Chasing Elephants in a Dark Room

We’ve talked about how the information we’ve been given can be confusing and/or misleading. Now let’s talk about why this could be happening. It’s simple really: we’ve turned science into a religion rightly called “scientism”.

What is Scientism?

In a word, "scientism" is belief — belief based on dogma which in turn is based on faith. Faith is trust in something you cannot prove, but for which you have various forms of supportive evidence.

Scientism is faith in a particular scientific idea. Initially, the evidence for that idea may have been convincing. After a while, scientists get so used to believing a certain idea, that they can hardly imagine otherwise. So when new evidence is discovered that refutes it, they often keep holding on to the original idea (especially when their entire life’s work was based on that idea). At that point, they have stepped out of “science” and entered “scientism.” Their belief has become fixed and dogmatic, and they are no longer looking at all the evidence objectively.

Scientists are, after all, people. People who spend years and decades of really hard work trying to figure stuff out. They figure out one Lego piece of the puzzle and then connect another and another until they've built up almost an entire structure, lining up their construction with the diagram and putting the next piece where it seems to fit according to the original plan.

The challenge with science, however, is that it's changing all the time — from every and any direction, in completely unforeseeable ways. You would go absolutely insane trying to constantly keep up with it all!

And a lot of the time, scientists don't. Can you imagine working 50 years on a puzzle when some young novice researcher points out that you may have made a colossal mistake in step number 3? When you’re the “expert,” it can be awfully tempting to conclude that the new discovery is the mistake.

Even though the scientific experts may have lofty titles and impressive credentials, therefore, let’s realize that there are things they don't know — even about the subjects of which they are experts! A wise scientist understands this and cannot help but be humbled by it. Nevertheless, most scientists, although incredibly smart, are not particularly wise and are overly confident, all too often.

Be concerned when scientists are too sure of their proclamations or when they leave no room for doubt. You can only get that level of certainty from faith, not from science.

It would be incredibly comforting if we could rely on experts to have the right answers. It would also be incredibly reckless to do so blindly without subjecting their work to the same level of scrutiny as everyone else's. In other words, there really is no "benefit of the doubt” in science. It's all pretty much in doubt all the time — which makes us all terribly uncomfortable.

So when an authority figure offers us a reassuring certainty (even if it isn’t justified) we tend to accept it. Sometimes it works out ok, so we don't even realize that we'd settled for a baseless reassurance — just reflexively laughing at the punch line without really thinking through the joke, as it were.
But in this 24-hour-news-cycle world where we are constantly bombarded by opinions and information — and sometimes opinions disguised as information — we really can't afford to just absorb whatever we hear without some way of filtering out the noise. We need to pay attention to what we are paying attention to.

Fundamentally, when we really need an answer to an important, complicated, technical question, we all have to ask ourselves: do we want comfort (ie, unjustified certainty) or do we want the truth?

What is Science?

That said, science is not the Truth with a capital T, either.

"Science" comes from the Latin word "knowing;" not knowledge, mind you, but knowing — it's a process, a way to acquire knowledge. The process remains constant, but what is actually known changes all the time.

Modern science is like the analogy about feeling different parts of the elephant — we all may conduct experiments and reach reasonable conclusions about the small part in front of us. These may be completely contradictory, however, even though they are all scientifically "valid" in the sense that we used a logical, systematic, scientific method to gather the information. The information may be inaccurate or incorrect, even though the science (ie, the process) is sound.

Likewise, perfectly legitimate scientists may disagree with other perfectly legitimate scientists, and they can both be right in one sense and wrong in another. There are not necessarily "good" scientists who get things right and bad scientists who get things "wrong;” instead, there are people from different perspectives studying complex topics who reach incomplete (at best) and inaccurate (at worst) conclusions.

If parties with opposing ideas have the united goal of finding new knowledge and are willing to question their assumptions, groundbreaking discoveries can result.

However, this is also often where scientism can interfere: when scientists are more concerned with defending their conclusions and defeating the other side, the dogma often wins, and society suffers. The more experienced scientists in positions of prominence have more to lose by integrating new ideas, and the challengers are almost always in lower positions.

Consider the case of Galileo, who was executed for reporting his discovery that the earth revolved around the sun. At the time, the authorities were not willing to examine his evidence based on its merit, but rejected it simply because it would have forced them to admit a mistake. If they did that, the people may not trust them any longer ... and then? They didn’t know, so instead they opted to kill the messenger and bury his discovery of heliocentrism for many more years.

Yes, it was institutional Religion in Galileo’s case, and it's institutional Science today. The comparison is not accidental: both of these hierarchical organizations have a public reputation to uphold and a unified, consistent message to convey. And neither one is run by saints.

So let’s all remember that scientists are just people like the rest of us, who have their own lives and motives and perspectives. Let’s also remember that the process of science is constantly refining, amending, and adding to what we think we know. It's never complete, and it's never the whole story. Differing ideas and dissent are the rule, not the exception.

Beware of broad consensus statements like “accepted by the scientific community,” “according to experts,” or “leading doctors say we need x.” These are almost always expressions of scientism, not true science. Which is fine, if you're looking for a simple and comforting answer. So before you go along with them, be clear about what you want.

How Do We Decide?

Science is a tool, that's all. It can inform our decisions but it can't — and shouldn't — make decisions for us. Furthermore, there are some questions science cannot answer.

The question of when we will be "safe" from COVID-19 is a perfect example. Scientific inquiry may identify the level of risk of infection or disease or death, but what level is "safe" exactly? That is not information to be discovered, but rather a decision to be made. “Deciding” is a matter of policy — be it personal or public, as the case may be. We need information to make good decisions, so science can assist us; but it’s a tool, not the ultimate arbiter.

Which are the “right” questions to ask? This, of course, can not be answered by science. It simply depends on the context.

In many ways, our context and priorities don’t only guide our perception; they actually constrain what we are able to see. There is a famous psychological experiment by Christopher Chabris and Daniel Simons in which subjects are asked to watch a video and count how many times a ball is thrown from one person to another. Most of the respondents came close to the right answer, but (spoiler alert) only half noticed the man in a gorilla suit who walked straight through the video, even when he paused in the middle of the room to pound his chest (admittedly, I didn’t see him either). This is called “selective attention,” that is, the tendency to see only what we are looking for.

So when we're trying to make sense of conflicting information from scientists, rather than trying to decide who is “right” and who is “wrong,” let’s take it for granted that they’re all right and all wrong, depending on the context.

For example, some of the scientists we have heard in the media discussing COVID-19 are epidemiologists, researchers, and clinicians including both generalists and specialists from fields like infectious disease, pulmonology, pediatrics, and many others. Some are heads of large institutions; some have political positions; some are individual practitioners. A pulmonologist may be seeing patients everyday in respiratory distress in the ICU, while a pediatrician might be seeing a ton of worried parents whose kids are perfectly well, while an epidemiologist isn’t seeing anyone at all but looking at numbers and graphs all day.

Obviously, all of these people have different perspectives and contexts. Pulmonologists are focused on individual patients, pediatricians focus on individual families, and epidemiologists the entire population. These are all perfectly honorable concerns, but entirely different contexts. Each one has selective attention for his particular field — which is actually as it should be.

When I ask each one a question about COVID-19, therefore, I should anticipate that the answer will be most relevant to that person’s context. If the epidemiologist tells me that fewer than 1% of infected patients end up in the ICU, I may not use the information from the pulmonologist about the 50 year old father who won’t get to walk his daughter down the aisle — compelling and accurate, though it may be.

We aren’t saying the pulmonologist is a bad doctor or spreading misinformation, and we aren’t being cruel or unkind. His message just isn’t relevant to our different but equally meaningful concern, which is how to best reduce risk to ourselves and our loved ones, as well as the rest of the world. Far from unkind, what it does mean is that we are savvy and goal-oriented consumers of information.

So listen to the experts, by all means. Just put their information into the context of their perspective and your concerns. Be aware of what questions are being asked and answered. Go beyond the summary news story and seek out information that will actually help you make decisions.

Does it really affect your decisions whether or not Australia implements a 14-day quarantine for every person entering the country? Skip that story. Do you need to hear the dramatic saga of an 8 year old boy who was heroically rescued by doctors, if you aren’t a parent and know there is an exquisitely low mortality rate from MIS-C actually die? Skip that story too. Pay attention to what you're paying attention to. Because this is what guides your decisions, and your decisions guide your life.

As a psychiatrist with over 20 years of clinical experience, I can tell you that everyone wants to be heard — from babbling infants to 2-star generals. It's inherent in the human experience. Public media, social media, internet memes and blogs, even me — we all clamor for your attention.

My hope is that after reading this article, you will have a better system of contextualizing the many voices you hear — especially regarding COVID-19 and other scientific issues. I hope you will differentiate the faith-based dogma called "scientism" from actual groundbreaking science which, more often than not, is brushed under the rug when it challenges the established paradigm. I hope you will listen closely for scientific arrogance and attune attentively to those experts who refrain from absolutes and actually express doubt.

When you hear "the science is in..." I hope you will seek the voices that are "out.” I hope you will search out and find information that actually helps you make wise decisions for yourselves and your loved ones.

Until next time,

Stay thinking, my friends.