Alternatives to believing in scientists

How do you feel about scientists? Maybe you admire them,
especially if they win a Nobel Prize or invent something
that benefits all of humanity. But do you worship them? Do
you 'believe' in them? Science isn't about worship, it's
about respect, hard work and information. It's about the
facts. It's a 'fact' that some of these men in white coats
get put on a pedestal by the general public, but that's not
very 'scientific' .

I was having a Twitter conversation with a local journalist
recently. She said that she greatly admired a science
writer in the Guardian newspaper, in London. She asserted
that he was the 'most trustworthy' person she'd ever
encountered. Well, okay, that's an opinion, and I have
little information against such a claim. However, she then
went on to say she 'believed' in him. That's not very
scientific! (In fact it's the precise opposite, and part of
the reason that science developed so much in the eighteenth
century in the first place.) Science isn't about beliefs,
it's about research and verifiable theories. The problem
with belief is that it's open to test, and every
experiment, every test, every experience, has the
possibility of nullifying that belief. In this particular
case, I happen to 'believe' that I have proof the writer in
question is wrong about something he has put in his
Guardian newspaper. How can I break it gently to my
friend, the 'believer'?

The issue we disagree on is peanuts. You know peanuts, they
are a healthy, nutritious snack enjoyed by a huge number of
the population. Unfortunately there are a few unlucky
people who have an allergy to the food, and suffer grave
consequences after eating them, up to and including
anaphylactic shock and death. The problem is that the
statistics don't support that fact. I mean, let's conduct
an experiment: let's take a thousand people and feed them a
packet of peanuts. What we would find is that nine hundred
and ninety nine of them would be fine, enjoy the
opportunity, and move on with their lives. The thousandth
person would be writhing on the floor in agony, and would
need emergency medical treatment. That, you might agree, is
a fact. Unfortunately, it's also a statistic, and, to put
it simply, the statistic is that ninety nine point nine per
cent of the sample are fine with peanuts, and we must
therefore conclude that the food is perfectly safe, for
everyone, at all times, in all countries of the world.

Crazy? No, that's what our science writer on the Guardian
has done. He's looked at all the studies on mercury amalgam
fillings in teeth. These show that the vast majority of
people studied are fine with 'silver' fillings and have no
medical complications. A few have, but these are a tiny
few, a small, "insignificant" number. They might be
writhing on the floor and need medical treatment but our
science 'expert' is not concerned. The findings are, he
boldly states, that mercury amalgam fillings are fine for
everyone, at all times, in all countries of the world. What
about those people who report adverse reactions? They are
wrong, he says. They are mistaken. It can't be their
fillings that are making them ill. Well, tell the man with
the peanut allergy he isn't sick, then, (if you can get
their attention).

Of course, reaction to peanuts is an allergy, and no one is
suggesting that people are 'allergic' to mercury in
fillings. No, but they could be more sensitive than the
average. After all, there is no treatment, no medication,
no chemical, in the world that is received in exactly the
same way by every single member of the population. It isn't
logical to assert that silver fillings could be accepted by
everyone in the same way. It's entirely possible that there
might be people who have an adverse reaction to such
fillings, even if that number was nought point nought one
of one per cent! That's still a number. For those people
who might have adverse reactions, it's a tragedy. For
science writers, apparently, it's a small anomaly and can
safely be ignored.

I see a picture. It's from an old BBC science programme,
made in the 1970s by presenter James Burke. It was a
re-enactment of an actual event, way back in the 1880s.
This was after the telephone had been invented. An
experimenter found that if he listened to a telephone
headset, then moved a metal rod through a magnetic coil in
his lab, he would get a click in his ear. He showed it to
his colleague. This man walked around the garden and was
amazed to hear repeated clicks from the telephone earpiece,
while his colleague jiggled with the coil. This was twenty
years before Marconi. Now, we might appreciate that the
scientists had discovered the first principles of radio,
but since such a thing wasn't known about at the time, the
man in the garden kept saying that the whole thing was a
'coincidence' . The telephone earpiece wasn't connected, it
was 'wireless', so there couldn't be a connection between
what his friend was doing and what he was hearing, could
there?

My point is that it is a mistake to put our faith in
scientists. By all means trust science, and appreciate that
things move on, grow and develop. Newton was partly right,
but his work was extended by Einstein. The theories are
good and we learned a lot. The people, as we have seen,
were fallible. To trust one person in science, or even to
'believe' in them, is to court the possibility of
disappointment. The history of science is a succession of
great strides and marvellous developments; it's also a
history of setbacks and failures. People do that, people
fail, but the method is good and will take us forward.
Believe in science, but don't, please, believe in the
infallibility of one man, however credible they seem.