“The Science(TM)” & “Settled Science” aren’t science

They’re oxymoronic nonsense

(from Greek oxymōron, (adj.) "pointedly foolish," from oxys "sharp, pointed" + mōros "stupid")

By Philip Derrow

I’m not a scientist, physician, or engineer. I don’t have a Masters, PhD, or any other academic credentials beyond my undergraduate Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration. Cue the sophomoric BS jokes.

So, what makes me think I’m qualified to opine on such a weighty topic? I’ll credit my family, my primary and secondary education in what was then called Columbus Public Schools and a lifelong passion for learning. Mostly, I’ll credit the evidence.

First, a little background. I’m the youngest of five children and grew up in a family where argument and debate was our sport. I learned early on that everyone wasn’t entitled to their opinion — we were only entitled to opinions for which we had some sound basis of support. My father was an army medic in WWII, and after college, he went to work as a laboratory parasitologist before deciding to support his rapidly growing family in a business career.  His brother became a physician, as did my two oldest brothers and three of their children. I’ve been ensconced in the principles and practices of science and medicine my entire life. That still doesn’t make me a doc, though it does often make me a challenging patient as most docs only have limited time for my unlimited questions.

I loved learning and wanted to understand how everything worked. Science and math always made sense. I learned, and still remember, the Krebs Cycle, all the major muscles and bones, the periodic table, laws of motion and thermodynamics, and innumerable arcana of the physical and biological sciences. When Ohio’s former health director gesticulated during a news conference about the SARS CoV-2 virus multiplying on surfaces I knew she was wrong not because my credentials are superior to hers — but because I remembered from my grade school biology that viruses need a host to reproduce.

Most importantly, I learned what science is — and what it isn’t. My oldest brother was one of the early adopters of what became known as Evidence-Based Medicine (EBM), and over the too few decades of our adulthood together, I learned what that meant. I think he’d be appalled by what passes for EBM today, especially the nonsensical addition of a “+” at the end to allow those without evidence to imply otherwise.

Science is a process, not an outcome. It is defined not by experts or their opinions, but by objective, repeatable and predictive evidence. It is one of the greatest gifts of the Scientific Revolution and The Enlightenment that ushered in a period of unprecedented growth of knowledge, understanding and prosperity — more than at any other time in human history.

Certainty is the mortal enemy of science. We can be certain of nothing but what we can prove (and what others can repeat) and even that must be assumed to be subject to rejection or revision. Just as important is recognizing who has the burden of proof.  When scientists, public health officials, or physicians make bold claims of certainty, especially when seeking to impose their views on others, it is they, and not those who question them, who have the burden of proof. As Carl Sagan often said, Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

Einstein’s theories of Relativity and Special Relativity upended our previous understanding of both the macro realms of space and time as well as the micro interactions of sub-atomic particles. But they aren’t true because Einstein said so; they are true (for now) because the evidence from hundreds of experiments and observations from scientists, mathematicians, and even laypeople proves them to be true, while none of those seeking to disprove them succeeded in doing so. That’s how science works best and how it results in actionable knowledge people can trust. Most of us trust that the GPS chip in our phone or car accurately tells us how to get to our destination. But the reason we can rely on these devices is because of Relativity corrections built into the clocks on the satellites orbiting our planet.

What does any of this have to do with many of the challenges we face today? Done right, science and evidence-based medicine can inform policy makers and the public on questions as diverse as those related to climate change, the SARS CoV-2 pandemic and the support of children with gender confusion, non-conformity or dysphoria. Done wrong — as when Anthony Fauci claims that criticizing him is the same as attacking science itself because, he said, “I represent science”— it is little more than politicized nonsense — or worse. Extraordinary claims and equally extraordinary interventions are routinely being made and imposed, often with little or weak evidence. Meanwhile, those who point out contrary high quality evidence and consequential trade-offs and uncertainties are presumptively silenced as unqualified to challenge the officially designated experts or merely pejoratively labeled as “deniers”.

My knowledge of science and medicine is best described as a mile wide and an inch deep. When my needs or interests warrant, I can usually go a few inches deeper to gain enough understanding to at least be reasonably well-informed. As a pilot, I know how airplanes fly and I probably have a better understanding of wind and weather than non-pilots. I’m still not an aeronautical engineer or meteorologist and don’t claim to be. Every expert in their respective field knows more about it than I do. I usually know enough to ask reasonably relevant questions. When the answers are any version of "that’s what ‘The ScienceTM’ says” or “it’s ‘settled science’,” those experts either don’t know the actual evidence or they’re being patronizingly arrogant — neither of which are useful for policymakers, patients, or the general public (except for those unable or unwilling to make informed decisions.) Those who defend their decision-making on the basis of expert opinion rather than objective evidence are committing the Appeal to Authority logical fallacy. Delegating policy making to experts over evidence is a recipe for bad science used to inform bad policy unsupported by the evidence. Unfortunately, that’s exactly what we’ve done with most of the challenges we currently face.

A related consequence of this sort of Appeal to Authority delegation results from our natural tendency toward tribalism and confirmation bias. When we don’t know enough or are unwilling to ask probing questions of the “experts,” our trust in them, or lack thereof, is determined as much — or if not more — by which team we think they play for over any evidence they present. Once we’ve made our choice, we mostly seek to reinforce, rather than to challenge our views. Adding a fear component to the mix — by overstating the risks to our kids, for example — not only tightens our attachment to our team but increases our disdain for the “other.” Our inability to resolve so many of our current challenges is best understood from this perspective. The rise of the internet and social media only exacerbated these tendencies. The exponential increase in information availability combined with the increasing polarization of information sources makes it even more difficult and time-consuming to become well-informed, even for those determined to do so. And it makes it even more simple to never step outside of our own team’s echo chamber. Watching the reporting heat up over the past couple of weeks regarding gas stovetops provided an excellent example of the problem.

We are all navigating these waters together even though we’re too often doing so as ships passing in the night. Part of the solution to this particular challenge is to treat any use of “The ScienceTM” or “settled science” as the oxymoronic abominations they are and to assume those who use such terms don’t know what they’re talking about or don’t trust us with the truth. If they think they’re Jack Nicholson’s Col. Jessup in “A Few Good Men” and don’t think we can handle the truth, we need to be more like Tom Cruise’s LT. Kaffee and demand it anyway. Even if that truth is just uncertainty, we have a right to know it.