"The good thing about science is that it's true whether or not you believe in it" —Neil deGrasse Tyson

By DR. CAMERON BARROWS

People who know me well know that as a strict practice, I stay away from politics. As central as politics are to a functioning democracy, the open willingness of (some, and perhaps many) politicians to stray from facts, proven truths, tells me that they are willing to operate within a very different moral code than I do.

Science is a search for truth about the world we live in. That certainly doesn’t mean that anything done under the umbrella of science is automatically true. Science is conducted by humans and humans have foibles, contradicting motivations, and biases whether they acknowledge them or not. So, scientists are not perfect, but science is the best way yet devised for understanding the world around us. The process of conducting science depends on random and robust (many) independent samples. Time and funding can limit just how random and how many samples are analyzed.

For instance, if I was interested in whether lizards are shifting to higher elevations in response to a warming climate, I could pick a trail and survey the distribution of lizards over a period sufficient to encompass warming conditions. But that would only tell me what was happening on that one trail and still might be limited by my ability to tally all the lizards living along that trail. It would not give me the ability to generalize how lizards are responding on other trails across a particular region in response to their changing environment. However, if I surveyed many trails with lots of observers the resulting data would provide a platform for generalizing across a region.  

Over time, things presented as scientific “hypotheses” are rigorously tested by independent scientists, verified or rejected, and so eventually deemed true or false. If proven broadly true, these hypotheses can become theories (e.g., the theory of gravity, of light behaving simultaneously as both a particle and a wave, of natural selection in the development of new species). That is the scientific method. Subjects particularly important to our health, or our planet’s health, get extra scrutiny.

Results of a recent Yahoo poll about politics and science was particularly dismaying as they pertain to both the state of American politics and the understanding of science by Americans. Granted this was a Yahoo poll, so participants were motivated Yahoo users wanting to engage in such a poll and its topics, not a random cross section of America. There was no effort to test the results with a different audience. The poll asked whether those taking the poll believed the statement regarding current science (was it true?) and then asked for their preference for the next U.S. President of the two leading candidates.  

Here are the results (the parenthetical percentages separate those believing it to be a true statement by their presidential preference):

1. COVID-19 vaccines are more harmful than the virus itself (55% vs. 8%) 

2. Climate change is being used for imposing totalitarian controls on society (68% vs. 7%) 

3. Prozac and other antidepressants have led to a rise in school shootings (35% vs. 12%) 

4. Vaccines cause autism (25% vs. 5%) 

5. Chemicals in the water supply could turn children transgender (8% vs. 4%).

All these topics have received intense scientific scrutiny, and none have more than fringe scientific support. The results do not speak well for the understanding of science by many of those who took the poll and the information they are being provided by their preferred presidential candidate. That there were no zeros indicating that, regardless of their political leanings, never did 100% of the people on one side or the other of the political aisle hold these statements to be untrue does not speak well for their ability to discern real versus fake information. Science provides a mechanism for determining what is true whether you want it to be or not.

Inserting science or science denial and eschewing its hypotheses and theories as a measure of allegiance to one candidate or another is particularly disconcerting. In another of Neil deGrasse Tyson’s statements he said just that, that using one’s denial of science or a scientific finding as a litmus test of allegiance to a candidate, or citing minority-held, discredited scientific findings as a rationalization for stating that scientists are not in agreement, means “nothing moves forward.” Actions to reduce atmospheric carbon dioxide toward early industrial revolution levels have become political cartoons. Rising sea levels are already lapping at the foundations of the world’s coastal cities and island nations. Desert species are trying to shift to higher elevations – if they are available. In some cases, like for Joshua trees and Blainville’s horned lizards in Joshua Tree National Park, they are already pressed against the local elevation “ceiling” and have nowhere else to go. Efforts to immunize us against the next pandemic will be slowed and people we care about, and people who may have unique insights for solving problems at global scales may succumb.

One long-term solution is to develop a critical thinking curriculum appropriate for each grade level, kindergarten through high school. An example is using multiple, independent sources of information, rather than relying on one source with a vested interest in your agreement with them. Then, eventually, perhaps our litmus test for earning our vote will be an honest, science-based assessment of the problems and solutions facing our cities, states, nation, and planet. Our vote then will be based on the candidate’s solutions, not a denial or obfuscation of the problem.

Until then, don’t talk to me about politics.

Nullius in verba – Go outside, tip your hat to a chuckwalla (and a cactus), and think like a mountain