My Take | Conspiracy theories are the pathology of science
- Covid-19 has been a perfect case study of how mainstream scientists can be easily challenged and undermined by people with an axe to grind or a hidden political agenda
Science deals in probabilities rather than certainty. That is why in an age where online information is instantaneously available and people are taught to “question everything”, it’s not hard to cast doubt on mainstream scientists, that is, at least when they conflict with your own convictions. There will always be an online site, a YouTube channel or a non-peer-reviewed paper published by someone with a PhD to support your beliefs, however weird or improbable.
So, when you have a political agenda to push for and yet are contradicted by mainstream science, you do what former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon advises: “Flood the zone with s***.”
You do that enough, people won’t be able to tell the noise from the real message, the nuggets of truth buried under a mountain of manure. Though US President Donald Trump had come to blows with Bannon and disowned him, he has continued to practise Bannon’s dark art, perhaps even excelling his former confidante. His latest?
“I don’t think science knows,” Trump said, again denying climate change as a cause of wildfires devastating California and a hurricane beating down on the Gulf coast, but blaming the fire disaster on poor forest management.
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‘I’m a little upset with China’, some of Trump’s more memorable quotes on the coronavirus pandemic
One suspects if his core supporters – whose votes will be crucial for his re-election in November – had not been among the worst of the hardcore climate deniers, he might well think more highly of the science.