“Follow the Science”

I can’t help but shudder when I hear the phrase “follow the science.”  As a student of history, I am keenly aware why there has never been a successful nation governed by scientists.

On the face of it, one would think the rule of experts would be a good and desirable thing – dedicated people, well-educated and specially prepared to address the issues facing a nation and its people.

As with many tidbits of conventional wisdom, reality presents a dramatic departure from the anticipated result.

"Follow the science," is not a new phrase. Ever since the utility of data and controlled experimentation grew into a widely accepted “scientific method,” this phrase has accompanied every subsequent use of those results.  If people are to change their ways, “proof” will be required, and science often filled that role ably.

However, it also formed the foundation of one of the most brutal and horrific regimes in history.

The National Socialists of Germany (NAZI) are known for their violent intimidation tactics, however, they did not have uniformed thugs at the vanguard of their movement - they had lab-coated scientists promising a better way of doing things.

It was the imprimatur of legitimacy granted by the "experts" that empowered the uniformed thugs to employ violence and intimidation to bring forth the "Neues Reich," (the "New Empire/Realm) promised to the people, if they would only have the courage to "follow the science."

The Nazis ushered in a golden age of scientific inquiry in Germany.  Within every discipline, the Party became the chief driver of research and the ultimate arbiter of its end use.  As the primary funding source, the government held sway over the methodology, and the parameters of inquiry.

Virtually nothing was off-limits to a Nazi scientist.  Moral codes were no longer applicable if the research promised benefit to the Reich.  Laws were changed to remove obstacles to formerly taboo lines of inquiry and study, such as human experimentation, even vivisection.  Surgeries conducted without anesthesia to determine the effects of pain on survivability were the sort of “experiments” the regime conducted while “following the science.”

If you can imagine it, they did it, and documented it religiously, leaving behind a vast archive of information that posed both temptation and revulsion for scientists of successive generations.

Ultimately, the revulsion outweighed the value of the data, and information obtained by such anti-human, brutal means was declared off limits for use or study, with much of it destroyed to prevent contraventions of the edict.

From the lessons of the Nazis we find the reason governments are not wisely entrusted to the scientific/technological elite.  The vagaries of dispassionate researchers are parochial in nature, limited in scope to the object of study. 

The singlemindedness of a good scientist, while a desirable trait in their profession, is a disaster in a leader.  Their necessarily narrow viewpoint precludes the big-picture thinking required of an effective head of government.  The scientist is like the hammer, seeing everything as a nail, incapable of viewing the world around them through a wider lens.

Consequently, a scientifically led government is a government without foundation.  As science progresses and knowledge expands, the foundation (previously thought to be firm) necessarily shifts beneath the structures built upon it, weakening them to the point of collapse.

Clearly, a government cannot permit the foundational ethos of an entire nation to shift so crazily, so unexpectedly, without catastrophic results. 

To prevent these convulsions, those charged with maintaining the structures of society exert the power of government to prevent the introduction of transformative knowledge, or at least tightly manage its influence.  This inexorably leads to a stifling of innovation as all change agents are met with suspicion rather than welcomed as advancements.

Many have wondered why the daily lives of those behind the “Iron Curtain” seemed to be frozen in early to mid-20th century time, with the time-saving conveniences of the West nowhere to be seen.  Now you know why.  Following the science eventually leads to an unhealthy stasis, as the mechanisms of progress calcify in the climate of political correctness.

Science is an essential part of our lives, but it is a part of our lives, not a fulfillment of them.  Science informs life, it doesn’t control, nor establish it.  Science provides insight into that which is; it doesn’t alter the fundamentals of existence, it merely tries to reveal them, and even then, imperfectly.

New discoveries are made daily, dramatic breakthroughs that upend long-held beliefs, necessitating address by each of us, both individually and through our systems of collective action, like government and culture.  It is the danger of attempting to control change driven by new information that inevitably leads to the death of progress.

The ever-changing nature of true scientific inquiry precludes slavish devotion to the ever-changing pronouncements made by those who make these discoveries.

There is a reason governments throughout history have encouraged scientists to “stay in their lane.”

Their errors cannot be undone.  Just ask the Germans, Soviets and Eastern Bloc nations.  Oh wait, you can’t.  Those best equipped to warn you of the danger were victims of “following the science.”