When at war, everyone has to follow orders.

From How the Pandemic Is Changing the Norms of Science by the always excellent John P.A. Ioannidis.  The subtitle is Imperatives like skepticism and disinterestedness are being junked to fuel political warfare that has nothing in common with scientific methodology.

And just to be clear, the argument is that the norms are not changing for the better.  

It is one of those twists of irony that those most seeking to censor discussion and deplatform those in disagreement with the Statist narrative have chosen as their slogan "Follow the science", or, in NPR's case, "Stand with the facts."  

All along, with Covid-19, we have been in the position of not understanding what the facts are.  We simply did not have the data to make strong declarative statements.  In fact, the better slogan might have been "Tell the truth."

We did not then know what the truth was and, to a startling degree, we still don't.  There are some things which seem reasonably incontestably true.

Those most vulnerable are the aged with co-morbidities.

The second most vulnerable are those of any age with co-morbidities, particularly obesity.

Hand and face washing after having been in crowded environments helps reduce infection rates.

Those under 50 are at vanishingly low risk levels.

The standard western vaccines work well but with much shorter time spans than originally anticipated.

The best antidote is still to have already contracted Covid-19 and recovered (natural immunity). 

I am probably overlooking a couple, but that is pretty much it.  Seasonality, reasons for sequencing of national susceptibility, masks, lockdowns, treatments (other than vaccines), viability of alternative treatment regimens, possible long term side effects of vaccination, possible long term effects of infection, etc.?  We still do not have agreement.

Though we are at a stage where lack of agreement is becoming much less a matter of not knowing than a matter of not wanting to know.  We seem to know that cloth and paper masks have virtually no impact on an already low lethality virus.  Likewise, it is increasingly apparent that drastic lockdowns have had little positive impact and seemingly net negative impacts.  It appears that there are multiple treatment alternatives to vaccines, though the exact dosages and time of administration still seems uncertain.  But these are evidence supported truths which are not yet acceptable.

We still don't know.

Which is where "Telling the Truth" becomes so critical.  Forget "Believe the science."  Science is about evidence and reason not belief.  A truth can become more evident and compelling as evidence mounts and reason is borne out.  But in the absence of compelling evidence and rationale, then the truth is that we do not know and that is what must be declared.  As has been the approach of some countries such as Sweden.

Ioannidis is looking at the bad habits which have fed the authoritarian narrative.  Much of this echoes Stuart Ritchie's excellent, and timely, Science Fictions.  

From Ioannidis.

In the past I had often fervently wished that one day everyone would be passionate and excited about scientific research. I should have been more careful about what I had wished for. The crisis caused by the lethal COVID-19 pandemic and by the responses to the crisis have made billions of people worldwide acutely interested and overexcited about science. Decisions pronounced in the name of science have become arbitrators of life, death, and fundamental freedoms. Everything that mattered was affected by science, by scientists interpreting science, and by those who impose measures based on their interpretations of science in the context of political warfare.

One problem with this new mass engagement with science is that most people, including most people in the West, had never been seriously exposed to the fundamental norms of the scientific method. The Mertonian norms of communalism, universalism, disinterestedness, and organized skepticism have unfortunately never been mainstream in education, media, or even in science museums and TV documentaries on scientific topics.

Before the pandemic, the sharing of data, protocols, and discoveries for free was limited, compromising the communalism on which the scientific method is based. It was already widely tolerated that science was not universal, but the realm of an ever-more hierarchical elite, a minority of experts. Gargantuan financial and other interests and conflicts thrived in the neighborhood of science—and the norm of disinterestedness was left forlorn.

As for organized skepticism, it did not sell very well within academic sanctuaries. Even the best peer-reviewed journals often presented results with bias and spin. Broader public and media dissemination of scientific discoveries was largely focused on what could be exaggerated about the research, rather than the rigor of its methods and the inherent uncertainty of the results.  

Nevertheless, despite the cynical realization that the methodological norms of science had been neglected (or perhaps because of this realization), voices struggling for more communalism, universalism, disinterestedness, and organized skepticism had been multiplying among scientific circles prior to the pandemic. Reformers were often seen as holding some sort of a moral higher ground, despite being outnumbered in occupancy of powerful positions. Reproducibility crises in many scientific fields, ranging from biomedicine to psychology, caused soul-searching and efforts to enhance transparency, including the sharing of raw data, protocols, and code. Inequalities within the academy were increasingly recognized with calls to remedy them. Many were receptive to pleas for reform.

But then Covid-19 struck, there was money to be made and power to be seized.  The burgeoning reform movement could not hold back the waters of self-interest, parochialism, and confirmation bias.  

Read the whole thing.  

Other potentially conflicted entities became the new societal regulators, rather than the ones being regulated. Big Tech companies, which gained trillions of dollars in cumulative market value from the virtual transformation of human life during lockdown, developed powerful censorship machineries that skewed the information available to users on their platforms. Consultants who made millions of dollars from corporate and government consultation were given prestigious positions, power, and public praise, while unconflicted scientists who worked pro bono but dared to question dominant narratives were smeared as being conflicted. Organized skepticism was seen as a threat to public health. There was a clash between two schools of thought, authoritarian public health versus science—and science lost.

Honest, continuous questioning and exploration of alternative paths are indispensable for good science. In the authoritarian (as opposed to participatory) version of public health, these activities were seen as treason and desertion. The dominant narrative became that “we are at war.” When at war, everyone has to follow orders. If a platoon is ordered to go right and some soldiers explore maneuvering to the left, they are shot as deserters. Scientific skepticism had to be shot, no questions asked. The orders were clear. 

The latter point is interesting.  I have seen many commentators making the argument that the habit on the left to moralize any empirical issue, making a participant in an evidence-based argument either good or evil depending on their position (not their evidence), is a consequence of exaggeration and catastrophizing issues.  Those making this argument have then extended it by noting that this is a product of the Left embodying policy as "The Moral Equivalent of War."  They point out that the battle against Poverty, Inequality, Terrorism, Covid-19 and many other issues are characterized, not as problems to be solved (in the old Classical Liberal mindset), but as "The Moral Equivalent of War."  If you don't get on board with the policy, you are treasonous and the enemy.  It is a battle for power and puritanical purity, not for telling the truth.

That is not the mind of a Classical Liberal or a problem solver.  That is the mind of a fanatical ideologue.  And it is too prevalent. 

So Ionnadis' comment

The dominant narrative became that “we are at war.” When at war, everyone has to follow orders. If a platoon is ordered to go right and some soldiers explore maneuvering to the left, they are shot as deserters. Scientific skepticism had to be shot, no questions asked. The orders were clear. 

rings a strong bell.  

I have been pretty unpersuaded by the whole argument that the Left has been indoctrinated and energized by a "Moral Equivalent of War."  But I take Ionnadis' point and if I accept that, then the "Moral Equivalent of War" corrupted mindset argument becomes more plausible.  And clearly we are seeing this mindset taking us straight into undisguised authoritarianism.