I am privileged to communicate conjointly with all of you across time and space for one primary reason -- science. That simple everyday fact of 21st century life would be unfathomable to virtually anyone born before 1900. Think about that for one moment. Those who perished before the 20th century could communicate with each other only if they could deliver and receive auditory or visual signals naturally through their unaided senses.
What is true for
communication is true for virtually every major feature of contemporary
life. Those from the 19th century could not access vaccines to prevent
disease nor antibiotics to treat them because science had not progressed that
far. Back then, Covid-19 would have decimated city populations far beyond
what it has done thus far to us.
Science is so critical
to the contemporary world that the United States government alone expends 50
billion dollars on pure research; that is, on projects with absolutely no
guaranteed payoff. For instance, outer space endeavors such as the Mars
Observer alone cost about 1 billion dollars. If you don't remember the
Observer, consult Wikipedia and learn that it failed to achieve Mars orbit 331
days after launch.
The savvy sibling of
pure research is applied research conducted with clear utilitarian goals and
high expectations of actionable benefits. In 2019, the U. S.
government "invested" 656 billion dollars for applied research - the
research that has begun to control Covid-19.
Both pure and applied
research, then, are critical for human survival and progress. But because
science also is the ultimate portal to fortune and fame, both pure and applied
research can be used to manipulate and exploit its naive consumers.
Of all the science
impinging upon us, nothing literally is more critical to life and limb than is
health care research. Covid-19 immediately comes to mind again. Do
you trust the science enough to be content with the fact that "Artificial
Proteins Never Seen in the Natural World Are Becoming New COVID Vaccines and
Medicines”? (Jacobsen, 2021)
If trust is critical,
then knowing which science to trust is even more critical. We must begin with
three obvious premises. First, science is funded by people. Second,
science is done by people. For those reasons, anyone with relevant
resources can fund or conduct any kind of science. The third premise is
that only a very small fraction of scientific endeavor is disseminated and/or
implemented.
Dissemination and
implementation of scientific findings, in turn, are mostly controlled by
governments, educational institutions, and media and corporate giants. To
make this short blog manageable, let's consider only one recent health-related revelation.
Nature, that began
publication in 1869, has been called the world's leading international weekly
journal of multidisciplinary science. This is one publication that deserves
careful attention; it has "skin in the game" and a reputation of
integrity that it fiercely protects. So, I carefully read Clare Watson's
2021 Nature article entitled, “Health researchers report funder pressure to
suppress results." It certainly is worth a reading. In the hope of
spurring your motivation to do so, I offer the following quotes that involved
studies from North America, Europe and Oceania: [I added the underscores and
bold print]:
McCrabb and her co-authors found that respondents were more likely
to report pressure from government department funders seeking to
influence research outcomes than from industry or charity funders,
or public research funding agencies.
Jon Buckley, a nutritional physiologist at the University of South
Australia in Adelaide, says it’s “not surprising that governments
intervene to try and suppress results that may not be to their advantage”.
Nevertheless, the findings are concerning, he adds, because the suppression
perverts the research process and holds back evidence that could help to inform
policy-making and solve health problems. Government agencies such as
health departments might be more inclined to intervene if findings from a study
they commissioned are not as expected or if they are heavily invested in the
health intervention — such as an education or health programmed —
being trialed, she adds.
Almost one-fifth of respondents to a survey of public-health
researchers reported that they had, on at least one occasion, felt pressured by
funders to delay reporting, alter or not publish findings. Public-health
research has a history of interference from industry funders, so the team
behind the study, led by health scientist Sam McCrabb, expected researchers
running industry-funded studies to be those most commonly acting under duress.
“But we didn’t find any instances of that,” she says. Instead, government-funded
trials were the ones most commonly faced with efforts to suppress results that
were deemed ‘unfavourable’ by the agencies or departments that had commissioned
them.
I was one of the first in line for Covid-19
vaccine. I studied it to the best of my ability and trusted the science.
In the 21st century, my life and yours have benefitted enormously from
science. You and I would be little more than Luddite fools to
dismiss science out of hand. We need to trust some science and mistrust
manipulation masquerading as science. Don’t depend on governmental
officials of any party – especially your own party to which you might be naively
blind – who show you “science” and demand that you trust it.
Put aside your preconceptions and biases, and honestly investigate the reliability and validity of whatever you hear or read presented as "the science." If you first can trust yourself to rationally seek scientific truth, you then can trust the scientific truths that you discover.
References
Jacobsen, R. (2021) Life, New and Improved," Scientific American 325, 1, 28-37.
Watson, C (2021) Health researchers report funder pressure to suppress results. Nature 18 August. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02242-x
