Science and evidence – living in an increasingly sceptical society

OPINION: There was a time when people generally accepted the statements of those in authority and how the world operated and what was true and not.  Or maybe it just seems that way – maybe we went through a quiet period.  Certainly, skepticism of those in authority has a long history and arguably has been one of the drivers of progress – people who were convinced there was a better or more effective way to do something and succeeded in showing that to be the case, often at significant personal risk.  But scepticism seems to be increasingly the norm.

I have grouped science and evidence together here because in today’s world much of the evidence and evidence-based conclusions we deal with are science-based – and that includes medical science.

The irony of the growth of scepticism is that we have probably never been better informed than we are today, and the amount of information available is growing exponentially.  Access through instruments like Google is also now extremely easy.

So, what’s going on?  An old saying is that a little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing – it is dangerous because we tend to fill the information gaps with our own assumptions and preferences, and reach conclusions that may not be warranted.  In a sense, there is now too much information available, it is too easy to cherry pick what you want or like and if is extremely difficult to decide on the quality of the information i.e. how much weight or credibility it should have.

The other phenomenon of our age is that information is being strongly overlaid by personal approaches to life, e.g., if you are committed to eating organics than that, is the information you go to.  There is also a strong growth in the view that people ought to be free to pick their own life course irrespective of the evidence.  One slightly bizarre manifestation of this is the right of people to be obese if they so choose (accepting that some people can’t choose), despite the strong information on health disbenefits.

All of this is not helped by the accessibility of scientific research information which is often interim and subject to confirmation.  The question of what foods or diets are best for you are the classic example.  There are so many scientifically based (?) views out there now that you either end up being confused or ignore the lot and go for what you like.

Personally, I Like coffee and I like red wine and have decided to pretty much do what seems sensible to me with those drinks irrespective of all the evidence out there, much of which is contradictory.

The interesting question is whether this trend will eventually become so strong it will lead to a significant breakdown of political authority – or an unwillingness to tackle unpopular but well-justified policies.  You can see this beginning to happen already.

Medical science provides the best examples of what’s happening.  Everyone knows about the fluoride debate and I have written about that before.  For me the evidence is clear – in low concentrations fluoride is a godsend for child tooth health and it should be used everywhere.  But there are strong minority counter opinions and the Government has “kicked for touch” by giving design-making authority to District Health Boards.  A worse case is immunisation, again to me the evidence is overwhelming and I would like to see immunisation of children as mandatory wherever well-proven vaccines are available, but there is a strong current of opinion which opposes that view.

There are not so many examples in the non-medical area because they don’t touch lives so directly or immediately.  One interesting example is climate change.  The messages from the UN particularly is that we have a looming problem with rising temperatures and sea levels and that if we don’t react by strongly cutting carbon dioxide emissions there will be massive, negative consequences.  By any measure that sounds like a biggie!  But public polls on issues persistently rate this as well down the list of issues that the public are worried about – maybe because it is a long term or for other reasons. It would be interesting to find out.

There is no real answer to all of this because the information flow will continue to increase and get more confusing.  I think it will have political repercussions although what shape this will have is hard to foretell.  One result that it might have is to increase the importance of what you might call” information brokers” – people who are skilled at pulling information together and helping to decide on the quality and relevance of what is available.

By Bas Walker

This is another of Bas Walker’s posts on GrownUps.  Please look out for his articles, containing his Beachside Ponderings.