Is It Science?

How do you carve a statue of an elephant?  Start with a block of stone and chip away everything that is not elephant.  Science is like that.  The elephant is truth; science is the chipping away.  Scientists are the carvers, chiseling different parts of the stone block at once, testing and repeating each other’s findings, remodeling as new evidence emerges, and accepting the image that finally appears.  Science is more verb than noun.  It’s not the science; it’s just science.

You can’t predict what science will reveal hidden in the stone block.  Even after the block is partially carved, you can’t be certain about important details that are still hidden from view.  Science doesn’t reveal truth until scientists have finished their work, and that work cannot be rushed.

True science is open source.  It invites questions, dissent, and transparency.  True science is not condescending.  True science can be understood by people with common intelligence.  More than anything, true science is honest.  When you identify misstatements, half-truths, or “believe me because I know better than you,” it doesn’t necessarily mean someone is trying to rob you, but it does necessarily mean you are not dealing with science. 

And this is the point.  Today’s intemperate rhetoric claiming to be science isn’t science at all.

I don’t have all the answers, but I recognize the absence of science in statements of leaders who say, “This is a pandemic of the unvaccinated.”  The wisdom of universal vaccination, the benefits of vaccine mandates, the rejection of natural immunity have not been established scientifically.  The use of ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine as prophylactics and early treatments have not been disproven scientifically.  Yet there is an unrestrained rush to incorporate these ideas into the dogma of previously unimpeachable institutions and into our public health policies.  It makes me sad.  It makes me fearful for our future.