The Message that goes unheard
Science and scientists are not the enemy. We're on the same team.
We scientists are servants to society. We are here to serve you. We're supposed to find, share and defend the truth. We're supposed to listen to your concerns and investigate them rigorously. It's our job to serve you. We are your servants, not your enemies.
Policymakers and government officials are supposed to consult us, scientists and experts so that when they're making decisions they do so in ways that benefit society that protect you. That doesn't always happen and it wouldn't be the first time in history that we scientists have had to take governments to task for their failure to protect you, for their failure to take decisions that benefit society.
The scientific community, independent academic scientists are completely distinct from pharmaceutical companies who hire scientists, they need people with scientific training, but they are distinct. The independent academic scientific community is its own thing. We, scientists. Regulators.
We are here to protect you from those companies. Think about Francis Kelsey in the 1960s who refused to approve thalidomide because there was a lack of evidence to support its safety. Think about the Chernobyl disaster in 1986 when the Soviet state tried to hide the scale and danger of the incident, not just from its own citizens but from the world. It was we scientists, independent scientists, both in and outside of the USSR, who exposed the truth. We gathered data, generated evidence and shared it so that the global community could respond to the crisis and contain the destruction to the best of our ability.
We academic scientists spend most of our early career earning less than a minimum wage. And we do not benefit financially from producing one outcome over another. Private companies do. Politicians and policy makers do.
Science, like all human institutions, is not perfect and it is not entirely immune from corruption. However, the scientific method and the academic system is built such that it's pretty well insulated from corruption. Much better than private business, politics, which are environments in which corruption not only happens freely, but is specifically rewarded. The system is stacked such that those behaviours are rewarded.
Scientists are your servants. We stand with you. And this is precisely because we are among the most powerful weapons you have in your armoury to push back against corruption and exploitation.
It's precisely for that reason that you are being led to believe that you cannot trust scientists and experts. That was deliberate.
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