Is the COVID-19 Pandemic Changing Our Relationship to Science and Expertise?: A Selection from Nicholas A. Christakis’s Apollo’s Arrow (2020)

“The pandemic may possibly reverse certain political and cultural trends that have, in my view, bedeviled our society in recent years. Early in the pandemic, I became worried that the thinning out of our intellectual life over the past twenty years would pose barriers for managing the spread of the virus. Political entrenchment and geographically segregated living patterns have made people less open to opposing ideas, and this has hampered addressing a variety of societal problems, from climate change to mass incarceration. I feared that, together with a number of other problematic, convergent features, this intellectual atrophy would make our response to the pandemic challenging.

First, there has been a progressive denigration of science. Science has come to be seen by too many as serving political ends. Many people have even abandoned the fundamental idea that it is possible to have an objective appreciation of the truth. For instance, right-wing politicians have not wanted to acknowledge findings from climate-science or gun-violence research, and left-wing politicians have wished to deny the role of genetics in human behavior. Rather than engage difficult topics head-on using our best efforts at objective research, many people have found it easier to ignore inconvenient truths and suppress the scientific inquiry that might reveal them.

Scientific literacy is low among the general public as well. A total of 38 percent of Americans believe that God created humans in their present form sometime in the last ten thousand years. Over 25 percent of Americans believe that the sun revolves around the Earth. And 61 percent cannot correctly identify that the universe began with the big bang. Substantial fractions of people reject the efficacy of vaccines, and some believe wild conspiracy theories, like the idea that airplane exhaust is used by the government to control the populace.

Distinct from the denigration of science, there has been a downgrading of expertise and a progressive anti-elitism in our society, fostered by extremists at both ends of the political continuum. Experts are seen as out-of-touch elites, and expert knowledge is seen as a kind of conspiracy aimed at obtaining resources for the privileged at the expense of the masses. . . .

The irony is that this tendency to disparage science and expertise coexists with a respect for scientists themselves. One national survey, conducted at the end of April 2020, found very large fractions of the population trusted scientists and physicians. For example, 88 percent of Americans reported that they had some or a lot of trust in the CDC; 96 percent had such trust in hospitals and doctors; and 93 percent had such trust in scientists and researchers. What are we to make of the perplexing fact that so many aspects of our national response to the pandemic were nevertheless contentious? I think what is happening is that people trust science until it conflicts with their personal, religious, or ethical values. . . .

Getting the evidence right as best we could at any given moment was crucial in controlling the epidemic. As Dr. Fauci noted in an interview where he tried to explain the importance of science in combating such threats, ‘Sooner or later, something that really is true will get confirmed, time after time after time. And something that in good faith was thought to be true, but isn’t, when the scientific process repeats it over and over again, all of a sudden you realize, you know, ‘There was something about that that wasn’t quite right.’ So as long as science is humble enough and open enough and transparent enough to accept the self-correction, it’s a beautiful process.’ But science cannot work as intended when scientific findings—say, about the utility of masks or vaccines—are interpreted as political statements.

Finally, there is the loss of the capacity for nuance in our public discourse. Problems and policies are framed—and seen—as black-and-white. The tolerance for shades of gray and complexity is low. That makes it difficult for scientists to communicate that we do not know exactly what will happen with this pandemic but that there is a range of options, each with a certain probability, and we should act accordingly. Neither blind confidence nor total panic is justified. In an era of sound bites, coping with the complexity of a pathogen that scientists are only beginning to understand has not been an easy task. When coupled with the underlying exponential growth seen in infectious disease outbreaks, which sneaks up on decision-makers, this often resulted in the public being behind the curve in its response.

Of course, as we saw, the desire for simplicity and certainty during a time of complexity, uncertainty, and danger can lead to lies and false reassurance by politicians and hucksters. Politicians around the country, including the president of the United States and others in the White House, promulgated information that was plainly scientifically false from the outset. Asymptomatic transmission was possible. Nonpharmaceutical interventions did save thousands of lives. COVID-19 was much more serious than the flu.

Despite all this, I think that one of the unexpected impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic may be that a society that feels besieged by the threat of the virus will increasingly treat scientific information, and not just scientists, seriously. We have seen this in other countries. Previously obscure doctors and physicians, and not just Dr. Fauci, have suddenly become household names as they calmly explained what was known about the epidemic. It’s possible this might be one of the lasting impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic: an increased respect for science and expertise, even when it leads to people taking actions they would rather avoid. Perhaps after the dust settles from the pandemic, and humanity moves on to other threats that require scientific understanding, such as climate change, the voice of experts might be given more weight.”—Nicholas A. Christakis, Apollo’s Arrow: The Profound and Enduring Impact of the Coronavirus on the Way We Live (2020)