Becoming a “Scientific Nation”

Ethan Siegel has a post at Big Think that might interest you:

In every civilized society around the world, there’s a trade-off that must be made. The protection of individual freedoms, on one hand, enable the people living there to pursue their own goals, dreams, and ideals, whatever they may be. But those pursuits must not infringe on the rights?—?including the health, safety, and general welfare?—?of others. When it comes to issues like the health, safety, and long-term prosperity of our society, there is no greater tool or resource we have to assess them accurately than science.

It might seem like, at the start of 2025, we’re headed in absolutely the wrong direction. Mass firings and layoffs at the NIH, the NSF, the CDC and more, coupled with the installation of a number of prominent anti-science cabinet members, the first deadly measles outbreak among children in a decade, and the USA’s withdrawal (again) from the Paris Climate Agreement all signal a national move away from science.

But this is not new. The fact is that Americans have been resistant to heeding the scientific consensus on matters of public policy for many decades, preferring stances that agree with their ideological preferences instead. This was highlighted in 2020 and beyond, as many refused to mask, vaccinate, or isolate at even the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. This disregard for scientific facts extends even to the vilification of the scientists that find them, resulting in policies that recklessly endanger not only the health and safety of Americans today, but provide new generations with long-term challenges that they’ll need to either reckon with or face the consequences.But hope remains, as we’re just four key steps away from putting America back on the right track. Here’s what we can do.

His “four steps” are

1. Put an end to the “false equivalence” game
2. Make “reckless endangerment” illegal.
3. Value society’s right to benefit from humanity’s accumulated knowledge.
4. Fund science—including basic, fundamental research?—?as a national priority.

Although I agree with his point in the abstract I’m not sure that his “four steps” will accomplish anything.

There are several points I don’t think he recognizes. First, the history of science is littered with cases in which the “scientific consensus” was wrong. At one point or other the scientific consensus was that the sun revolved around the earth; that species could not become extinct; that the shapes and locations of the continents were immutable; that the material world was composed of fire, water, earth, and air; that bad air was the primary cause of disease (the “miasma theory”), and so on. My conclusion from that is that science and scientists are not the same thing.

Related to that is that is impossible to “fund science”. We can only fund scientists and considerable effort is required to ensure that we are not encouraging people to provide grants to their friends or pursuing something other than science rather than to advancing science. Furthermore, no amount of research would have proven the existence of the ether. That’s why I favor funding mass engineering projects over funding basic research. Basically, we’ve gotten better results in basic science from mass engineering programs than we have from funding basic scientific research directly.

I also found this passage amusing:

We have the means, the knowledge, the resources, and the capability of:

• making every municipal water supply in the country safe to drink
• practically eradicating preventable diseases that have resurged (such as measles) in recent years
• supplying 100% of our energy needs with green (nuclear, solar, wind, or other renewable) sources by 2050 or sooner
• drastically curtailing the spread of respiratory diseases, including the flu and COVID-19, in the American population

This:

supplying 100% of our energy needs with green (nuclear, solar, wind, or other renewable) sources by 2050 or sooner

is something I might agree with but I cannot think of a single politician who believes that or, at least, has articulated it in public. Additionally, I think that it is equally true that we could supply 100% of our energy needs with nuclear power but NOT with solar, wind, or other renewable sources. The reasons that an “all of the above” strategy makes sense are cost and expense.

Also, wouldn’t it require vaccinating 100% of the population against, say, measles which I believe is an unachievable goal, to eradicate measles as long as we are admitting unvaccinated individuals from other countries into the United States? To the best of my knowledge only five countries have actually eradicated measles: Bhutan, North Korea, Maldives, Sri Lanka, and Timor-Leste. Two of those are isolated and the other three relatively small islands. Consequently, I’m skeptical we can eradicate them but we might be able to “drastically curtail them”.

At any rate read the whole thing. You’ll find things you agree with and things you’ll disagree with.