Science, expertise and trust in COVID times - Part 2 - why trust experts now?

There have been many well-publicised examples, in recent years, of politicians expressing mistrust in experts.  ‘People in this country have had enough of experts’ was the view of leading UK politician Michael Gove in 2016, although he later clarified he mainly had economists in mind. US President Donald Trump has called global warming ‘bullshit’ and a ‘Chinese hoax’. In Australia we have seen some parliamentarians assert that vaccination causes autism, or that climate change is a fabrication, despite strong evidence to the contrary. We have seen a special commissioner appointed in Australia to investigate ‘Wind Turbine Syndrome’ despite no expert believing such a syndrome exists.  Not all suspicion of expert knowledge was unfounded. Leading economists, blinded by economic orthodoxy, had not seen the 2008 financial meltdown coming, although there were some honorable exceptions.

In this crisis, faced with something new, dramatic and dangerous, most political leaders turned to the experts - infectious disease and public health experts, virologists and epidemiologists especially.  Not surprisingly, and with some notable exceptions, they wanted to know how serious COVID-19 was, what devastation it might wreak, and what they should do.  

It is now common to hear politicians of various political stripes talk of how their actions will be ‘guided by the science’, by the health experts and epidemiologists in particular (see for example the UK but not Brazil‘s Bolsonaro).  In the USA, those of a ‘liberal’ disposition (in the US sense of the word) have been re-assured by the presence of Dr. Anthony Fauci.  He has been seen to be a well-informed and calm voice of reason amidst the daily briefings, rantings, and policy flip-flops of a dysfunctional White House and its blame-others boss.  

It is important to acknowledge quite how unusual this is.  Despite common talk of evidence-based policymaking being the gold standard, it is more common to find evidence being recruited to support a desired policy.  We should expect to see this approach returning as the pandemic progresses. Further, strong evidence has not always resulted in strong policy and action.  Climate change is the most obvious, but not the only, example.  Expert opinion is that dramatically cutting fossil fuel use is needed to avoid catastrophic climate change, but actions by government to address climate change have been largely underwhelming and indeed such ‘expert’ opinion has often been rejected outright.  Expert opinion is that hunger is the lot of 842 million people worldwide. Nine million people in the world die of hunger each year, more than the combined death toll for malaria, AIDs and tuberculosis - but action in response is modest. According to experts, air pollution kills millions annually, mainly poor people.  Many have noted the improvement in air quality as one positive side-effect of the COVID-19 lockdowns.  In short, evidence does not normally result in action. 

This crisis has seen an unusually prominent role played by Chief Medical Officers, Chief Scientists and other leading public health experts. Acknowledging the need for expert perspectives was not always there from the start … witness the persecution of Chinese doctors in Wuhan who first flagged the problem, or Trump’s reluctance, even in late March, to acknowledge that anything needed to be done to combat what was only ‘flu’.  But once the crisis was recognised the general trend was to turn to public health experts, virologists and epidemiologists for advice. 

Why this renewed use of experts?  I can think of four basic reasons. 

Firstly, the political class genuinely didn’t know what to do in the face of this unprecedented event, COVID-19.  They could not draw upon their stock solutions (trade good, taxes bad, ‘it’s the economy stupid’, and so on).  Their initial attempts were usually confused and slow.  Having neither knowledge nor experience themselves, they looked around for those who might have. This knowledge was often unavailable in-house following years of degrading the capabilities of the public service.

Secondly, for many, but not all, citizens, being seen to take expert medical advice would enhance trust in the political leaders.  Politicians could benefit from being seen to be taking advice. A lack of trust in the political class, its motives and competence, has been widely observed in recent years.  Not surprisingly, therefore, there was good reason for the political class to draw on existing public health expertise.  Bolsanaro’s open rejection of such advice, and his dismissal of his Health Minister, is hurting him politically.

Thirdly, rich and middle-class people are affected.  Unlike hunger, COVID-19 is said not to discriminate.  But, like hunger, it hits the poorest… witness the profiles of those dying from the virus in the USA, or the shockingly unjust treatment of rural migrant workers in India.  Whilst the very wealthiest can ensure more comfortable lockdown conditions and better medical treatment if required, they can’t avoid being infected.  When it is said ‘this disease does not discriminate’ this means the rich are getting it too and so the political class must act.

Finally, one can also anticipate some political leaders using experts as the ‘fall guy’ if management of the pandemic does not go according to plan or too many undesirable effects occur.  We already see this in Trump’s attacks on the World Health Organisation (WHO) and his re-tweeting of attacks on Fauci.  The most high-profile expert advisors, those appearing on TV regularly alongside their political bosses, would be well-advised to project independence of mind now, both in words and body language, if they want to survive.  

An official reckoning with how the pandemic was managed will surely come.  Expect it to reveal the hollowness of the claim that policy was ‘guided by the best available science and evidence’.  What science and what evidence?  Scientific views differ, different disciplines produce different insights, and evidence can be contradictory.  Perhaps it will also expose the limits of ‘follow the science’ thinking itself, the perils of scientism more generally, and the need to understand that science and technology is a social institution needing social inquiry.

Leading scientists are themselves worrying about being sucked into a vortex.  'As a scientist', Prof Devi Sridhar, chair of global public health at the University of Edinburgh, is reported as saying, 'I hope I never again hear the phrase "based on the best science and evidence" spoken by a politician. This phrase has become basically meaningless and used to explain anything and everything.”  According to Prof Mark Woolhouse, an infectious diseases epidemiologist at the University of Edinburgh, modelling has had a disproportionate influence: 'scientific advice is driven far too much by epidemiology - and I’m an epidemiologist'.

Trust in experts and faith in science should not be a given.  Trust needs to be earned.

In the next instalment I will focus on ‘why experts differ?’

Part 1 of this series is available here