Life in the Pandemic XI: Why science can never be enough.

In the interests of transparency, I should make clear from the outset that I think science is, without doubt, the best way of obtaining sound answers to certain types of questions. And just at the moment, some of those questions are pressing. Here in the pandemic we desperately need to know whether convalescent plasma treatment works, and if it does, how well.  We need to know if any of the vaccines currently being investigated confer immunity to the SARS-COV-2 virus, and if so, how long that immunity lasts. Despite claims by the Presidents of both the US and Russia, these questions remain open. The only way they can be answered is properly constructed clinical trials, which are ongoing. The answer/s will come when they come. Spin, propaganda, political will or economic desperation will not bring them any sooner. Such claims as have been made, appear to be based on political considerations and (sometimes wilful) ignorance, and those making these claims are seeking to exploit the ignorance of the population at large. That they have been perpetrated at all is just one line of evidence that science on its own is never enough.

Part of the problem is that science does not take place in any kind of vacuum, be it political, cultural or ethical (the one exception being science done in a vacuum!). It is a human activity carried on by human beings. Its results, and what flows from them, be those novel medical treatments, new technology, or new answers to age-old questions and problems, have to be understood and then used (where they have a use) by human beings. While as an institution and community science is, at least over the medium term, fairly critical and self-correcting, it can and has produce flawed results and wrong answers. The practitioners of science (ie scientists) are, as individuals, as flawed and fickle as the rest of humanity. Most try to practice their science in a competent, professional and serious way. A minority are known to have behaved fraudulently, with the intent to deceive, usually for some sort of gain. There is sense in which science is under attack from within by this minority. And their activities devalue the whole enterprise. It certainly means that the scientific enterprise is much less efficient than it might be. However, it also risks bringing the whole scientific enterprise into public disrepute (much as has occurred with journalism and politics). So, to bolster science’s self-regulation and self-correction functions, various mechanisms have been introduced, like the US Office of Scientific Integrity or academic and scientific integrity processes in individual institutions. But policing science, practicing it properly, upholding commitments to honesty, decency and transparency, is not a scientific matter, it’s a matter of ethics. And ethics isn’t science. These things really matter for the continuing ability of science to get good answers to tough questions. But they are not themselves scientific. Another example of science on its own not being enough.

Science’s foundations, its method/s (there isn’t “a” scientific method), and lots of elements of its practice are also not themselves “scientific”. What I mean is that they do not proceed along those classic lines from hypothesis, to predictions, to tests and measurement leading to results. They are the stuff of starting assumptions and a necessary framework of commitments that make science work. If science had been proved not to work, then I suppose they would have come under more scrutiny. But now they are so baked in they have become invisible. Philosophers and historians of science have largely given up trying to crack “the” mystery of how science works because so much of it is about all this invisible, intellectual “dark matter”. But this is another way in which science on its own isn’t enough. Scientific method, properly conceived, isn’t entirely scientific.

One of the things science is really good at is making measurements in an organised and objective way, so that the results once obtained can command widespread agreement. This isn’t just about the results themselves, but it’s also about the scrutiny that all scientific results have to be placed under. This is the sort of community activity most commonly seen in the processes of publishing scientific results via peer review, exposure at conferences and the like. This is a key part of the process that leads to sound knowledge in any given field which provides the launchpad for the next phase of progress. In a given field, once the basics are established, there’s no need to go back to square one each time, and so effort can focus on extending and refining explanations and knowledge, making them more powerful in the process. But as powerful as scientific explanations and knowledge might be, they only provide information about, and control over, natural processes by way of statements of facts. The conundrum is that usually this is not really what interests people. David Attenborough documentaries about the state of the planet only get you so far. What occupies most people most of the time isn’t the answer to the what and how questions, but the answer to why questions. And establishing what “is”, is far from establishing what “should be”. We may be cooking the planet, we may be imperilling biodiversity on a global scale. But beyond the notion that might not be in our long term health or economic interests, why is this a bad thing? That’s not a question of science, but a question of values. It’s these values questions that are the important and tricky ones, and science can never give us the complete answer to them.

And here’s the real kicker. Science is all about reason. This is a problem. Because individually and collectively all human beings are not merely rational. Reasons other than reason often drive our behaviour and influence our decisions. Indeed, even if it were true that on average the human population did behave rationally, given human variability that simply means that there will be a lot irrationality about. And science on its own can’t help with that (beyond measuring accurately the irrationality). This type of irrationality can be viewed almost nightly on news channels where people deny the pandemic, and state quite openly that no way will they accept vaccination against the “fake flu”. Only a minority need to adopt this irrational stance (it flies in the face of the evidence), to undermine the usefulness of a C19 vaccination for everyone.

So, deep down here in the pandemic we certainly need science. It will provide us with desperately needed tools. But on its own it cannot guarantee that those tools will be used effectively. Never confuse science with salvation.

Can I be a Christian and…? The downfall of Tim Farron

We’ve had to cope with yet more tragedy in recent days. After terror attacks in Manchester and London, now the news of massive loss of life in a tower block fire. But another, seeminly more trivial event, caught my attention on Tuesday evening – the resignation of Tim Farron as the leader of the Liberal Democratic Party. At the outset of the general election campaign, he was persistently and specifically questioned about an issue not in his party’s election manifesto, and not likely to feature in upcoming legislation. The issue of whether he thought “gay sex” was a sin, became sport for the media and a distraction to his party’s campaign. It was partly on the media’s radar because he is known to be a Christian (in the confessional as opposed to the ethnic sense), and while his voting record on LGBTIx issues is fairly consistent, he abstained on a final vote on the Same Sex Marriage Bill in 2013 (having voted consistently for the legislation up to that point), a decision he later said he regretted. The reaction to both his resignation and his resignation speech is instructive.

Some have gloated and some have provided a more nuanced commentary. On one hand it’s claimed we have seen prejudice and medievalism driven from the public sphere, on the other that tolerance and liberalism are now proven to be in decline rather than in the ascendancy. Before throwing in my tuppence worth, I’ll make clear my own perspective and commitments.

I too am a Christian - a term that needs further qualification. I am a follower of Jesus Christ, as He is revealed in the Bible, which I take to be the Word of God. I am convinced the Bible is both an ordinary and an extraordinary book. It’s ordinary in that it is composed of words, and has to be read and interpreted like any other book. It’s extraordinary in that these words are the means by which the God who is real communicates to 21^st century men and women. As with all words, the ones in my English translation of the Bible have to be interpreted, and that entails a degree of work and commitment on my part. Unlike the words in any other book, behind and within the words in my Bible, is the Living God.  He is not the words, and the words are not Him, but He communicates by means of them. Words can be misinterpreted of course. When I do that with the Bible, it is because I am limited and fallible, and sometimes just plain lazy. That is my failure, not God’s. All of this leaves room for disagreement among followers of Jesus and there are some areas of “twilight” in what Scripture says and what Scripture means. But, to quote Dr Johnston, the fact that there is twilight doesn’t mean I can’t tell night from day.

All of this matters because it is words, and partly Bible words, that contributed to Tim Farron’s downfall. I’m clear that God in His word is clear on matters such as human sexual behaviour and marriage. The views that I hold, based on a rational reading of Scripture, used to be the majority view, and were the consensus view on such matters for centuries. But no longer; I am now in a minority. It’s unclear the extent to which Tim and I agree on what the Bible teaches on these issues. I don’t know him personally, and have no inclination to speculate. But, despite many of his public statements, his voting record in parliament and his work on LGBTI issues in the Liberal Democrat party, the commentariat appear to assume that he thinks certain things, and on the basis of this assumed pattern of thought, he has been stalked, outed, criticised and condemned.

David Laws, not a stranger to controversy and the odd political resignation himself, was revealing in his article on the topic: ..”you cannot be a leader of a liberal party while holding fundamentally illiberal and prejudiced views". Never mind Farron’s voting record and tireless party work. Laws continued that the LD election campaign had been “undermined by the outdated opinions and views which Tim clearly holds”. It appears from this article that Mr Laws thinks that even if I accept that the law should treat he and I equally, I am not entitled to even think (let alone argue) that he or anyone else is immoral on the basis of my “outdated” and “irrational” beliefs. Exactly which methods should be used to expose my beliefs (if I should I keep them to myself) or to what extent I should be penalised for believing stuff he finds offensive, or whether I should be coerced to think differently – all this remains unsaid and unclear. Re-education camps perhaps? Sounds a bit illiberal to me.

The open and tolerant society that allowed campaigners to overturn the consensus view on legislation relating to issues like homosexuality and abortion was rooted in and shaped by a Biblically informed world view. It appears as society moves ever further away from this, I’m not even to be allowed to think differently from the new consensus, never mind to debate or campaign for change in a different direction. Liberalism apparently has its limits.

So much about politics, political leadership and illiberalism. But occasionally, I hear the question asked: is it possible to be a Christian and a scientist? After all, to be a Christian one has to be irrational. You have to believe stuff against reason, or at least not think too carefully about it. There are irrational beliefs (ie beliefs held either without evidence or in the teeth of evidence). But I am a Christian because having weighed the evidence and found it compelling, I have responded to it. Or not so much responded to it, but to Him. Because Christianity is at root a relationship with a person, not an information processing exercise. And having become a Christian, everything (including reason) is involved in being a Christian. And being a Christian, one exciting way of understanding the world around me, is to use the methods of science. In doing that, all I am doing is further exploring what ultimately God has done and is doing. Where others assert conflict, I find that these are more apparent than real. No choice between science and scripture is necessary. In happily being a Christian and a scientist, I’m doing nothing new, and I'm not alone. I’m following in a long and distinguished line.