid. School closures and lockdowns probably continued too long and rigid mask mandates had limited value. On the other hand, because the virus was mutating, natural immunity would not have been enough to stop the pandemic and measures like social distancing were needed to slow the spread until a vaccine was ready.

Vaccine Refusal

The COVID-19 pandemic was eventually ended by the development of new vaccines, which gave rise to new controversies. Vaccination has been one of the great successes of scientific medicine over the last century. Anyone who doubts this simply needs to visit an old cemetery and count the children’s graves from before 1900. However, there is a small section of the public that has never trusted vaccines. In particular, the belief that the MMR (measles, mumps, rubella) vaccine is linked to autism does not seem to go away now matter how much research refutes it. It is disturbing that Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Trump’s nominee for Secretary of Health and Human Services, is one of its proponents. In 2018, Kennedy persuaded the government of Samoa to stop its vaccination program, which resulted in a measles outbreak and 53 deaths or which 48 were children.

However, it is important not to overstate a scientific case. It is reasonable to claim that the MMR vaccine is safe and effective because it has been used and studied for decades. Typical vaccines take 10 to 15 years to develop and test. The mumps component of the MMR vaccine took 4 years to develop and that was considered rapid. By contrast, the COVID vaccines were developed in just 10 months. Since neither the major pharmaceutical companies nor national regulators have unblemished records, it is not surprising that there was considerable hesitancy about the new vaccines.

In these circumstances, the decision to impose widespread vaccine mandates was questionable policy. It did not help that the COVID vaccines were oversold. While they reduced the severity of the disease they did not stop the spread and required frequent boosters. In the end, as Roger Bate found, the public seems to have understood the underlying science well. Uptake of COVID boosters are near zero for adults under 40, who are at minimum risk from COVID, but near universal for those over 70 who are at the highest risk of infection. However, the controversy gave new life to the vaccine refusal movement which has spread from conservative anti-government ideologues to left leaning environmental activists. If a new virus appears in the near future, the political task of bringing it under control will be much harder.

A Digression on Mars

The involvement of Elon Musk on Trump’s team is sometimes considered proof that Trump is not “anti-science” but Musk’s talk about colonizing Mars is as wrongheaded as anything Robert Kennedy has said. Musk sees himself as a bold innovator who ignores the naysayers who claim something can’t be done and forges on to success. The problem is that while history celebrates success, it tends to ignore all the times that the naysayers were right and lives and fortunes were wasted.

There are huge obstacles to a crewed mission to Mars. Uncrewed missions to date have had mixed success. No one has succeeded in sending a craft to Mars and returning it safely to earth. It is currently estimated that a round trip to Mars would take 21 months and there is a suitable launch window only once every 26 months. The surface of Mars does not have breathable air or surface water. It is exposed to dangerous levels or radiation and the lower gravity could have harmful consequences to human health. There is no known technology which would allow humans to establish a self sustaining colony on Mars.

The mission to the Moon in the sixties and seventies did not have any direct practical benefits but it did support research and development of many useful technologies. Memory foam, cordless tools, water purification systems, scratch-resistant lenses and infrared thermometers are just some examples of commonly used products that were developed by research supported by the space program. A Mars mission may produce similar spin-off benefits but the law of diminishing returns warns us that they are likely to be much smaller in proportion to investment than they were from previous space projects. If Musk persuades the US government to invest in the Mars project, it will probably waste several times more money than whatever is saved through the DOGE initiative.

The Challenge of Climate Change

Dreams of interplanetary travel have become for secularists what the second coming of Christ is for some Christians: a way of avoiding our responsibility to care for the Earth. Everyone needs to accept that we have only one planet which we will have to live on for the foreseeable future. That means getting serious about global warming.

Climate change raises many of the same challenges as the COVID-19 response but on a larger scale. The problems begin with convincing people that it is real. While the impact of COVID-19 was clearly visible in images of overflowing emergency wards and morgues, evidence that human activity is causing global warming is much less obvious. Evidence for global warming depends on analysis of data from varied sources including temperature records, retreat of glaciers, increasing ocean temperatures and rising sea levels. Ice core data and data from modern instruments shows that atmospheric carbon dioxide is at a higher level today than it has been through 800,000 years and 11 cycles of ice ages and warmer periods. Extreme weather events such as hurricanes and forest fires, which scientists predicted would be a consequence of global warming, do appear to be more frequent.

However, this information depends on long term trends which take time and effort to understand. Many people still cannot distinguish between climate and weather. It is hard to believe that climate scientists can predict long term trends when meteorologists have trouble forecasting the weather for even a few days. Organizations like the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change may declare that there is unequivocal evidence that global warming is human driven, but this is not helpful if these institutions are regarded as partisan and biased by a large sector of the voting public.

Meanwhile, science has been unable to offer any easy solutions to the problem of global warming. There is no obvious alternative to fossil fuels which is capable of meeting the needs of an industrial society let alone the millions of people who still live in pre-industrial conditions. Wind, solar, hydro, geothermal and nuclear all have major limitations, risks and costs. Nuclear energy has the greatest potential but it also raises the most political controversy. Even if you dispute the link between fossil fuel use and global warming it is necessary to consider that the world’s oil reserves are not unlimited and might start running out as soon as 2050.

It is hard to avoid the conclusion that in order to make a significant reduction in carbon emissions there will need to be a significant reduction in consumption. That means few trips in smaller cars, less reliance on cars generally, smaller houses that are kept colder in winter and warmer in summer and less variety of food at the grocery stores. The costs of these changes will generally be lower in urban areas and higher in car dependent suburbs and rural areas. This division largely mirrors the partisan divide in North American politics.

Bridging the Divide

In the new era of diminishing returns scientists will seldom be able to offer a win-win solution which satisfies everyone. Instead, they will need to provide a series of options and outline the risks and benefits of each. The final choice will be political. Politics is usually messy and often nasty but it can be less so if politicians are seen to be basing their choices on politically neutral science.

This does not mean that scientists themselves must be politically neutral. They can vote, run for office and voice opinions on political matters but they need to maintain a bright line between their political opinions and their scientific work. Neutrality also does not mean that scientific evidence will not sometimes strongly favour a particular policy choice, but when this happens it is doubly important that the public trust that the evidence is the result of research and not the bias of researchers.

Science communicators are essential to the role of science in shaping public policy. Publications like Scientific American and Nature and scientifically trained media personalities like Neil DeGrasse Tyson play an essential role in helping the broader public understand complex scientific issues. However, they have compromised themselves by adopting explicitly political agendas.

The field where this has been most obvious is sex and gender. Political pressure from the transgender activist community has led both Nature and Scientific American to publish numerous articles promoting the idea that sex is not a binary but exists on a spectrum. This idea has been regularly refuted but it still persists and has filtered into the universities. Biologist Carol Hooven left her position at Harvard when students objected to her claiming that sex is biological and binary.

The basic definition of sex is not complex. It has been accepted since the beginning of history and the underlying science can be understood and explained by any layperson with a little effort. This means that when science communicators deny the sex binary, a large portion of the public will see through their claims.

Neil deGrasse Tyson went on Bill Maher’s show and talked sense about Elon Musk’s plans to go do Mars, but he also appeared on Pier Morgan’s show and spouted half baked ideas about transwomen in sport. Tyson is an astrophysicist and not a biologist or kinesiologist so he may not be aware of the extensive research that has found that male advantage persists across age and weight classes and is not eliminated by reducing hormone levels, he has held himself out as a science educator and he needs to be careful when he speaks on any scientific topic or he will be trusted on none.

The many voters who are skeptical on issues like climate change and pandemic response, which are often complex and contests, are not going to be convinced by politicians or scientists who cannot give a straight answer to the question, “What is a woman?”

Scientists often claim to they have a duty to speak the truth to power, but this is not quite correct. They have a duty to speak the truth. The balance of power shifts but truth does not. Trust in science has often be shaken by revelations that research has been suppressed or manipulated to favour powerful economic interests. However, distorting science to promote the supposed interest of oppressed groups or what is defined as social justice is equally harmful.