Learning Curve
Dr. Anthony Fauci: “Science is Truth”
https://www.hhs.gov/podcasts/learning-curve/learning-curve-05-dr-anthony-fauci-science-is-truth.html
AF: Anthony Fauci the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases since 1984
MC: Michael Caputo the assistant secretary of Public Affairs at the United States Department of Health and Human Services.
This excerpt is about American anti-science bias and the interaction between people who believe in absolutes vs shifting scientific views (emphasis mine):
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AF: Yeah.
Well, one of the problems we face in the United States is that unfortunately, there is a combination of an anti-science bias that people are, for reasons that sometimes are, you know, inconceivable and not understandable, they just don't believe science and they don't believe authority. So, when they see someone up in the White House, which has an air of authority to it, who's talking about science, that there are some people who just don't believe that. And that's unfortunate because, you know, science is truth. And if you go by the evidence and by the data, you're speaking the truth.
And it's amazing sometimes the denial there is, it's the same thing that gets people who are anti-vaxxers, who don't want people to get vaccinated, even though the data clearly indicate the safety of vaccines.
That's really a problem. I think the people who believe or people who understand and have trust in someone who has a very, very long track record of always speaking the truth based on evidence, and I've done that, as you said, through now six administrations. This is my sixth administration.
MC: You know, so it's interesting, doc, because
I kind of see that the people who don't believe science are people who believe in absolutes. That the truth is it's either true or it's not.
AF: Right.
MC: And in this process, we've seen the models shift. We've seen the data shift. We've seen an instruction shift. And I think perhaps those who believe in absolute truth, don't really end up being believing science that shifts. Don't you think that in the end, the American people have to begin to understand that science is an absolute truth?
AF: Right.
MC: It really isn't.
AF: Well, science has a -- no, I think we have to be careful we don't confuse people. So, let me take a different perspective, Michael.
MC: I am here to confuse people.
AF: Okay.
[laughter]
AF: Okay.
So, science is the attempt in good faith to get to the facts, and it isn't perfect. And what happens is that science can be self-correcting. The beauty of science is that it's self-correcting. So, if somebody comes up with an observation, there could be ways that they gathered the information, that they interpreted the information that isn't really necessarily the way it is. But the beauty of that is that there are so many other people independently, who are asking the same questions that sooner or later, something that really is true, will get confirmed time after time, after time. And something that in good faith was thought to be true but isn't when the scientific process repeats it over and over again, all of a sudden you realize, you know, there was something about that that wasn't quite right.
So, as long as science is humble enough and open enough and transparent enough to excel -- to accept the self-correction. It's a beautiful process. So, the science doesn't change. What it is, is sometimes interpretation. That's the point.
MC: See, I, you know -- and common here, I'm from the, you know, communications arena, from the political arena, you know, doing legal or litigation communications. I did -- science to me -- I had so much trouble with physics Dr. Fauci. I wanted to be an engineer. I got a journalism degree. I'm science stunted.
I have a problem, I think, like most Americans. But now that I've been here for a little while, I understand that science is kind of an iterative process. And it's one that eventually you arrive at the absolute truth.
AF: Right.
MC: And I think most -- many Americans haven't. They don't get that that science is really something that thousands of people participate in to end up on one -- in one immutable truth.