From Climate Change to COVID-19: Science needs strict criticism and scrutiny.

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It is wrong and misleading to compare the scientific research on climate change with the new findings on coronavirus. Eric Schliesser and Eric Winsberg, philosophers of science, believe that when we look at the disease epidemic in novel coronavirus, we need more transparent and critical discussions, so that we can truly "believe in science".

Authors: Eric Schliesser and Eric Winsberg

"Finally, let's try to remember that the' geniuses' who told us not to worry about coronavirus are actually the same people who told us not to worry about climate change." James Kimmel

In the past few days, many comparisons have been made between the scientific knowledge about climate change caused by human activities and the increasing knowledge of public health officials about how to deal with the COVID-19 epidemic. As philosophers of science, we think this comparison is inappropriate and dangerous. It is understandable to downplay the threat of the epidemic for political motives, but we need to have a more critical discussion on public health policies.

At present, there are few controlled studies or peer-reviewed articles about COVID-19. Most novel coronavirus studies published in academic journals are presented in the form of newsletters or briefings, which means that the published results have not been comprehensively and thoroughly summarized. In addition, public health experts from virology, epidemiology, medical genetics, sociology, medical ethics and health economics have little time to make detailed comments, which are necessary to verify scientific findings and formulate effective policies. All this means that the "evidence" repeatedly mentioned by COVID-19 Coronavirus Pneumonia-19 in public discussion has not been independently reviewed.

In contrast, climate change caused by human activities is a hypothesis with a history of 100 years, which has been carefully studied, criticized and examined by many different disciplines. Even if a discipline involving climate science is not reliable enough, it may be discovered by another related discipline. As Michael Polanyi pointed out in 1962, science is not closed. Even for a careful layman, a flawed investigation route will be very obvious, because adjacent disciplines will expose their defects.

Considering that climate change and COVID-19 epidemic have not received the same degree of scientific review, on the one hand, the doubts about climate science often have the background of industrial funding and are full of lies; For the COVID-19 epidemic, scientists use a limited coronavirus model and incomplete data, which need to make a quick response, so it is misleading to compare the two. Although there are more and more policy knowledge about how to deal with the COVID-19 epidemic, scientific knowledge can be more credible and reliable only if relevant scientists form a group with reasonable structure and good communication skills. Unfortunately, there is no organized team of scientists to study the COVID-19 epidemic and its impact. Therefore, the emerging knowledge of coping with the epidemic may be the result of many human prejudices.

From the scientific and political point of view, there are many problems in this emerging knowledge that have not been strictly tested by science. Scientifically speaking, because it is a new virus, scientists should leave some room for disagreement about its nature and what countermeasures should be taken. In fact, an independent survey of experts' predictions shows that there are usually huge differences and uncertainties in their predictions. Therefore, the lack of scientific differences on the COVID-19 epidemic is very surprising, which means some kind of informal coordination, which is different from the normal equal exchange of scientific views.

After all, reliable scientific results do not come from scientists discovering some magical methods that can discover the truth in the first place. To obtain reliable scientific results, it is often necessary to strictly examine scientific claims, that is, to conduct stress tests on related concepts, data and methods for a period of time, which is usually conducted by competitors of research projects. Most scientific claims are more or less flawed, but the process of mutual criticism will eventually eliminate these defects and leave a more reliable knowledge system than the initial results.

We can take Dr. robert koch's premature scientific judgment as an example. As a scientist who "discovered the microbial causes of anthrax, tuberculosis and cholera", he immediately made headlines all over the world when he announced that he had a "drug for treating tuberculosis". Because tuberculosis was incurable at that time, and it was an important cause of death and disease, his conclusion was warmly welcomed immediately and was considered as a great comfort to society. Regrettably, when the clinical data obtained by independent scholars came out, it was obvious that the statement that tuberculosis was treated was quite hasty.

Similarly, in the field of climate science, when new data appear, for example, it is found that the ice sheet is melting at an alarming rate, or the sensitivity of climate balance calculated by global climate models has changed dramatically. There will be debates within the scientific community and it will take several years to figure out the significance of these abnormal results. However, as we write this article, the COVID-19 epidemic is spreading at an incredible speed, with many unexpected results, such as the low mortality rate in Germany, Japan and South Korea; A small village in Iceland and Italy has a high rate of asymptomatic positive infection. It takes time and care to solve these problems.

Judging from the current situation, the available data in novel coronavirus is very confusing and even contradictory, so it is difficult to understand what happened from various figures. The ability to test varies from place to place. In addition, it takes 3 to 5 days to get the results in some places, so the current positive results can only reflect the situation in the hospital 3 to 5 days ago. At the same time, the death report is real-time, and the difference between the test report and the death rate means that the so-called death rate is not reliable. However, these unreliable data are being incorporated into some simple models, and these models have great policy significance, affecting the entire economic system of many countries around the world and causing millions of people to lose their livelihoods.

Politically, shutting down the whole economy and keeping people indoors will have a far-reaching impact. Public health research points out that there is a strong correlation between good economy and health. Therefore, if there is a large-scale economic recession caused by Covid 19 epidemic, it is likely to bring about an increase in domestic violence, suicide, drug abuse and poor neonatal care. Needless to say, it is neither simple nor valuable to weigh these costs with the benefits of saving lives through economic closure.

Considering the far-reaching impact of coronavirus on economy, society and politics, people have the right to know how to measure the costs and benefits of different policies. However, the way experts and governments assess risks is not communicated to everyone else. A recent study made the British government's policy transparent, from which we can see the importance of transparency in public health policy, because it makes political decision-making more responsible to stakeholders and citizens. More importantly, transparency is a means to prevent the negative effects brought by the growth of group myths and conspiracy theories. In an epidemic like coronavirus pneumonia-19, many experts are members of the government team, so transparency is more needed to ensure that political considerations will not affect the opinions of experts.

Therefore, we understand that decision makers and their scientific advisers must make difficult decisions in time under uncertain circumstances. However, they can better explain the key commitments in modeling. How many lives do they hope to save? How long do they expect the recession to last? In terms of life and welfare, what negative consequences do they expect these policy interventions to have? What may be the impact of the huge economic rescue plan being implemented around the world?

At present, the government's response measures often come from thinking about hasty social experiments, and the public policies used in these social experiments are difficult to be understood by people, and may even have serious consequences, even if the final effects of these policies are generally in line with expectations. At least, the government's policy to deal with the spread of coronavirus pneumonia-19 in COVID-19 will have a serious impact on the economy. The impact of the blockade on the social welfare of the whole society is not clear. As this is a new virus, we don't know what will happen once the government deregulates without a vaccine.

Therefore, after being told that it will take 18 months to find the vaccine, it is necessary for us to ask whether we should continue to take these measures in this 18 month. In the final analysis, we should have more, not less, critical discussions about the science and politics behind the COVID-19 epidemic. "Believe in science" is a better slogan when the epidemic-related science can reach the mature level like climate science and be closely examined by many disciplines.

In other words, those who call themselves geniuses and tell us not to worry about climate change have been exposed again and again. Although we really need to worry about the COVID-19 epidemic, we should also worry that hastily constructed coping strategies may do more harm than good-because in an epidemic, all of us have to bear the consequences for each other's decisions.

About the author: Eric Schliesser is a professor of political science at the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands, and Eric Winsberg is a professor of philosophy at the University of South Florida in the United States.

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