Pro-Science, but pro-wisdom

With the 24/7 news cycle, multiple feeds, and social media, we have a proliferation of information. This has been an exaggerated feature of the pandemic: endless Covid ‘live feeds’, whether it is ‘second wave updates LIVE’ or ‘vaccine roll-out LIVE’. Commentators then perpetuate this with near-instant reflections on these live updates.

If information was water, then this is the equivalent of a perpetual monsoon. As we feel overwhelmed, many focus on how to stop the rain falling so quickly. I think this is tackling the problem in the wrong way. The real issue is that the monsoon has exposed cracks in our roofs. And while a mere drizzle allows the cracks to pass unnoticed, in a monsoon the water starts pouring in and we feel overwhelmed. In the metaphor the cracks are deficiencies in the ways that we process information. We need wisdom.

Here are two cracks and two ways wisdom fills these cracks.

There is a certain irony to arguably our most famous group of experts being called SAGE (Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies), particularly when so much of their expert advice has been so disputed. How many times have we been told by politicians ‘we are following the science’?

The first problem with this is that it implies a fallacy about how science works. In general terms, scientists put forward and test alternative hypotheses to make sense of the data. By a process of evaluation, assessment and debate, over time, a hypothesis sometimes emerges as the generally accepted most accurate theory. The key thing to emphasise here is that this happens ‘over time’. It’s not instantaneous.

Politicians and the general public have too quickly jumped on ‘this is the what the scientists are saying’ to justify a particular course of action, when wisdom would urge humility – accepting there is a range of disputed theories on the table; and patience – acknowledging that it will take time to come to a definite conclusion on the best way forward. Even in situations where urgent action is required, if the jury is out on what ‘the science’ really says, far better to be wise and acknowledge that, than the pattern we have seen of bold pronouncements, which have to be walked back a little later on, undermining trust in those in authority.

Science gives us information, but wisdom is required to process that information to live well. For example, science can tell you that gravity will cause a coconut to fall, wisdom will tell you not to sleep under a coconut tree!

It has been concerning how quickly politicians and the media have lined up to say ‘we have been led by science’ to make enormously complex and morally disputed calls such as lockdowns, tiers, travel restrictions, etc. For example, science can’t tell us how to evaluate the relative implications of lives saved in the short term vs. healthcare implications in the long term, the economic and social costs of lockdown, the civil costs such as loss of liberty. These are very difficult wisdom calls based on how we give weight to each of the various areas. Wouldn’t it be wiser to acknowledge this is what is really going on, rather than hiding behind the narrative of ‘the science has told us we must do this’?

The irony with both these cracks I have highlighted is that, by overstating what science and the experts can tell us, we have actually become less scientific. We have assigned excessive importance to science as one area of authority and in so doing have distorted it. This has always been a danger for us as human beings. In the ancient world the military was prone to this type of idolatry. Little wonder God urged: ‘Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the LORD our God’ (Ps. 20:7).

Far from being anti-science, as someone married to a medical professional who has been on the front line, I am very pro-science. But I am also aware of its limitations. Even with the vaccine being rolled out, wisdom would say: ‘Some trust in SAGE and some in vaccines, but we trust in the name of the LORD our God’.