THE FIRST REPORT FROM THE CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL and Prevention on what would eventually become known as acquired immune deficiency syndrome, or AIDS, was released in June of 1981.1 Over the next couple of years, reports proliferated, research began in earnest, and the media began reporting on a new epidemic. The leader of the free world, meanwhile, said nothing.
Ronald Reagan famously did not publicly discuss AIDS until a press conference in 1985,2 with a more comprehensive speech on the topic coming only in April 1987, as his presidency was winding down.3 To many, Reagan’s lack of response to the crisis represented an implicit condemnation of homosexuality, since at the time the disease was considered a “plague” targeting mostly gay people. The president didn’t CHERRY-PICK data, or claim the science was unsettled, or make any errors at all regarding a complicated and rapidly evolving scientific issue: he simply didn’t mention it.
This bonus error is the CONSPICUOUS SILENCE, and it is just as big a scourge as the other errors in this book. Failing to address issues of importance spreads the idea that those issues don’t matter. Why should the public care about something if our elected officials, up to and including the president, don’t seem to? Talking about science can normalize it, though of course the not-scientists doing the talking should lean heavily on the actual scientists, who know what they’re talking about. It is a simple two-step process that many in politics seem to ignore: learn what is known, then talk about it.
In Reagan’s case, critics say his silence on AIDS (HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, was not named until May 1986) greatly hindered research into its causes, potential treatments, and prevention efforts.4 A year after the president’s first public mention of the issue, a surgeon general’s report noted that 1.5 million people in the United States were likely infected.5 In that first press conference, Reagan defended his administration’s funding for AIDS research, which included a request for $126 million for the following year. A top government scientist, though, reportedly called the Reagan administration funding “not nearly enough at this stage to go forward and really attack the problem.”6 In fact, Congress voted to boost the presidential budget request for three consecutive years, showing that at least some elected officials seemed to have a better grasp of the problem.
The modern era of HIV management began in 1995, with the advent of HAART—highly active anti-retroviral therapy. The drugs used in HAART, along with more recently developed drugs, can often keep virus levels down to near-background levels, extending the lives of individuals for many years longer than was previously possible. By the end of 1995, more than 319,000 deaths7 from AIDS had been reported in the United States. It is, of course, impossible to say whether HAART could have come along sooner, or whether public health prevention methods could have been amplified, with earlier public input from the president. But talking about it—carefully, with expert help—would not have made the situation worse.
Today, many are pushing for just that sort of talk therapy for science and politics. One way to usher science into the limelight is a science-only televised debate between political candidates—an idea created in 2008 and championed ever since by a small group of journalists, science professors, filmmakers, and others.8 During the 2012 general election, though an actual live science debate did not materialize, the group did manage to get President Obama and GOP nominee Mitt Romney on the record answering a series of science-based questions in print.9 It served to put each of the candidates’ science-related policy positions in the spotlight, though obviously it did not have the audience that a televised debate would have.
Some of the answers actually did contain some errors, including some of the type discussed in this book. On a question regarding climate change, Romney even began by saying: “I am not a scientist myself.” He did go on to say that his “best assessment of the data is that the world is getting warmer, that human activity contributes to that warming, and that policymakers should therefore consider the risk of negative consequences,” meaning he at least was willing to listen to scientists. He then questioned whether there was a “scientific consensus” on the human contribution (an example of the CERTAIN UNCERTAINTY we saw from Jeb Bush as well), the extent of warming, and the “severity of risk,” and still opposed most actions to reduce emissions.
I asked the founders and directors of Science Debate, the nonprofit group behind this effort, why they think a science-only debate would help improve scientific discourse. Lawrence Krauss, a professor of theoretical physics at Arizona State University and author of a number of popular books on science, said that “there is no opportunity cost right now associated with ignoring” important scientific topics. “The marginalization of science makes it perfectly acceptable for candidates to be ignorant about the issues, or to lie about them, or obfuscate them.”10
That challenge has only grown in recent years. “Anti-science is worse now in political circles than at any time since the 1910s and 1920s,” Shawn Lawrence Otto, an author and screenwriter who cofounded Science Debate, told me. “Since complex sciences influence every aspect of life on the planet, we’ve got to find a smarter way of incorporating it into our policy dialogue,” Otto said.11
Normalizing science and discussion of science would likely do wonders for reducing the potential for political missteps. Many of the errors in this book could be avoided simply by letting the scientific consensus act as a talking point; of course, the scientific consensus has to be largely understood in order for that to work. And as long as there is money in politics and votes are at stake, politicians with an agenda that runs counter to the best available science will attempt to undermine it. If we, the general public, have more exposure to the issues in question, though, those attempts may not slip by us so easily.
IN JANUARY 2015, President Obama gave his State of the Union address to both houses of Congress, and to millions of viewers at home. In a section of his speech dedicated to urging action on climate change, he decided to absolutely murder the talking point that serves as the title of this book:
I’ve heard some folks try to dodge the evidence by saying they’re not scientists; that we don’t have enough information to act. Well, I’m not a scientist, either. But you know what, I know a lot of really good scientists at NASA, and at NOAA, and at our major universities. And the best scientists in the world are all telling us that our activities are changing the climate, and if we don’t act forcefully, we’ll continue to see rising oceans, longer, hotter heat waves, dangerous droughts and floods, and massive disruptions that can trigger greater migration and conflict and hunger around the globe.12
To any politician paying attention—including some users of the line sitting in the room during the president’s speech—the “I’m not a scientist” dodge was officially dead. It likely would have died out on its own eventually, given that even those on the team using it considered it “the dumbest talking point in the history of mankind.”13 But the president surely hastened the demise and, in the process, made a convincing case for simply listening to people who really are experts.
Politics being what it is, however, our leaders are far more likely to listen to us, the voting public. That’s why it is increasingly crucial that we all join in the effort to call out the mistakes politicians make on science. This playbook of rhetorical and logical errors has given you some ammunition in the fight against scientific ignorance and misinformation. Use it! If you hear your senator or congressperson spouting off about “unsettled science,” or some ultraspecific subset of climate data, or fearmongering about diseases and immigration, call them out. Did you catch a CREDIT SNATCH, or a RIDICULE AND DISMISS? Take to Twitter and Facebook and anywhere else you can reach an audience; get #NotAScientist trending, hold the politicians accountable for their errors, and in the process help actual scientists move their work forward in ways that truly help the world.
Barring some unforeseen massive overhaul in political circles, politicians will likely continue to make the errors outlined in this book. The issues themselves may change—as we get a handle on climate change, as new diseases arise and spread, or as topics such as nanotechnology and antibiotic resistance become more central to everyday life—but the missteps, fallacies, and techniques used are timeless. As they have told you many times by now, your elected officials are not scientists. Keep that in mind as they try to sneak their not-science past you.