Why We Need Science Now More Than Ever

Source: Pixabay/OpenClipart-Vectors

At a get together with colleagues the other week, as we were commiserating about the abysmal state of politics today, one of them remarked in jest that didn’t we know, facts don’t matter anymore, we are living in a “post-fact” society. Although the term has been around longer than it may seem, the notion that we are living in a society with a new kind of relationship with notions of truth has never appeared to resonate more than today.

One writer, reflecting on the term, notes that, “this is apparently the year when facts, unloved and marginalized, have finally been banished from the political sphere” (Mantzarlis, 2016, para 2). The emergence of fake news in particular has put a spotlight on the many ways that facts can be distorted, or that consumers of news can cherry pick supposed facts to cater to their preconceived notions of truth, ignoring the credibility of the sources in the process.

Indeed, it appears that the liberties being taken regarding facts during this election cycle feed into our predisposition towards processing the world with certain biases. For instance, psychologists have long identified our tendency to engage in the confirmation bias, which, as defined by a fellow PT blogger, can be described as “our well-known tendency to see things as we expect them to be. Its effects are ubiquitous, ranging from our interpretations of others’ behaviors based on the categories we put them in, to ignoring aspects of ourselves that don’t fit our master narratives, to hearing our spouses saying what they usually say instead of what they actually say” (Karson, 2015, para 1). I would add to this that such a tendency becomes particularly problematic when it is fused with our political ideology, wherein we impose our politics on how we interpret facts.

Facts are not subjective or open to interpretation the way that our social experiences or relationships may be. Facts are just that—a thing that is indisputably the case. Facts should NOT be open for interpretation. The very foundation of the disciplines within the social sciences is based upon a scientific method that enables researchers to uncover said facts by following a rigorous methodology meant to separate fiction or bias from facts. Such a standard needs to be better applied to our current political discourse and commentary.

Climate change, for instance, is a fact. Scientists do NOT dispute the credibility of global warming and its largely man-made effects. In fact, over 90% of peer reviewed, scientific journals regarding climate-related issues endorse such a consensus position. Access to guns increases the murder rate—this is not an opinion based on one’s position regarding gun control, it is an indisputable reality. The FBI (2016) reports that in the last year, 71.5% of the nation’s murders were committed via firearms.

Oftentimes, what appears to be true based on our experiences or public notions of “common sense” does not hold up to scientific scrutiny. For instance, for years a common notion regarding abortion was that women who had undergone the procedure would be more susceptible to mental health related issues. In fact, based on a new study that reportedly protected against a number of biases present in past efforts to answer this question, tracking a sample of 1,000 women over a 5 year period concluded that those who terminated their pregnancies were no more likely to experience mental health related issues than those who were denied access to abortions (as reported by Belluck, 2016).

The myth busting role of scientific studies throughout the years in academia could be listed for pages here. The takeaway is that despite our own biases, desires, or notions of what we would like or think to be true, in many cases there is not many points of views or positions to consider—facts are facts, and when we hold the truth in our hands, we should confront it fearlessly and openly. Now, more than ever, our political discourse and culture could use a hard, cold dose of the facts.

For better or worse, truth is truth, and it is not and should not be malleable.

Copyright Azadeh Aalai 2016