When Science and Politics Clash

[Blue Mountain]

When scientists give information and warnings based on that information, only to have politics disagrees, there seems to be a pattern:

• Scientists say, "We believe this is true, and suggest that unless we take some sort of action, bad things will happen"
• Politicians and people with vested interests stonewall any action. In effect, the scientists lose the first few rounds of the debate
• Bad things happen much as the scientists said. In effect, science wins in the end.

I can think of the following where this scenario has played out:

• Galileo's defense of the heliocentric model of the solar system
• The collapse of the Newfoundland cod fishery
• The last launch of the space shuttle Challenger
• Global warming

Can anyone add to the list?

Perhaps more importantly, can people provide counter-examples? For example, scientists make warnings, public policy is made and laws are passed based on the warnings, and then it turns out the science was wrong. Or the warnings of scientists were ignored or downplayed and in the end it turns out that was the correct position.

 

[Spindrift]

When scientists give information and warnings based on that information, only to have politics disagrees, there seems to be a pattern:

• Scientists say, "We believe this is true, and suggest that unless we take some sort of action, bad things will happen"
• Politicians and people with vested interests stonewall any action. In effect, the scientists lose the first few rounds of the debate
• Bad things happen much as the scientists said. In effect, science wins in the end.

I can think of the following where this scenario has played out:

• Galileo's defense of the heliocentric model of the solar system
• The collapse of the Newfoundland cod fishery
• The last launch of the space shuttle Challenger
• Global warming

Can anyone add to the list?

Perhaps more importantly, can people provide counter-examples? For example, scientists make warnings, public policy is made and laws are passed based on the warnings, and then it turns out the science was wrong. Or the warnings of scientists were ignored or downplayed and in the end it turns out that was the correct position.

Y2K - Even though that was not really based on science.

 

[Cleon]

Y2K - Even though that was not really based on science.

Not applicable, IMO. Y2K was an actual problem with unpredictable results. (Some attempts at predictions were rather humorous.) The problem was recognized and major efforts were made to ensure that no major issues occurred come 1/1/2000.

 

[aggle-rithm]

• Galileo's defense of the heliocentric model of the solar system
  

I don't think the issue was forced in this case by something bad happened. It's just that concensus for the validity of the heliocentric model became so strong that the church could no longer fight it.

 

[aggle-rithm]

Can anyone add to the list?

There's one example that doesn't really involve science but does involve critical thinking. It was the invasion of the Soviet Union during WWII. Although presented with copious evidence that Germany was going to attack, Stalin rejected it all and proclaimed that Germany was NOT going to attack. Some of the denial was quite humorous, as with the incident where a German spy plane was allowed to land at a Soviet air base, was GIVEN FUEL, and allowed to return to Germany.

Despite Stalin's insistence that it wouldn't happen, the largest land invasion in history occured a few weeks later.

 

[Mark6]

When scientists give information and warnings based on that information, only to have politics disagrees, there seems to be a pattern:

• Scientists say, "We believe this is true, and suggest that unless we take some sort of action, bad things will happen"
• Politicians and people with vested interests stonewall any action. In effect, the scientists lose the first few rounds of the debate
• Bad things happen much as the scientists said. In effect, science wins in the end.

I can think of the following where this scenario has played out:

• Galileo's defense of the heliocentric model of the solar system
• The collapse of the Newfoundland cod fishery
• The last launch of the space shuttle Challenger
• Global warming

I would say with global warming we are still at your stage 2.

Y2K - Even though that was not really based on science.

I don't remember any serious denial/stonewalling of Y2K. If anything, it was overhyped.

For the record, I spent most of 1999 fixing Y2K incompatibilities at my then-workplace.

 

[bonzombiekitty]

Not applicable, IMO. Y2K was an actual problem with unpredictable results. (Some attempts at predictions were rather humorous.) The problem was recognized and major efforts were made to ensure that no major issues occurred come 1/1/2000.

Yip. Y2K was a potentially serious problem. Not planes falling out of the sky or nuclear reactors blowing up sort of serious (not that those particular scenarios were much of an actual concern amongst people who had an idea of what they were talking about), but they could have caused some major unpredictable headaches especially when it came to financial stuff. Hell, the last company I worked for had a couple issues with software when the start and end of DST was changed.

The reason why on Jan 1, 2000, we didn't see many problems is because we saw the problem coming and spent billions in preventing it.

Just wait until 2038 when 32 bit UNIX time becomes negative.

 

[Trakar]

Y2K - Even though that was not really based on science.

Y2K was real, though a bit over-hyped in some quarters and mostly avoided by tens of thousands of man-hours of dedicated work by programmers and systems people around the globe. Patches and fixes were largely in place before the opportunity for dramatic effects unfolded.

 

[Trakar]

I don't think the issue was forced in this case by something bad happened. It's just that concensus for the validity of the heliocentric model became so strong that the church could no longer fight it.

that and the fact that the "fight" was rather controversial even within the church and more a matter of preferred dogma among some elements of the church hierarchy than true issues of religious belief or science.

The main issue with Galileo wasn't the science, it was his self-chosen violation of his own written promise to his close friend and benefactor Pope Urban VIII. More about politics and power plays than religion or science.

 

[Trakar]

I would say with global warming we are still at your stage 2.

2.25 - bad things are already happening (not near as bad as may happen if we continue the way we are going, but bad).

 

[Spindrift]

Y2K was real, though a bit over-hyped in some quarters and mostly avoided by tens of thousands of man-hours of dedicated work by programmers and systems people around the globe. Patches and fixes were largely in place before the opportunity for dramatic effects unfolded.

That's what I meant. It was a real problem, but it wasn't "the end of civilization as we knew" as quite a few thought it would be. It was being hyped as a potential disaster of epic proportions no matter what was done. That hype of course was BS, but it did sell a few books and a lot of canned goods.

BTW: I am a programmer and I did my share of re-writing to accommodate 2000.

 

[PhantomWolf]

My problem with Y2K is that most of the programs that required fixing where specialist programs that the general public never saw, and yet people scammed millions with Home PC fixes that were never necessary. I have a 1990's 286 running MSDOS 6.2 that worked perfectly well before 2000, and is still working perfectly well after 2000, it's never had any Y2K fixes at all. Most people by 2000 were running either Win95 or Win98, and neither of those suffered from any issues because they were already developed with the year 2000 in mind.

 

[daenku32]

Add:
Ozone hole & CFCs
Nicotine
Tobacco and cancer
Evolution!
HIV causes AIDS

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

...
Can anyone add to the list?...

Tobacco and "lung cancer, coal smoke to acid rain, and CFCs to the ozone hole" from Merchant's of Doubt an historical account of science and politics.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Add:
Ozone hole & CFCs
Nicotine
Tobacco and cancer
Evolution!
HIV causes AIDS

Whoops, you beat me to my list.

 

[Blue Mountain]

Add:
Ozone hole & CFCs
Nicotine
Tobacco and cancer
Evolution!
HIV causes AIDS

Tobacco and "lung cancer, coal smoke to acid rain, and CFCs to the ozone hole" from Merchants of Doubt, an historical account of science and politics.

Looks like you both read the same book!

I'm thinking evolution is like Galileo in the OP, in that it's missing the aspect of "bad things will happen of you don't act on this information." It's not like tobacco and cancer, for example: the bad things include people dying.

 

[Blue Mountain]

Most people have already responded to the Y2K thing. I was involved in that, too, working on a system designed and written in the 1980s that was supposed to be retired in 1997 or 1998, until the replacement project went way over schedule.

I've heard that Eastern Bloc countries didn't put nearly the effort into their Y2K preparations that the West did, and yet still came out relatively unscathed. I suspect it was a case of 80/20: they fixed the critical 20% of the systems that accounted for 80% of the risk, and then fixed the others as needed.

 

[Blue Mountain]

I'm wondering if another entry to my original list would be evidence from criminology studies that indicates tough on crime initiatives don't reduce overall crime rates and in fact may contribute to an increase. The harm is wasted public spending: money that could go to social programs is instead wasted on prisons.

Y2K aside, I haven't seen any counter-suggestions yet.

 

[MattusMaximus]

Hurricane Katrina.

Not the actual hurricane itself, but the consequences of a direct hit to New Orleans. Scientists and engineers had been sounding the alarm about that particular disaster-waiting-to-happen for years before Katrina, and all the politicians just ignored them.

Until it happened. Then the politicians said stupid crap like: "Nobody could have anticipated that the levies would fail."

 

[Beerina]

Some scientists, unaware of Regression to the Mean apparently, and also apparently unaware of the difference between climate and weather, also predicted the year after Katrina would be horrible, but it was mild for hurricanes.