What even counts as science writing anymore? Ed Yong

‘The pandemic made it clear that science touches everything, and everything touches science...

‘To the extent that the pandemic has been a science story, it’s also been a story about the limitations of what science has become. Perverse academic incentives that reward researchers primarily for publishing papers in high-impact journals have long pushed entire fields toward sloppy, irreproducible work; during the pandemic, scientists have flooded the literature with similarly half-baked and misleading research. Pundits have urged people to “listen to the science,” as if “the science” is a tome of facts and not an amorphous, dynamic entity, born from the collective minds of thousands of individual people who argue and disagree about data that can be interpreted in a range of ways. The long-standing disregard for chronic illnesses such as dysautonomia and myalgic encephalomyelitis meant that when thousands of COVID-19 “long-haulers” kept experiencing symptoms for months, science had almost nothing to offer them. The naive desire for science to remain above politics meant that many researchers were unprepared to cope with a global crisis that was both scientific and political to its core. “There’s an ongoing conversation about whether we should do advocacy work or ‘stick to the science,’” Whitney Robinson, a social epidemiologist, told me. “We always talk about how these magic people will take our findings and implement them. We send those findings out, and knowledge has increased! But with Covid, that’s a lie!”

https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2021/10/how-pandemic-changed-science-writing/620271/

Read here (The Atlantic, Oct 2, 2021)

Fraudulent Ivermectin studies open up new battleground between science and misinformation

‘Studies suggesting ivermectin is an effective Covid treatment relied on evidence ‘that has substantially evaporated under close scrutiny’, fresh research shows...

‘On Thursday (Sept 23, 2021), the prestigious medical journal Nature Medicine published an article authored by concerned epidemiologists and researchers who interrogated studies on ivermectin. “Many hundreds of thousands of patients have been dosed with ivermectin, relying on an evidence base that has substantially evaporated under close scrutiny,” the authors wrote.

“Several … studies that claim a clinical benefit for ivermectin are similarly fraught, and contain impossible numbers in their results, unexplainable mismatches between trial registry updates and published patient demographics, purported timelines that are not consistent with the veracity of the data collection, and substantial methodological weaknesses.”

Read here (The Guardian, Sept 25, 2021)

• The lesson of ivermectin: meta-analyses based on summary data alone are inherently unreliable

Read here (Nature Medicine, Sept 22, 2021)

Science alone can’t heal a sick society

‘Science is a social process, and we all live amid the social soup of personalities, parties and power. The political dysfunction that holds America hostage also holds science hostage. Dr. Virchow wrote that “mass disease means that society is out of joint.” Society’s being out of joint means that epidemiological research is out of joint, because it exists inside the same society. This is not a new problem, but the dominant “follow the science” mantra misses the fact that the same social pathology that exacerbates the pandemic also debilitates our scientific response to it.

‘To restore faith in science, there must be faith in social institutions more broadly, and this requires a political reckoning. Of course one can cite many specific challenges for scientists: The wheels are coming off the peer review system, university research is plagued by commercialization pressures, and so on. But all of these are the symptoms, not the underlying disease. The real problem is simply that sick societies have sick institutions. Science is not some cloistered preserve in the clouds, but is buried in the muck with everything else. This is why, just eight days after his investigation in Upper Silesia, Dr. Virchow went to the barricades in Berlin to fight for the revolution.‘

Read here (New York Times, Sept 10, 2021)

Covid-19 recovery: Science isn’t enough to save us (Nature publication, Mar 23, 2020)

‘Policymakers sometimes talk about science as if it has superhero powers. When it comes to COVID-19, they often sound as though they hope vaccines will bring life back to how things were before. There will be no such luxury.

‘One key issue is who is being called on to aid recovery. Governments have sought expert advice from the beginning of the pandemic, but that expertise tended to come from people in science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) — despite it being clear from the start that human behaviour, motivations and culture were key to an effective response. There are more than 80 people who have sat on the UK Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies — yet only a narrow range of social scientists, and a single person representing the humanities, are included.

‘This approach needs to change. Science gave us vaccines, but SHAPE (social sciences, humanities and the arts for people and the economy) disciplines help us get to social realities, such as vaccine hesitancy. Humanity’s insight is more robust when STEM and SHAPE come together.’

Read here (Nature publication, Mar 23, 2020)

We need social science, not just medical science, to beat the pandemic

‘The polio pandemic of the 1950s is another often-ignored “teachable” moment. On the surface, it would seem that it was a scientific, medical and policy success story. But the reality is closer to what we are seeing with COVID.

‘In 1954, when polio was at its most virulent, the Eisenhower administration declared that every child should receive the polio vaccine being developed at that time. But there was no cohesive plan at the federal level to make that happen, so the mandate was not a success. In addition, lack of oversight regarding the quality of the vaccine manufacturing process led to some children becoming sick or dying. Limited resources to administer the vaccine on a national scale were another problem, and it was not until Eisenhower’s signing of the Polio Vaccination Assistance Act in 1955 that there were enough federal funds available for a national public inoculation program. Such massive confusion resulted in public distrust that took years to abate.

‘When the sociologist Alondra Nelson was named as the new deputy director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy [in 2021], she noted that the pandemic had “held up a mirror to our society, reflecting … the inequality we’ve allowed to calcify.” She also noted that “science is a social phenomenon.” This implies not just that science requires real insight into the society with which it interacts, but also that it is forged in relationship to social forces and meanings. Social science can assist us in understanding social reactions to scientific knowledge, as well as in ensuring that science becomes aware of its own social biases and interests.’

Read here (Scientific American, Mar 20, 2021)

Has the pandemic changed public attitudes about science?

Has the pandemic changed public attitudes about science?

‘These results [of surveys] show clear evidence that scientific and medical experts are enjoying a surge in public support on top of their already high levels of public trust. With some variation from country to country and among different groups within countries, the overall picture of pandemic-era public opinion is a success story for science’s status amidst this crisis.

‘The impacts from COVID-19 will be with us for years to come. However, questions remain as to how this re-affirmed trust might be built on. How can the increased levels of trust in science be maintained? What proactive steps can scientific institutions take to ensure that they continue earning this trust? How might support for science be used to focus further public engagement on other global challenges such as climate change? Framed in these terms, moves such as the UK government’s decision to invest in a new research agency (ARIA), may indicate more widespread changes in the direction of science policy.

‘At a structural level, the public faith in science’s trustworthiness and value can also be ‘future proofed’ through ongoing initiatives to make scientific research open and transparent, enhanced efforts to ensure a more diverse and inclusive scientific workforce and other efforts to improve science from within. Initiatives working in this direction include increased adoption of open science policies by research funders and global public policy that promotes more socially responsible research and innovation. Indeed, this moment of strong public support may be the perfect opportunity for long-needed structural reforms to make research more socially responsible and sustainable. In other words, it’s time to fix the roof while the sun is shining!’

Read here (LSE Blog, Mar 12, 2021)

Science and society are failing children in the Covid Era

‘In spite of the increasingly polarized debate about school reopenings, community infection rates and prioritization of vaccination, it seems clear that both science and society are failing children. Children have proven uniquely resilient to COVID-19, but many are already suffering lasting educational, mental and physical harms. The greatest harm is falling on the most vulnerable children, and yet we know so little of the true extent and duration of these harms, because relatively little research has focused on them, compared to the research on COVID-19-related spread and mitigation.

‘School closures are a prominent example where following the science is not in itself an answer. These are hard decisions based on ethical and moral considerations for elected officials to make, in ways that acknowledge the evidence on the harms, the requirement for safeguarding and the emerging evidence on COVID-19. Understanding the evidence on the potential trade-offs for children is a critical component of such policies and decisions. It is time science and society elevated this central responsibility.’

Read here (Scientific American, Mar 3, 2021) 

What Europeans have learned from a year of pandemic

‘From the first case diagnosed a year ago at a hospital in northern Italy to the empty shops, restaurants and stadiums of Europe's cities, the lives of Europeans have been changed forever. Curbs on movement have forced every country and society to adapt its rules and rethink its culture. There have been hard truths and unexpected innovations in a year that changed Europe.

• Restrictions are tough for societies used to freedom
• Experts are essential, but mistakes have been made
• The EU wasn't set up for a pan-European health crisis
• Societies have responded in different ways
• A Europe without borders is fine in theory
• Hard truths about how we slaughter animals
• Europeans embraced lifestyle change in different ways

Read here (BBC, Feb 20, 2021)

How science beat the virus... And what it lost in the process

“To study COVID‑19 is not only to study the disease itself as a biological entity,” says Alondra Nelson, the president of the Social Science Research Council. “What looks like a single problem is actually all things, all at once. So what we’re actually studying is literally everything in society, at every scale, from supply chains to individual relationships.”

‘The scientific community spent the pre-pandemic years designing faster ways of doing experiments, sharing data, and developing vaccines, allowing it to mobilize quickly when COVID‑19 emerged. Its goal now should be to address its many lingering weaknesses. Warped incentives, wasteful practices, overconfidence, inequality, a biomedical bias—COVID‑19 has exposed them all. And in doing so, it offers the world of science a chance to practice one of its most important qualities: self-correction.’

Read here (The Atlantic, Dec 14, 2020)

Covid-19: Politicisation, “corruption,” and suppression of science

‘When good science is suppressed by the medical-political complex, people die

‘Politicians and governments are suppressing science. They do so in the public interest, they say, to accelerate availability of diagnostics and treatments. They do so to support innovation, to bring products to market at unprecedented speed. Both of these reasons are partly plausible; the greatest deceptions are founded in a grain of truth. But the underlying behaviour is troubling.

‘Science is being suppressed for political and financial gain. Covid-19 has unleashed state corruption on a grand scale, and it is harmful to public health. Politicians and industry are responsible for this opportunistic embezzlement. So too are scientists and health experts. The pandemic has revealed how the medical-political complex can be manipulated in an emergency—a time when it is even more important to safeguard science.’

Read here (BMJ, Nov 13, 2020)

Memo for President Biden: Five steps to getting more from science

‘The list of needed actions is long, but here we highlight five that the Biden administration should take swiftly. We call not for a return to business as usual but for fundamental, sometimes counter-intuitive changes that will strengthen the use of science in US policy and by the research community more broadly... (1) Let an oft-overlooked White House office [Office of Science and Technology Policy] lead the pandemic response. (2) Make advisory processes more independent. (3) Expedite scientific-integrity legislation.  (4) Give public universities tough love and lots of support. (5) Refocus science funding.

Read here (Nature, Nov 8, 2020)

How Trump damaged science — and why it could take decades to recover

‘As he seeks re-election on 3 November, Trump’s actions in the face of COVID-19 are just one example of the damage he has inflicted on science and its institutions over the past four years, with repercussions for lives and livelihoods. The president and his appointees have also back-pedalled on efforts to curb greenhouse-gas emissions, weakened rules limiting pollution and diminished the role of science at the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Across many agencies, his administration has undermined scientific integrity by suppressing or distorting evidence to support political decisions, say policy experts. “I’ve never seen such an orchestrated war on the environment or science,” says Christine Todd Whitman, who headed the EPA under former Republican president George W. Bush.

‘Trump has also eroded America’s position on the global stage through isolationist policies and rhetoric. By closing the nation’s doors to many visitors and non-European immigrants, he has made the United States less inviting to foreign students and researchers. And by demonizing international associations such as the World Health Organization, Trump has weakened America’s ability to respond to global crises and isolated the country’s science.’

Read here (Nature magazine, Oct 7, 2020)

Facts v feelings: How to stop our emotions misleading us -- Tim Harford

‘The pandemic has shown how a lack of solid statistics can be dangerous. But even with the firmest of evidence, we often end up ignoring the facts we don’t like...’ This is also shown in evidence from two other areas: (1) Coffee and breast cysts and (2) Climate change. They should inform our reaction to Covid-19 and other matters...

‘When it comes to interpreting the world around us, we need to realise that our feelings can trump our expertise. This explains why we buy things we don’t need, fall for the wrong kind of romantic partner, or vote for politicians who betray our trust. In particular, it explains why we so often buy into statistical claims that even a moment’s thought would tell us cannot be true. Sometimes, we want to be fooled. Psychologist Ziva Kunda found this effect in the lab, when she showed experimental subjects an article laying out the evidence that coffee or other sources of caffeine could increase the risk to women of developing breast cysts. Most people found the article pretty convincing. Women who drank a lot of coffee did not...

‘Scientific evidence is scientific evidence. Our beliefs around climate change shouldn’t skew left and right. But they do. This gap became wider the more education people had. Among those with no college education, 45% of Democrats and 23% of Republicans worried “a great deal” about climate change. Yet among those with a college education, the figures were 50% of Democrats and 8% of Republicans. A similar pattern holds if you measure scientific literacy: more scientifically literate Republicans and Democrats are further apart than those who know very little about science.’

Read here (The Guardian, Sept 10, 2020)

Religion and science in a time of Covid-19: Allies or adversaries?

‘The current zeitgeist tells us that we must pick a side, as we do in sports or politics; one cannot be an adherent of both. Either choose secular science, which is rational and rigorous; or religion, a matter of personal belief.

‘But perhaps this narrative represents a false dichotomy. Does the tension between science and religion really exist? And in the context of COVID-19, is it inconceivable that a scientist can wholeheartedly pray for a cure for a loved one whilst also working to develop a vaccine?’

Read here (Scientific American, June 11, 2020)

Finding effective treatments for COVID-19: Scientific integrity and public confidence in a time of crisis

‘Everyone wants new treatments and vaccines to address the devastation of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). But, currently, under intense pressure and based on hope and limited data from poorly conducted clinical trials and observational data, many clinicians are embarking on ill-advised and uncontrolled human experimentation with unproven treatments.’

This paper calls for three important considerations:

1. ‘First, the regulatory and research communities owe it to patients, families, and clinicians to quickly learn what treatments are effective... 
2. ‘Second, it is important to optimise treatments that already exist, including supportive critical care. As learned from the Ebola outbreak, mortality can be reduced through identifying best practices...
3. ‘Third, and most important, it is critical to protect the integrity of and resulting public trust in the scientific and regulatory agencies and their advice and decisions. That trust will be needed once vaccines against COVID-19 become available and in future public health emergencies.’

Read here (JamaNetwork, April 16, 2020)

Medical researchers have been studying everything we know about Covid-19. What have they learned – and is it enough to halt the pandemic?

‘Due to the unprecedented and ongoing nature of the coronavirus outbreak, this article is being regularly updated to ensure that it reflects the current situation as best as possible. Any significant corrections made to this or previous versions of the article will continue to be footnoted in line with Guardian editorial policy.’

Read here (The Guardian, April 15, 2020)