illustration by Hanna Barczyk
Recently I began to notice that all sorts of people on social media were recommending Carl Sagan’s 1995 book The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark. They quoted passages that seemed to prophesy our current moment, as if Dr. Sagan were a modern-day Nostradamus.
I’m sure the late astronomer would have hated that comparison: His book is a defence of the scientific method, and a denunciation of quackery and pseudoscience. He had no patience for prognostication or crystal balls (or ESP, alien abductions and the healing power of crystals). But, as I read the book for the first time, it did feel like he was writing today. “I worry that, especially as the Millennium edges nearer, pseudoscience and superstition will seem year by year more tempting, the siren song of unreason more sonorous and attractive.”
The demons that haunted Dr. Sagan’s world in 1995 were relatively benign, in retrospect: He worried about the corrosive effects of Dumb & Dumber, Beavis and Butt-Head, supermarket tabloids. It really does seem like a more innocent time, when the Weekly World News warning about impending alien invasion was the extent of the misinformation we had to worry about. Imagine if the delights of social media had been available to Dr. Sagan, with various people arguing about the microchips being injected into our veins by nefarious billionaires intent on world domination.
I’m pretty sure he would be horrified that the corrosion of trust in science and medicine has measurably accelerated during the pandemic. The decay of critical thinking that he lamented has been worsened by a number of factors: political polarization, social-media algorithms designed to profit off conflict, and the proliferation of conspiratorial thinking, all made worse by a global health crisis.
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This week, the Pew Research organization revealed its findings that trust in scientists and medical professionals had declined among Americans, with fewer than 30 per cent saying they had a “great deal of confidence” in doctors and scientists to act in the public interest, down from 40 per cent less than two years earlier. A Leger poll conducted in Canada last year found that 30 per cent of respondents said their trust in science had eroded over the course of the pandemic. (Dr. Sagan would tell me at this point to present the counterevidence, so it should be noted that trust in science and medical professionals remains higher than all other professions in the survey.)
It’s the trajectory we have to worry about, when so many of us are now reading from different “fact” sheets. It’s brought us to a dangerous place, as you may have noticed. There are people in trucks disrupting bridges and cities, fuelled by dangerous conspiracy theories about what the “elites” are trying to do them.
Even worse, medical professionals and scientists are being threatened for performing their jobs. Doctors all over the country are reporting an increase in threats, leading their professional associations to plead with the public to calm down. Nurses are targeted too: One in Quebec was stabbed for providing a vaccine. Nature magazine surveyed more than 300 scientists who had made media appearances related to COVID-19 and found that they were subjected to a deluge of attacks, including death threats.
Perhaps nobody represents this demonization more than Anthony Fauci, the most public figure in America’s pandemic fight. Dr. Fauci is 81, and the favourite target of conspiracy theorists and opportunistic politicians. After a life of public service, he now lives in a house surrounded by guards, a beleaguered existence resulting from what he calls an “almost incomprehensible culture of lies.” Speaking to the Washington Post, Dr. Fauci sounded shaken by the upheaval in norms that happened so quickly: “There’s no diagnosis for this. I don’t know what is going on.”
What is going on, and how can we change the tide? I think Bonnie Henry, B.C.’s Health Officer, was onto something in an interview with the CBC. Dr. Henry spoke about being surprised at the vitriol of the messages and threats she receives, especially since “we’re making rational decisions with the best information we have. It’s not perfect information. What we need to be able to do is adjust as more information becomes available.”
That approach is crucial, and sadly misunderstood or, worse, twisted for political ends. The scientific method calls for evidence to be constantly scrutinized, debated, and updated when new and better evidence comes to light. As Carl Sagan writes, the history of science “teaches that the most we can hope for is successive improvement in our understanding, learning from our mistakes … absolute certainty will always elude us.”
And, as he crucially points out, the evidence will sometimes lead to uncomfortable places, to new reckonings that don’t jibe with our identities or preconceived notions. Our brains need to be flexible and agile enough to adapt to new circumstances that may be challenging, especially if they clash with our beliefs – or the beliefs of the people in our community. The virus has done an amazing job of spreading group-think.
A healthier approach calls for good faith and understanding, which are in short supply these days, when everyone has to pick a team and stick to it. Instead of a method, science has become a badge of identity; you’re either for it or against it, a white hat or a black hat. It has become a stick to beat your opponent, rather than what Dr. Sagan hoped it would be – a candle in the dark.
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