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)