When To Follow The Science
Alex Broadbent
19 December 2024
The most famous—or, in some views, notorious—slogan from the Covid-19 pandemic was “Follow the science.” In this talk, I argue that it can make sense, and that sometimes, scientists can have (legitimate) indirect political authority (IPA) which gives them the right to make recommendations and expect compliance. IPA is (legitimately) conferred on a scientific group by their (a) knowing something [epistemic access condition] that (b) nobody else knows [epistemic exclusivity condition] which, (c) when combined with background knowledge and general principles that cannot be rejected by any reasonable subject [unobjectionable background condition], (d) greatly restricts the range of acceptable policy choices, perhaps to a single one [keystone fact condition]. In the talk I contrast the plotline of the film Jaws with the role of science in the Covid-19 Pandemic. Each of these conditions is satisfied by the marine biologist in Jaws but was violated by (some) scientists and scientific institutions during the Pandemic. Most political systems have mechanisms to prevent unchecked exercise of power. I illustrate, using the German epidemiology guidelines and recent work of Zeynep Pamuk, that the governance structures of science is utterly insufficient to bear the weight of the authority that contemporary society must properly accord science. Scientific governance must be far stronger, more formal, and more explicit. Science must wake up to the political aspects of knowledge generation and discovery.
