From the other side: Writing about Science
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| Seen this a few times in the past couple years |
The major focus of this blog has been information, misinformation and how we as individuals sift through it all. Then once filtered we make a decision. I have not focused on the provider of the information. To be blunt, given a particular topic and associated information a poor decision is on you. As the responsible person it is up to you (or me) be properly informed and come to a correct decision. Over the years there has been many controversial topics affecting our daily lives.
I remember when mandatory seat belt usage was proposed. Oh my the horror this was going to reap on society. I vaguely recall being in a movie theater and seeing a short documentary on seat belts and the danger of their usage. Crash test dummies were seat belted into cars and various accidents were simulated. The result of each crash were dismemberment of the dummies caused by the seat belts. To this day I am not sure whether or not this was satire or a true documentary. I was mostly annoyed that the feature film was not running. I think it was a James Bond movie (possibly Live and let Die). In fact most of the simulated accidents were done at such a high rate of speed that seat belts and air bags would be of little help. It is well established that seat belts save lives and if you chose to go without one the consequences are on you.
I am writing about the sources of information due to an article I came across this week. It popped up in my Facebook feed. The article was from The Atlantic and was titled Why it's so hard to write about science . Unfortunately you only get a couple views before you get locked out and have to get a subscription to the magazine to read it again. Fortunately the details within the article are not of much importance. This article is a overview of a couple books that are about a similar topic. In this case scientific reporting about the pandemic. I have included links to the 2 main sources of information at the bottom of this post.
What I am interested in is the main theme of the Atlantic's article, Is it really that difficult to write about science? My first thought is no of course not. One of the first comments in the article is "the science refused to stay still" My reply to that is a big fat DUH. Of course it doesn't stay still. That is the very nature of science. It is always evolving, progressing and being challenged. If it was static would would not be flying in airplanes, our houses would be illuminated with oil lamps and we would travel to the market in a horse and buggy. Scientific advances in aerodynamics, electricity, the internal combustion engine and many others allow us many of the conveniences we enjoy today.
The whirlwind of scientific information produced in the early days of covid were due to its impact and its abrupt emergence. Who knows how many government agencies were fully focused on it. How many pharmaceutical companies were trying to produce cures and vaccines. In the early days of covid we were inundated with updates that literally came out hourly. To mask or not to mask, 6 feet apart, stay home, eat in a bubble, do not allow any travel, the list of informational categories was endless. With all this focus it would be impossible to produce any kind of "point in time" status covid. Anyone who tried to address this as a static entity would likely fail.
The other thought in the article was the "heightened mistrust of expertise". The Atlantic article lays most of the blame for this at the feet of the Trump administration. The article immediately references Deborah Brix's retelling of Trumps musing about injecting disinfectant to kill the virus. When it comes to misinformation politicians generally have a lot to answer for. However we do not usually rely on them for detailed factual information. I also think the scientific community bears some of the responsibility for misinformation and distrust.
From my perspective here are 2 main "mistakes" from the scientific community. First, there seemed to be an underlying message that science was going fix or solve this crisis. I do not think the scientific community is fully to blame for this attitude. Many people were offering solutions. Our President told us it would simply go away in a couple months. We had other experts telling us to use Ivermectin. The scientific community is not fully responsible for this attitude but I do not recall them doing much to dispel this either. Our lifetimes of dealing with the flu and the common cold should give us some appreciation of the resilience of viruses.
The second mistake is represented in the phrase "Trust the Science". This phrase implies that Science is static. The first part of this post was about how this is not the case. Science is not static. Scientists themselves are always questioning and challenging the status quo. That is essence of how science helps society progress. A better phrase may have been "trust the scientific process". This idea of a process could have been exemplified during the lockdown. There were a lot of reasons for the lockdown such as flatten the curve. The problem was there was no end game, no criteria for it to be complete. This lead people to distrust and the eventual conspiracy theories.
What should have been done for the lockdown to be laid out in a series of steps leading to a process. So for example the lockdown could have begun with a 2 week window. During the 2 week window scientific efforts would have focused on transmissions. How the virus is transmitted, airborne, on surfaces, body fluids or what ever. This could have then lead to decisions regarding masking and social distancing. Now people could take information and made decisions regarding social interaction. Maybe the first 2 weeks could have focused on who was most vulnerable and how to protect them. the idea would have been a series of steps and more importantly a series of results that would have guided society through the process. People would have been part of the process and seen the progression of the scientific process and maybe have bought into it.
David Quammen; Breathless: The scientific Race to Defeat a Deadly Virus
As a side note the links above are for amazon to purchase the books. If you are like me and very cost conscience use the app called cloud library and an online library card.
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