Slaves of science

The Third Discourseman

We live in a country where those who are supposed to rule us are themselves ruled. Where politicians and policy makers are simply following orders. And what is it that rules the rulers? That commands the commanders? That barks orders at those who order our society? It is neither man nor machine, neither individual nor state. It’s something bigger and more intangible than that. This master goes by many names. This master is invisible. But those that follow it will alert you to its mastery of them. They’ll tell you outright:

‘We’re just following the science.’

The name changes. Sometimes it’s science. Sometimes mathematics. Sometimes stats. Sometimes data. Sometimes economics. Whatever it’s called, it’s there when big decisions are made. Which is unsurprising, given it’s the one making the big decisions.

‘When we make you wear face-masks/enforce social distancing/make you get a vaccine/make policies around climate change/protect the elderly from dying/raise (or lower) taxes/mandate this/demand that/outlaw the other, we’re just following the science.’

Except of course that all of what I’ve just written is a load of rubbish. Because neither science nor mathematics nor stats nor data nor economics make decisions. Humans make decisions. Politicians and policy makers make decisions. Even if they don’t realise (or admit) it. Even if they think, or make it sound like, it’s the science that’s deciding. Let me explain…

To be clear, this blog is not anti-science. Whilst (perhaps unlike some) I do think that science is limited and can lead people to incorrect conclusions when done badly, in general I love science. I think that science is incredibly interesting, I believe most of what mainstream scientists say about science, and I think it’s undeniable that scientific research has improved quality of life for millions, if not billions, of people. And as a Christian I think it’s right for us to take an interest in how the world works, both so that we more greatly appreciate God’s creation, and so that we’re better able to rule over it as those made in his image.

Nor am I anti all of the policies listed above. My point isn’t about whether any given policy is right or wrong. Nor is my point that science shouldn’t determine policy. My point is that it can’t. It is literally impossible for it to. So people should stop speaking as if it can. They should stop saying things like, ‘we’re just following the science’.

Take for example a policy during COVID such as social distancing. What the science can tell us is that social distancing should, on average, decrease the chances of people with COVID giving it to others. And stats can tell us how likely, on average, someone is to die or be seriously ill from COVID. But that’s basically it. The science can’t tell us what to do with that information. The science cannot tell us whether it’s better to prioritise the health of the old, or the education of the young. Whether the cost of standing several metres apart from everyone you know and love is worth the benefit of being less likely to get COVID. Whether it’s right for a government to enforce social distancing by law, or whether they should just present the information and let people choose what to do with it. Whether the cost to the economy outweighs the cost to human life. The bottom line is that science didn’t decide anything. The UK government did. They may or may not have been informed by science, but science didn’t make them do anything.

That’s just one example, but I hope it’s illustrative of my point. Science or mathematics or data may well be very useful tools in understanding cause and effect, predicting what the different outcomes of a particular policy/course of action might be, informing decision making. But they cannot tell us which outcome we should be aiming for. What things to trade off against each other, which goods to prioritise and which to neglect. Humans make those decisions. We have that responsibility.

In fact, I think that’s one of the main reasons people say things like ‘we’re just following the science’. It’s to avoid taking responsibility. It’s to wipe your hands of what you’ve just decreed and say, ‘I’m just following orders. Science told me to do it…’.

Or it’s to fake credibility, making it sound as if your policy is self-evidently a good idea from the data available. ‘My policy has just as much backing and evidence behind it as science. It’s like gravity. It’s established as fact.’

Or, perhaps darkest of all, it’s to squash dissent. ‘I’m following the science. Therefore if you disagree with my policy, you’re unscientific. You’re one of those crazy people who believes that the earth is flat or that vaccines give you autism. You’re deliberately ignoring reason.’

So what? So beware those that ‘follow the science’. Science gives observations, not orders. Data, not decrees. Patterns, not policies. It’s not the science that’s making decisions, it’s the scientists. Along with the politicians, policy makers and anyone else who makes decisions, whether big or small. It’s human beings. It’s their values, beliefs, priorities, goals, that drive their decisions. The science/data/maths/stats might help them understand the outcomes if they go with plan A. But they’re the ones who decide whether or not they want those outcomes, and whether they’re willing to pay the price of executing plan A to get them. They’re the ones who make the decision. Don’t let them get away with saying otherwise. And when you make decisions, don’t let yourself get away with it either.

Science might, at times, help predict what’s going to happen. We’re the ones that have to decide what to do about it.

Addendum

Prompted by some insightful questions from a fellow discourseman, I thought I’d add some reflections relating to two questions. First, is science (and maths/data/economics etc) unique, or do other disciplines fall into the same trap? Second, what about those who claim to follow a religion?

For the first question, I definitely think there are parallels with other sources of authority. I’ll give two examples. The first would be history. You could imagine people appealing to history, saying things like, ‘We’ve seen a situation like this before, and we’ve seen how particular policies play out. History tells us that whenever we allow x to do y, it always ends badly’. I would say the same thing to these people, namely that studying history might give you insight into the potential outcomes of a particular decision, but history cannot make decisions for you. As with the scientists, it’s still up to you to decide what things you’re looking for in a positive outcome, what you prioritise, what you’re willing to give up.

A second, which I think is more interesting to consider, is moral philosophy. I want to give a particular example of an ethical theory I’ve come across. This theory is an attempt to define morality without reference to a divine being. The idea behind it is to imagine a world in which people meet, as spirits, in some sort of council, before they are born. These spirits know that they are going to be born into this particular society, but (here’s the catch!) they do not know who they are going to be born as. They don’t know whether they’ll be an elite or a peasant, a slave or an owner, a politician or a plumber or a policeman. How would such a group of spirits want to order society? How would we want to order our society, if we didn’t know who we were going to be born as?

Hopefully you can see where this leads. Because you don’t know whether you’ll be born as a slave or not, you’d probably want conditions for slaves to be favourable, or even for slavery to be abolished. You don’t know if you’ll be a man or a woman, gay or straight, so you’d probably want all these groups to be treated equally. In some versions of this set-up, you don’t even know if you’ll be human, so you’d also want animals to be treated fairly, for the society to be vegan. You wouldn’t want the strong to be able to assault the weak, in case you’re born weak. And so on.

And so this system provides a way of making decisions about policies. I’m sure lots of us think it sounds like a good basis for policy. And so one could say, ‘By making this policy, we’re just following what moral philosophy tells us is right’. The big problem with something like this is, ‘Who decides that this is the system to go with?’ It’s certainly a system, but is it the only one? Who decides whether we do include animals? In fact, the decision to include animals by some really reveals a priori moral assumptions. The reason they want to include animals is that they think we should protect animals. And more broadly, the reason this is the system is because whoever invented it decided that the number one moral value to prioritise is some notion of fairness/equity/equality. There’s no denying that these sorts of ethical systems give a way to work out what’s right and wrong. The problem is that it’s still up to the person to decide what system they want to use and why, and there’s no objective basis for the systems themselves.

I guess similar points would stand for other ethical systems, and for political philosophy. If someone says ‘We have to do it this way, because democracy/oligarchy/meritocracy/socialism/Marxism/utilitarianism/etc demands it’, you have to ask the question of, ‘But why that system?’

So finally I move on to religion. Is there a difference? The answer is yes and no. On the one hand, religion doesn’t remove personal responsibility, just as ‘following the science’ doesn’t. If you do something because you follow Jesus/Buddha/Confucius/Mohammed, you still have to justify why you think that particular figure’s teaching is worth following. You’re still the one that chose to follow that religion rather than any other religion. 

However, there is a distinction to be made between disciplines/systems/ methodologies that only make observations, and those that make demands. So science/maths/economics/data analysis stand out as being the most observation-heavy. You’re making statements about how things behave under certain conditions and what are the likely/possible/certain outcomes. But there’s no morality within the discipline itself. Any morality has to be imposed.

History could also be like this. Historians are, to an extent, expected to simply make observations about the past, about causality, what thoughts, ideas, events and movements caused what other thoughts, ideas, events and movements. There is no necessity to morally evaluate the past or to make suggestions for the present, even if some historians decide to.

But surely at the point of moral philosophy, there are demands as well as observations. So too with political philosophy. Things like democracy/oligarchy/meritocracy/socialism/Marxism/utilitarianism don’t just make observations about how things are, but how they ought to be, and how to get us there. And so too supremely with religion, where religions like Christianity make demands on the whole of life. So religion is different to science in that science is literally unable to tell us to do anything. It can only help us to predict what the outcome of what we do might be. Whereas religions most certainly do tell people what to do, as do moral and political philosophies, civil laws, people, political parties and so on.

In most of these cases, this is because there is either a person, party or state behind the system, giving orders. Science cannot tell us to do anything, but scientists most certainly can. People can tell us what to do. With religion, the claim is that it’s God giving the orders, which is why religious demands take precedence over all over demands. Even with moral and political philosophy, the system often covers up the fact that it is still an individual, party or state making demands. The system is just a clever way of encoding the individual, party or state’s own ethos, values, priorities and goals/agenda into something that seems objective and grounded in observations about reality rather than opinions.

So whilst saying ‘I follow Jesus/Marx/socialism/utilitarianism etc’ doesn’t automatically remove all personal responsibility in the same way that saying ‘I follow science’ doesn’t, because you still chose to follow that person/party/philosophy, and have to justify why, it does at least make sense as a statement in a way that ‘I follow science’ doesn’t, because at least these people/things do actually make demands to follow (or not).