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May 2, 2021 - 7:30pm
‘Following the science’ is a phrase that we have heard a lot of this year, but what does it actually mean? Over the past year, science has shifted from a mode of inquiry to a form of authority that you are not allowed to question in fear of being labelled ‘anti-science’. To understand how and why this has occurred, we spoke to philosopher and writer Matthew B. Crawford, who has a full-length piece in UnHerd on this very subject.
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SubscribeFollowing ‘the science’ means ‘we haven’t the faintest idea how to discriminate between good and bad science. The only thing we do know is that the public, in the main, is equally clueless.
So the key thing is to express confidence in the scientists we have chosen to listen to, and hope it all comes good in the end.
Every so often other scientists come forward to present alternative explanations, new evidence that discredits the existing approach, but we just get the media to label them bad and dangerous, so we continue to get away with it.
It has worked out pretty well. By and large the public has been quite willing to be infantilised by its government, which is something of a relief, I can tell you’.