Quote Originally Posted by jp1 View Post
If it came across that I think science happens in a leave it to beaver world of politeness and perfect honesty then i failed to make my point. My point was simply that before covid science didn’t happen on the front page of every newspaper. Now it does. Sometimes honestly and messily. Sometimes dishonestly because it’s a politician or partisan hack media figure with an agenda. But to the average person it can easily end up looking like no one knows what the eff they are doing so why trust any of it.
This is true. Trusting the science does not mean you must trust the scientist. Especially if the scientist sits atop a large government bureaucracy subject to all the usual public relations and political pressures. When one goes on the Sunday morning talkers to claim “attacking me is attacking science”, it arouses the skeptic in me. Accounting is a useful tool that makes much of our civilization possible, but that doesn’t make accountants mystical oracles. Trying to use “The Science” as a political bludgeon is like accusing your opponents of being unpatriotic. It’s an attempt to borrow someone else’s credibility for your own purposes.