Will Listening to Scientists about Science Become a Habit?

Will this crisis reawaken us to an important fact we’ve recently lost sight of: that while science is inherently imperfect, scientific study, experimentation, and analysis best illuminate our present and our future?

Recently we’re seeing these odd daily rituals, in which sober, reasonable doctors like Anthony Fauci and Deborah Birx make careful, fact-based statements, while delicately stepping around the pronouncements of our Narcissist-in-Chief. Mr. Trump abandoned a security unit devoted to protecting us from pandemics and biological attacks; belittled the pandemic’s significance for weeks, even months we could have used mustering resources to confront the virus; repeatedly undermines the guidelines he finally promulgated, keeps promoting an unproven “cure” with dangerous side-effects (in which he has some financial interest); and met the Wall Street Journal’s criticism of him by pointing to his “ratings.” (A televised rape or murder would get great ratings too, but that wouldn’t make it acceptable.)

Will the contrast between the doctors and the politicians linger in minds?

If a majority of citizens recognize the gulf between scientific knowledge and political slogans, and realize that when a virus threatens them and their vulnerable friends and family, they listen to the docs, will they apply that lesson to other important issues?

It’s ironic that while we’ve mustered this economically painful full-court press to fight the pandemic, we remain unprepared to take even half-measures to confront climate-change / global weirdness, which threatens to take more lives (over a longer time) and devastate our economy more permanently.

There too, the science is pretty clear, although, as with this novel virus, we don’t know everything. The facts remain politically inconvenient. Too many Republicans Congresspersons (except those from coastal Florida or other areas where the climate changes are already significant) steadfastly deny the science and ignore the dangers because facing them might cost money and maybe votes. 

Science isn’t God. That’s why science proceeds by experiments and studies. But certain facts do appear true: that certain substances are harmful to human health and our environment, for example. We can reasonably argue about the benefits/harms of GMO’s; but mercury in our rivers, plastic in our oceans, sugar and trans fats in our food, tobacco in our lungs, and oil byproducts in our water wells are obviously not helpful. Yet “political” decisions erode our protections against those things. 

Will recognizing the lies of politicians and corporate advertisers in one area revive a bit of our old frontier cynicism and remind us that there’s a reason judges and scientific journals insist on facts, backed with more facts? Will Trump, by performing a grotesque exaggeration of political denial of reality, undermine Republicans’ or politicians’ credibility generally?

No. This is what I hope, not what I expect. More likely we’ll descend further into partisan bickering, rooting so passionately for “our side” that truth is an empty candy wrapper getting trampled in the grandstands. That although disgust with Trump will likely unseat him in November, establishment politicians in both parties will shy away from seriously addressing climate change because, well, gee, uhh, we’ve just absorbed such an economic hit, we can’t tackle that too. At best, the government will undo some of Trump’s more poisonous actions regarding our environment, food, and water; and maybe the virus will have taught us we need a more equitable health system open to all, as some other countries have. 

A guy can hope, can’t he? And we can try!

                                             - 30 -- 

[The above column appeared this morning, Sunday, 19 April 2020, in the Las Cruces Sun-News, as well as on the newspaper's website the Sun-News's website and on KRWG's website.  A spoken version will air during the week on KRWG and on KTAL, 101.5 FM (www.lccommunityradio.org), and will be available to on demand  at KRWG's website.]

 [btw, people keep asking me whether any of the folks from that gathering discussed in last week's column accepted my invitation to call me on radio to discuss their views.  Answer is [unsurprisingly] no.  Or, "not yet."  They have another chance Wednesday, although we'll be talking about County Clerk Democratic primary from 8-9 and then talking with Lieutenant-Governor Howie Morales from 9:20 until perhaps the close of the show.  "Speak Up, Las Cruces!"] on KTAL -- (575) 426-5825 (526-KTAL).

[particularly liked this comment received from a friend regarding the above Sun-News column:

Thanks for the excellent article on our current fad of deliberate ignorance.  My grandma lived her 80 years in a hollow in the Blue Ridge mountains and farmed 26 years after grandpa died.  She repeatedly used a basic philosophy of respecting the “balance of nature”.  Although she was a backwoods Baptist she respected nature and her farm was “fruitful” every year.

My favorite science is Ecology because it approaches the world the way grandma did.  The earth has a wealth of wisdom to help us if we’re smart enough to “look and see” that everything is connected to everything else!

Our billionaires have no respect for either their fellow creatures or the planet that sustains us and their political snake oil whores simply go for the fast buck.

Science and nature be damned, grab that money and leave all the damage repair to the non billionaires! ]

[I would say nothing about the photo above, except that it's an excuse to thank our artist friend, Georgina Feltha,   The shadow is not of a passing hawk, but of a bird at the top of a neat sculpture of hers.  The pumpkin-looking things on the bench had caught my eye before, in the late-afternoon light, but yesterday my wife had moved the sculpture a bit, unintentionally creating this odd combination that suggests a mam bird and her eggs -- in some parallel universe that required Georgina, my wife, and I to collaborate unintentionally.
The second photo, of the hummingbird at the penstemon, I just happened to take this morning a few minutes after reading my friend's comment on nature and ecology.]