It's time to stop pretending our politicians 'follow the science'

National Post, 12 June 2020

The flaw in 'following the science' is that it assumes that a policy option can be drawn from a scientific finding absent a value judgment.

It is instructive that across Canada the pandemic measures were suspended, or disregarded, or superseded in order to facilitate mass protests against racism.

Instructive and welcome, independent of any judgment on the value of the pandemic protocols or the protests, but because it illustrates the problems with the refrain, ubiquitously heard these last years, to “follow the science,” or pursue “evidence-based” policy. Perhaps the pandemic, which has amply demonstrated how false that admonition is, will lead to its retirement.

The idea that public policy should take account of actual results and not be based on ideology is surely sound; that’s why, for example, we don’t have a centrally planned economy. There used to be a lot of people who were ideologues and opted-out of “evidence-based” policy on that one. And not just communist regimes abroad; our own universities and literary guilds and religious thinkers were keen not to heed the evidence, too.

The flaw in “following the science” is that it assumes that a policy option can be drawn from a scientific finding absent a value judgment. Scientific results though tell us what is happening. They do not tell us what to do about it. That’s a policy judgment beyond the competence of science to make.

In a few months there will be a superfluity of sombre voices making just that point when we mark the 75th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Knowing how to make an atomic bomb doesn’t mean that you should use it. The latter is not a scientific decision alone.

So when the prime minister took a knee in a jam-packed demonstration on Parliament Hill, he was not following the science. After all, the science of public health told us that it was so dangerous for a person to take two knees in an empty cathedral that all the churches were closed.

Continue reading at the National Post:
https://nationalpost.com/opinion/raymond-j-de-souza-its-time-to-stop-pretending-our-politicians-follow-the-science?video_autoplay=true