Sometimes it is easy to see why a person, group or organisation holds a particular view, for they may have a particular motive or vested interest. For example, if a representative of the tobacco industry tells you that smoking is not really harmful and that the health risks are exaggerated, then you should rightly dismiss what they say. After all, they would say that, wouldn’t they? But all too often people mistakenly apply this same reasoning when they don’t need to. For example, if a climatologist says that Earth’s climate is changing rapidly and that we need to modify our lifestyles to prevent catastrophic consequences, a climate change denier will often counter with, “Well, of course they would say that.… They’re in the pay of ‘x’ ” (where ‘x’ could be an environmental group or green energy company, or just perceived liberal academia).
I am not denying that in certain cases this cynicism may be justified, for we can all think of examples of research that is funded for ideologically driven or profit-driven motives. And we must also be wary of so-called data dredging—also known as ‘p-hacking’—whereby analysis of data is misused deliberately in order to find something that can be presented as statistically significant, then only reporting those cherry-picked conclusions
Even while we find ourselves in a postmodern world of cultural relativism, the internet, and social media in particular, is driving society towards ever-increasing polarisation of opinions on all manner of cultural and political issues, and we are expected to pick sides, with each one making a claim on the ‘truth’. When a blatantly untrue assertion, motivated by a particular ideological belief, holds sway over an undeniable fact or over knowledge supported by reliable evidence, we see the phenomenon of post-truth politics in action. On social media, it is most often seen linked to conspiracy theories or in the pronouncements of populist leaders or demagogues. Sadly, this irrational way of thinking has infected many people’s attitudes more generally, including their views towards science, and we often see claims on social media that opinion is more valid than evidence.
How many times have you gotten into an argument with a friend, colleague or family member—or, even worse, with a stranger on social media—and stated what you thought was a clear-cut fact, only to hear the response, “Well, that’s your view”, or “That’s one way of looking at it”? These responses—often polite, sometimes aggressive—are examples of the insidious and disturbingly common phenomenon of ‘post-truth’. Defined by the Oxford Dictionary as “relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief,” post-truth has become so prevalent that the term was ‘word of the year’ in 2016. Have we moved too far away from objective truth, to the extent that even proven facts about the world can be conveniently dismissed if we don’t like them?
Science, unlike politics, is not an ideology or belief system. It is a process. And we know that politicians base policy decisions on more than just the scientific evidence. So even if the science is clear-cut, when it comes to the complexity of human behaviour, decision-making is never value-free. Nor, I have to admit with some reluctance, should it be.
Scientific progress has undoubtedly made our lives immeasurably easier and more comfortable. With the knowledge that has been revealed through science, we have been able to cure diseases, create smartphones and send space missions to the outer Solar System. But this success can sometimes have the adverse effect of giving people false hope and unrealistic expectations. Many can be so blinded by the success of science that they will believe any report or marketing trick that sounds remotely ‘scientific’, whatever the source and however bogus the product may be. This is not their fault, for it is not always straightforward to tell the difference between real scientific evidence and misleading marketing based on unscientific notions.
And even if the researchers themselves don’t have biases or motives, then their paymasters and funders will. Needless to say, I find such an appraisal overly cynical. While those who carry out the science, or indeed those who pay their salaries, will almost inevitably not be value-free, the scientific knowledge that they gain should be. And this is because of the way the scientific method works: self-correcting, building on firm foundations of what has already been established as factually correct, being subject to scrutiny and falsification, reliant on reproducibility, and so on.
A democratized science can help to protect against the emergence of dogma, whereby an entire community of scientists in a particular field accepts a set of assumptions or ideas as being absolute without ever questioning them further, to the extent that dissenting voices are suppressed or dismissed. However, there is an important distinction to be made between dogma and consensus, for sometimes the two can be confused. Established scientific ideas have earned the right to be widely accepted and trusted, even though they could one day be improved upon or replaced, because they have so far survived the myriad and diverse questions and tests to which they’ve been subjected.
In fact, a true conspiracy theorist sees any evidence as bolstering his or her preexisting views. In contrast, a scientist takes the opposite approach. We change our minds in the light of new data, because we are trained to shun the absolute certainty of the zealot who insists that only white swans exist.
Firstly, contrary to what many people think, science is not a collection of facts about the world. That is called ‘knowledge’. Rather, science is a way of thinking and making sense of the world, which can then lead to new knowledge. There are, of course, many routes to gaining knowledge and insight, whether through art, poetry and literature, religious texts, philosophical debate, or through contemplation and reflection. That said, however, if you want to know about how the world really is—what physicists like me sometimes refer to as the ‘true nature of reality’—then science has a big advantage, for it relies on the ‘scientific method’.
Certainly, the race to understand the SARS-CoV-2 virus and to find ways of defeating it have highlighted the fact that humanity cannot survive without science.
Though there will always be those who fear science and treat it with suspicion, I see among the vast majority of the world’s population a new appreciation for and trust in the scientific method, as ever more people realize that the fate of humanity rests not so much in the hands of politicians, economists or religious leaders, but in the knowledge that we gain about the world through science.