5/12/20
We have to follow the science!
That I didn’t include that tired and largely meaningless
expression in my inaugural post of 2020 (See ACTUALLY,
WOULD THESE WORDS AND EXPRESSIONS THINK OUTSIDE THE BOX, MAN UP, AND LEVERAGE
THEIR AWESOMENESS TO LITERALLY, OR AT LEAST BASICALLY, DIE AN OLD SCHOOL DEATH?,
1/2/20) is surely one of the few shortcomings of this blog. We are incessantly hearing, almost exclusively
from Democrats, that, whatever the issue, we must FOLLOW THE
SCIENCE. That this admonition comes
from a political party that assumes it somehow has a monopoly on science while completely
ignoring the science of anatomy when determining one’s gender is
especially presumptuously fatuous, but I digress.
In the current understandably COVID obsessed world, this tread-worn
admonition is incessantly trotted out to warn us that we must keep economic
activity to the bare minimum, hunkering down in our own homes, slowly, but increasingly
quickly, going crazy, because “the scientists” say we must do so to fight the
coronavirus. While certainly not completely wrong, such a purely
“science based” approach to COVID, along with the perennial gormless admonition
to “follow the science” whence this seeming imperative sprung, is faulty for at
least two reasons. First, the
insistence that “science” must always prevail assumes that science is, well, an
exact science, that there is no dissent in the scientific community about
whatever “science” determines is the right approach. Science comes up with an answer and that
is THE answer. Unlike in the social
sciences, there is no disagreement in the physical sciences, only exact answers
on which anybody with a scientific background must agree.
This is nonsense.
There is plenty of disagreement in the scientific community, whatever
that is, about just about every issue in science beyond the basics. One of the major reasons scientific journals
exist is to serve as forums for scientists in particular branches of study to mull
over and debate various ideas regarding the physical world. One could argue that one of the very
foundations of science is the espousing of alternative hypotheses that can then
be tested using, you guessed it, the scientific method. There is plenty of room for disagreement in the
realm of the physical sciences.
Fortunately, such disagreements do not usually become the grounds for
gratuitous ad hominem attacks, as do disagreements in the pompously monikered
social sciences, but disagreements among physical scientists over purely scientific
topics do become vociferous at times.
And that is okay if it leads to further scientific discovery.
In our current situation, we are told to believe that the
science is settled, that until we get a vaccine and/or other types of
amelioratives, we must practice the type of social distancing and social
isolation that all but cripples our economy.
That is our only hope, we are told, in our fight against the coronavirus,
and if we don’t lock down and do what the politicians, using scientists as cover,
tell us to do, we are surely headed toward a resurgence of COVID-19 that will be
at least as vicious as the round from which we are currently showing signs of
emerging.
Maybe that is true.
But maybe it’s not. It’s not
settled science that gradually, or even more speedily, opening up the economy will
surely lead to a medical dystopia from which we have little hope of emerging. We have been shown various models of this disease’s
progression and they show widely varying outcomes of widely varying approaches
to the disease. And we are frequently
told one thing and then its opposite with great rapidity and with similar
scientific justification. We were told
that those who have contracted and survived COVID-19 develop immunity. Then we were told they don’t. We were told that only N-95 masks are
useful against transmission of the disease.
Then we were told that surgical masks and home-made masks offer plenty
of protection and that we must wear them.
We were told that young people are not as prone to the disease as older
people. Then we were told they
were. We were told that antibody
testing, and antibody treatments, might be useful against the virus, and then
we were told that they might not be useful.
This is not to suggest that either side of any of these arguments is
right or wrong; such back and forth and changing one’s conclusions is just the
normal process of scientific testing and discovery. This process is messy and not nearly as
exact as those who are constantly telling us to “follow the science” (but only,
strangely, when doing so comports with their political, rather than their scientific,
policy prescriptions) insist it is.
The second reason that the admonition to exclusively “follow
the science” regarding COVID is faulty is that developing an approach to COVID
from an overall societal/economic point of view is, like just about everything
in life, a cost/benefit analysis. Even if the doctors and scientists were in
complete agreement on all things COVID-19, medical and epidemiological science
can only, at best, provide half that analysis; it can give us an idea of the benefit
of a “hunkering down” approach or the cost of an “open it up”
approach. Medical science is not
capable of giving us an idea of the economic, psychological, and sociological
costs of “hunkering down” approach or the similar benefits of an “open it up”
approach. Some have suggested that we consult
the economists on these legs of the cost/benefit analysis that is involved in
developing an approach to COVID. Economists
would indeed be useful in such an application.
However, though economists like to flatter themselves by calling
themselves “social scientists,” as if economics were a science on a par with,
say, physics or chemistry, economics is fun and instructive but is not a science
in any but the loosest sense of the term; economics is, rather, common sense put to (too many) numbers. It lacks the exactitude of the physical sciences,
even the limited exactitude, if such an expression makes sense, described
above. So, yes, economists should be
consulted, but so should business people, investors, and typical workers. Wisdom on such, and on just about all,
matters is best gained in the practice of such matters, so let’s consult those
who actually participate in the economy and the society we are trying to
salvage in designing an approach to the coronavirus and its aftermath. That, of course, leaves out the politicians,
by the way, and not unintentionally.
As they use the coronavirus, as they use everything else, as just
another excuse to tell us how wonderful and selfless they are, the politicians
merely provide further evidence of how little they know.
So, yes, the application of science, especially medical
science, is absolutely imperative in approaching COVID-19 which is, at its
base, a medical problem. However, let’s
not pretend science is as exact as those who like to use its citation for
political ends would have us believe.
And let’s also not pretend that the approach that would be prescribed by
pure adherence to the tenets of physical science, which themselves are debatable
in application, is the optimal solution to a problem that transcends the physical
sciences.
Thanks, Patty!
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