http://www.ted.com/talks/elizabeth_pisani_sex_drugs_and_hiv_let_s_get_rational_1.html
The points I want to take from the talk are these:
Politicians and junkies do stupid things: politicians make stupid policies and junkies do things that help them get HIV.
People respond more favourably to 'making the world a better place for starving children' than to 'making the world a better place for junkies'.
If junkies are going to be punished for those things they can do that reduce the risk to themselves then they will balance the risks of being caught and getting ill and take more risks.
Both have politicians and junkies have rational reasons for doing what is, practically, worse.
Politicians respond to people's desires to be tough on drugs and crime by punishing drugs users, and using any evidence of drugs use as an excuse to prosecute. They do this even though it costs the nation more money in health-care and harms more people's lives.
Junkies respond to these induced risks of having drug-using equipment by sharing equipment. They do this even though sharing equipment means that roughly half of them will get AIDS.
It's an interesting enough observation if we stop there and simply suggest that we take more notice of sensible solutions like needle exchanges, rather than ignoring them.
But I like this story because it brings attention to a problem that is dawning on me, and has been forming in the world for a while now, and that is the conflict between science and politics.
Another good talk on the subject was here:
http://www.ted.com/talks/michael_specter_the_danger_of_science_denial.html
Michael Specter talks about a number of instances of 'science denial' which have had measurable negative consequences. The aversion to vaccines, fear of genetically modified crops (which is foolish, unlike quibbling with the direction that GM research is taking) and, of course, denial of climate change, all have direct consequences that add to the sum total of suffering in the world.
Elizabeth Pisani has found yet another one of these instances of science denial, and hers is a fine example of politically-motivated science denial. This is not a scare story about vaccines spread by stupid or cynical journalists and believed by the gullible and ignorant. This is the deliberate prioritising of political expediency over scientific fact, and it is this aspect of science denial that is as worrying as any other.
We can all agree that gullible people need to be educated, and we can all agree that media scaremongering in order to sell copy is morally dubious (at best). But I am certain that there are people out there who truly believe that science should be subservient to politics.
I have heard someone say that he has 'no problem with science or scientists, until they try to dictate what we should or should not do. That's meddling with politics, and they don't belong there.'
I'm very keen to stress that science is a process, not a belief-system, and that it makes no moral demands or statements. One cannot call scientific knowledge evil; one can merely say that it is being abused. However, part of this labelling science as a process is describing what it does. Science is the best process by which we ascertain truth. We have no better method for finding out what is true and what is false.
Given that science gives us what we know to be true, let's look at the idea that science does not belong in politics again: this idea is telling us that the truth is unimportant in running our countries. I find this idea incredible. Do we really want politics based on lies, rumour, scandal and opinion? I know that's what we have, but are we happy with it?
Voting figures and opinion polls suggest that we're not.
I see here a fundamental conflict between the current politics, the ideal of democratic engagement and the ideal of enlightened rule. Obviously the current political system is neither enlightened nor democratically engaged, and people who are empowered by the status quo try to 'play off' the two opposing ideals. Democratic engagement at the moment would mean less science involved in governance, because it would hand power to the large media corporations who promote and sway opinion. Democratic engagement is a measure of opinion; if it were perfect each and every person's opinion would matter. Enlightened rule contrasts with this because opinion does not matter: only truth matters. Science tells us what is most likely to be true, and so where science gives us an answer we would do best to heed it.
The simple problem is, as Michael Specter says, sometimes you are not entitled to your opinion. Where science gives us an answer then democracy is defunct. If we are to aspire to being well-governed and democratically governed then we must accept limits on those things on which democracy can pronounce. We must have a constitutional recognition (written or unwritten) that no amount of desire or stubbornness can undo scientific findings.
Science is rarely concrete, but when it reaches a conclusion, that conclusion is the most likely to be true. Democracy must cede to science those areas of life that science can govern. We do not vote on the best way to treat high blood pressure, and we should not vote on the best way to prevent AIDS. We cannot have people staking out for democracy every decision that a government can take.
I see here the ghosts of science denial in all its forms, trying to keep science out of politics. It is not only those who truly believe that it is morally right to value majority opinion over truth, but those who stubbornly believe in falsehood and will side with majority opinion to protect it from truth.
I can imagine that a large number of fundamentalists would be upset were science to be welcomed into government. Science is the utter opposite to fundamentalism. Where fundamentalism holds certain facts to be universal and true, science questions everything, and no theory in science is unquestionable. That is not to say that one can simply discard a theory; to question is not the same as to ignore. Where fundamentalism provides a solid foundation of unmoveable knowledge, science provides a shifting sea of grains of data which form great pyramids of knowledge, but can occasionally fall apart.
It is the stubborn adherence to dogma of any sort that is the greatest rival to science. Religion springs to mind as the most obvious example, but free-market fundamentalism can be as dogmatic as any religion.
Stubbornness is inherent to human beings. We are stubborn creatures: economists call it the sunk-costs fallacy, psychologists no doubt have a name for it too (I remember going to a talk about research in which people stuck with their previous option in a sequence of choices 70% of the time. The best solution would have been to change every time). We can't fight stubbornness sub-consciously. We must have it laid out before us: dogmatic faith is no way to run a country.
Running a country is a practical task. It is hard enough to do well without having reality questioned by any sort of faith.
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