Science is not some grand tome we can consult to
get the ‘right’ answer.
According
to David Blunkett, a former senior cabinet minister in Tony Blair’s
governments, attempts to have a blanket lockdown on the over-70s are
discriminatory. He believes that the current ‘shielding’ rules are too crude
and need to be more nuanced. Whatever
the merits of his ideas, his comments on the scientific advice that the
government is receiving are interesting.
Speaking on
BBC Radio 4’s The World at One on
28 April, Blunkett argued that the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies
(SAGE) has a problem. Drawing on Matthew Syed’s book, Rebel Ideas,
he said that ‘major mistakes in the recent past have been made by people of
similar ilk, similar ideas, similar background, similar thinking being
considered the only experts that you could draw down on. And I’d like RAGE – a
Recovery Advisory Group – that had a very much broader swathe of advice and
expertise to draw down on.’
The dangers
of listening to a small pool of experts with orthodox thinking was also pointed
to by a former chief scientific adviser, Sir David King. Reacting to reports
that Boris Johnson’s senior adviser, Dominic Cummings, may have pushed SAGE to
back the current lockdown, King told Bloomberg: ‘There is a
herd instinct in all of us – we call it groupthink. It is possible that a group
is influenced by a particularly influential person.’
Other leading scientific figures have criticised
the idea that the government’s policies are based on science. Professor
Devi Sridhar, chair of global public health at the University of
Edinburgh, told the Guardian:
‘As a scientist, I hope I
never again hear the phrase “based on the best science and evidence” spoken by
a politician. This phrase has become basically meaningless and used to explain
anything and everything.’
The
same article quotes Professor Mark Woolhouse, an infectious-disease
epidemiologist at the University of Edinburgh: ‘I do think scientific advice is
driven far too much by epidemiology – and I’m an epidemiologist. What we’re not
talking about in the same formal, quantitative way are the economic costs, the
social costs, the psychological costs of being under lockdown. I understand
that the government is being advised by economists, psychiatrists and others,
but we’re not seeing what that science is telling them. I find that very
puzzling.’
All these
comments and more point to one of the most striking aspects of the Covid-19 crisis. For many years now,
politicians – largely bereft of any wider purpose or philosophical principle –
have claimed that they are pursuing ‘evidence-based policy’ and being ‘led by
The Science’. In reality, science is a process of trying to draw together
tentative conclusions driven by experiment and observation. Claiming authority
from The Science – as if there were a grand tome you could simply open up to
find the correct answer – is just wrong.
As Professor Brian Cox told Andrew Marr
this week: ‘There’s no such thing as The Science, which is a key lesson. If you hear a politician say “we’re following The
Science”, then what that means is they don’t really understand what science is.
There isn’t such a thing as The Science. Science is a mindset.’
With
widely publicised disagreements about everything from computer models to the
use of face masks, it is clear that we need to move beyond the idea that we can
rely on scientists coming to a cosy consensus. Science works – at its best –
through the accumulation of evidence, an openness to new theories, and a
willingness to challenge and be challenged.
It’s
great that these principles are being restated. Funnily enough, though, this
wasn’t the reaction we saw over Michael Gove’s much-half-quoted comment during
the EU referendum – that the public has ‘had enough of experts’. (In fact, he
said: ‘I think the people of this country have had enough of experts
from organisations with acronyms saying they know what is best, and getting it
consistently wrong.’) The trouble with politicians, we were told by Remain-supporting
types, is that they don’t listen to the cool, rational views of experts nearly
enough. Now that it seems that experts might be blamed for the deaths of tens
of thousands of people, the expertise cheerleaders are reversing out of that
position, pronto.
Actually,
the public never gave up on experts. We’re only too happy to find out about the
latest scientific understanding of the virus, how soon we might have a
treatment or a vaccine, and so on. What some have taken issue with is the
politicisation of expertise. An
unholy alliance of politicians and a selected band of experts, whose views suit
the current needs of government, have often in recent years told us what ‘The
Science says’ and urged critics to just shut up – over issues from passive
smoking to climate change. To disagree with the experts was, and is, to be a
‘denier’, and should lead to the perpetrator’s expulsion from public life and
even private career.
Even giving
a platform to a critical voice is beyond the pale. For example, when the former
chancellor of the exchequer and climate-change sceptic, Nigel Lawson, appeared
on Radio 4’s Today back in 2017, it was Cox who tweeted: ‘Irresponsible
and highly misleading to give the impression that there is a meaningful debate
about the science.’ Cox certainly seemed to believe that there is a thing
called The Science three years ago.
We need to get beyond a simple black-and-white
view of science and expertise. The question is not whether we
should believe experts, but how we understand expertise. Each
and every claim needs to be treated with scepticism (not cynicism) and we need
to be clear about the limits of each claim.
To
go back to Blunkett’s points, it really does seem that the over-70s are at
greater risk from Covid-19 than younger people. That doesn’t mean it
necessarily makes sense to keep them under house arrest and separated from
their families indefinitely. That’s a judgement that involves questions of
physical and mental health, autonomy, pleasure and much more.
Carbon
dioxide may be heating our planet. But the wilder claims about an overheating
planet and eco-geddon need to be understood in the context of, for example, the
assumptions made by computer models – some of which are actually very
overheated themselves. Moreover, even if we are heading for a much warmer
world, abandoning fossil fuels for a ‘Net Zero’ future seems to many people
(including me) very likely to cause much more harm than global warming. These
are matters for public debate. They should not be closed down because of The
Science.
In the midst of a health
crisis, hopefully we are now developing a proper and very healthy scepticism
towards experts.
Rob Lyons is
science and technology director at the Academy
of Ideas and a spiked columnist.
