Trust Science

When Biden took office, he promised to trust science. Now, of course, he doesn't actually mean that. What he means is that he will trust science when he concurs and ignore it when he doesn't. He'll trust the science that says we're in a global climate crisis and ignore the science that says fetuses are people, too. He'll trust the science that says that you can have a different gender than your biological one (what science?) and ignore the science that says you can't. To be fair, this isn't about Biden. We all do this. We give a nod to -- even pick up to throw in your face -- the science with which we agree and pooh-pooh the stuff we don't.

This isn't as outlandish as one might think. Consider, first, the definition of science. Science is an accepted way to explain nature. It is by definition a process of experimentation. People tout science as superior to faith because science claims to be fallible, always correcting itself. Take up this theory; reject that one. So a discipline that claims to operate solely on facts and admits to being quite possibly wrong seems like a good thing. Except that being quite possibly wrong by its own admission suggests that there is room to accept some and discard others.

Science has limitations. Science is limited to the physical world. If there is a spiritual world (and there is evidence that there is), science has nothing to say about it. Science can tell you the lifecycle of, say, an orca without commenting on the morality of its lifestyle -- hunting and killing for pleasure. Science has a really tough time proving a negative since the only way to do so is to eliminate all other possibilities. And in the case of a spiritual world, that leaves some big possibilities, doesn't it? Science can only describe what it sees; it can't tell the ramifications. Like, "This vaccine should prevent you from getting that disease" without actually knowing what else that vaccine will do.

Science has one other quite serious limitation. It is operated by human beings. So in our efforts to discover, to examine, to analyze, to come to conclusions, there can be and generally are competing agendas. It is quite common, for instance, for researchers to be somewhat less than entirely honest when they publish. They word their papers to bias the results, hide some data that might bring them into question, and even falsify other data to prove their point. Science tries to minimize this, but it's still run by humans and, therefore, subject to human failings.

So, let's take an example. Everyone knows that "the science says" that we are experiencing global climate change. All need to bow to the master. The first guy that loudly sounded the alarm was Al Gore who traveled the country (in private jets) and visited places (in SUVs) to warn everyone to repent or burn (almost literally) because of global warming. Given the truth about his own travel methods and living arrangements during his campaign to save the world suggest that he didn't "believe the science" he was touting.

Science has value, to be sure, but science is a poor deity. We're supposed to trust the science that proclaims and demonstrates that it changes continually and submit to the studies that vary and even self-consiously lie and do it all without question. "Trust science" is the demand ... from many who aren't doing so themselves. I work in a scientific field and find worth in science, but I think it's idiocy to trust science alone. In fact, that version of "trust science" appears to be more of a faith -- a credulity, a blind trust -- than a rational "trusting science" with eyes open for errors, limitations, and deviations.