Understanding the Assignment

The cover story for the January issue of The Atlantic is "The Most Powerful Man in Science." It's ostensibly a story about Robert F. Kennedy Jr., but it's really a story about Secretary Kennedy's worldview and his feuding with the "medical establishment." And, as such, the phrase "trust in science" came up.

It was misplaced. Many people, and I would count Secretary Kennedy among them, don't have a problem with science; they has a problem with people. What they suspect is going on is that the policy prescriptions that they're receiving are not neutral, but motivated by people who stand to benefit. Opaque, technical studies are being used as weapons against them.

And once the specter of human dishonesty enters the picture, all bets are off. Because a study, or one hundred studies, can say whatever; once someone believes that the outcomes of the studies have been manipulated, none of it matters anymore.

Social trust is a tool, not a moral imperative. People have to feel that trusting other people comes with some direct benefit to themselves. The public-health and perhaps the broader scientific communities have a problem in the sense that people feel that not trusting them is the best way to go. High profile arguments, or even future data, aren't going to solve that. A sense that trust is rewarded with a better life will.