Why “Trusting the Science” Is Complicated
It feels to me like "science" has become something of a religion unto itself. We started out with the well and good ability of science and engineering to understand some things and produce revolutionary useful goods. Now it seems like other fields where such principles aren't really applicable have attempted to borrow the trappings of science in order to co-opt the trust that people have given it. The only time a phrase like "trust the science" starts to seem necessary is when this scheme has been found out, and somebody is trying to preserve it.Many of the big society-level issues that we grapple with are more properly questions of economics than science. It's more about how we choose to value various courses of action and potential consequences against each other, and there's rarely a clear, obvious, or simple answer. "Science" can only give us an estimate of what the results of a particular course of action might be, it cannot compare once against another and tell us with certainty which one is better."Trust the science" is usually a rhetorical weapon used by a side that is attempting to show one particular potential outcome as the worst thing imaginable that must be avoided at all costs, but in reality there are rarely things that bad. I'd like to have a world where we can look at the actual science and economic costs of all choices and rationally debate exactly which road to take, but it sure feels like we're only moving further away from that world.