Should we be Putting Scientists back on Top?

French translation

Winston Churchill once reportedly said “Scientists should be on tap, but not on top.”

Now I do understand that nobody likes to be kept in a little box, waiting to be opened when needed … to only give a “Yes/No” answer. I also feel that all decisions should be based on the best available evidence (that scientific information should be elevated above other factors in influencing our activities). So why would we then even consider Churchill’s statement?

I recently attended a European Commission two-day conference on the role of science in policy, attended by more than 1500 people involved in “science-based EU decision-making”. The audience was composed mainly of government science policy advisors (at all levels and regions) and academics involved in public policy and science communications. Gone are the days when industry reps would attend these events in the hopes that EU decision-making would be more evidence-based (they have since learnt that their own evidence would be ignored). Civil society stakeholders also did not attend as they have since learnt they could easily influence decision-making without scientific facts by simply undermining the credibility of regulatory scientists.

Except for one seemingly lost Risk-Monger, there did not appear to be any risk specialists in the room, which was quite surprising since the demand for better science-based regulations grew out of the emerging risk management theories of the 1990s and early 2000s.

The vocabulary seems to have changed. The traditional view (my view) is that science and evidence enter the decision process (policymaking) via a risk assessment where the best data is gathered and made available to the risk manager (the regulator). This information is then evaluated in the risk management process in relationship to other factors (socio-economic, historical, cultural values…), and a mix of scenarios with other factors considered (time impact, certainty levels…).  

So when a government official has an issue, a question is sent to expert advisers who are available on tap, and the answer is then folded into the decision process combined with these other factors. In the traditional risk management process, the scientist should not be “on top”, jumping from providing evidence to demanding a specific course of action. Government risk managers should not abdicate responsibility and hide behind their scientists using a “follow the science” mantra.

But no one at the Brussels conference was talking about developing trusted, comprehensive risk assessments to support the risk management process. So what were they talking about?

Science as an “Immediary”

The academics who are leading this debate (and serving as expert advisors) see a direct line between scientific evidence (“the science”) to policy advice (“What you must do because of the science”) to a policy decision. They do not see scientific evidence as part of the decision-making process; it is the process.

So speakers with high positions in various science policy mechanisms were presenting their views on the podium couched in vocabulary such as “influence”, “relevance”, “trust” and “understanding the needs of the policymakers”. On the second day, there were hisses in the room when a remark was put forward by a session rapporteur that maybe scientists should stick to just providing information to the question posed and then leaving decisions to the advisee.

I attended one session on science advice on the transition to a sustainable food system and two social scientists on EU science advisory bodies were adamant that their role was to introduce the means to implement the transition. They acknowledged how they expected blowback from the food industry regarding their advice, but that was not their problem. When I noted there were no farmers in the room, they seemed quite confident after having “spoken to so many groups of farmers … who are all begging for a food system transition”. These are not the farmers I speak to every day and not the farmers that regulators will need to answer to. The dangerous myopia (and self-righteousness) of these members of a scientific advice mechanism frightened me.

It is not only the scientists who seem to be trying to extend their mandate, but also that regulators are often hiding behind them on policy decisions. This happened during the British BSE (mad cow) crisis in the 1990s when government officials claimed their policies followed from the scientific advice they had received (… and then blamed the scientists when things went south). Following that and other poorly managed risk crises in the 1990s, UK polls showed that trust in scientific experts fell below that of lawyers, prompting the House of Lords to start up the Science in Society programme in 2000.

I asked these advisors cum policymakers how they could be so sure that there is a need for a transition in our food systems and if they are not, perhaps, exceeding their mandate. Their reply was that the policymakers gave them the mandate (“after more than a year of deliberations”). In other words, they believe the policymakers had already made the decision of the need for a food system transition and are transferring the responsibility for policy implementation to their science advisors (… and will likely use them to legitimise their policy action). These academics feel proudly empowered. I suppose history will call this “The Great Farm2Fork Failure“.

I found the word “science” being used rather casually around the room like it has some specific definition and value. There is a scientific method and scientific theories, but “science” as a field means nothing (unless you’re a sociologist seeking recognition and a white coat). Within the sciences, you have vastly different methodological ranges to approaching issues. A chemist would measure toxicity of a substance by measuring exposure levels against an LD50 range while a biologist will see it within a complex web of influences. During the COVID-19 pandemic we saw a marked difference between the more precautionary lockdown approach of the virologists and the more “let it rip” epidemiologists. This doesn’t even include positions by social scientists who want to bring in “other forms of knowledge”.

The word “multidisciplinary” has become a buzzword, but the more I had heard it, the more certain I had become that this lexeme was rather fuzzy (perhaps for a reason)

The Climate for Revolution

To speak generically of “science advice for policy” is to treat the process like a sausage factory. Facts go in and policy actions come out. But this implies giving scientists more power and influence in the decision-making process. The word “influence” was repeated quite frequently during the conference. Is this evolution due to ambitious scientists or of policymakers not being accountable and happy to hide behind someone’s white coat.

It is safe to say that our request for scientific advice only takes place when there is an uncertainty that causes public fear. The problem with the activist-driven policy arena, coupled with the social-media based townhall, is that every issue now seems to be uncertain and causing public fear. The climate change umbrella has allowed influence groups to profit from a holistic uncertainty crossing energy, mobility, food, biodiversity and industrialisation issues (making scientific advisors very busy now).

With the climate debate, we are constantly told to “listen to the science” (remember to be suspicious whenever you hear someone using the term “the science“). But it is one thing to take in the best scientific information and it is another thing to say the scientists are telling us to do X or Y. It is usually the activists who are saying “The climate science says this, therefore we must go renewables and stop capitalism. No time to lose!!!”. Before 2016, I didn’t hear many respectable scientists saying such things but as interest groups like to associate with such academics, words can be twisted to become dogmatic policy solutions. Of course, some experts egos need stroking.

Several important things have happened in the last decade:

• Climate scientists gathered evidence. The evidence scared them. They informed the risk managers (policymakers). These people were not so scared. This scared the climate scientists even more. Activists claimed the regulators were being influenced by industry. So scientists spoke up and started telling regulators what they must do (ignoring other factors in the risk management process they could not comprehend from the comfort of their positions).
• Private research funding has shifted from industry to large trusts and foundation sources. Often the research is tied to producing results that are in line with the foundation’s objectives. Research parameters are devised to deliver these objectives. Funding is thus justified and the foundations use the research data to advance their political ambitions.
• Academic publishing and the peer review process have come under financial difficulties. Large journals are becoming driven by the news amplification process. This filters down to university communications managers who treat publications as PR opportunities. Papers have a higher chance of publication and amplification if they play up the climate fears and the policy implications.
• Hollywood took over the climate issue. And like any good story, there needs to be a clear hero and a clear villain. The film Don’t Look Up presented the heroic scientific advisors battling a world of idiots. Conclusion, we need to put the advisors on top. Rational debate and honest risk management does not stand a chance when a Hollywood A-lister needs a PR plug and has a budget for some light entertainment.

It is now considered quite normal that any scientific research on climate issues is released with the direct advice to policymakers on the course of action that must be taken. The media amplifies this, activists build campaigns around it and discussion is around how we need to “follow the science”. We no longer even need a Swedish teenager to haunt us.

But in democratic systems (that haven’t yet declared themselves as technocratic autocracies … remember the European Sovereign Debt Crisis), the risk manager is still responsible for the final decision (and not the risk assessors, no matter how highly they think of themselves). Evidence provided by scientists is valuable but needs to be weighed with other factors (economic viability, job losses, potential timeline for any energy and food transitions, other scenarios …). But more and more today, scientists, egged on by activists, funders and other interest groups, are having a hard time keeping away from of the policy process.

The COVID Evolution

Imagine if this November, a new, vaccine-resistant coronavirus variant emerges and causes infections to spike and if the same scientific advisors then returned to our TVs to call for a new lockdown. They would be dragged through the streets and hanged, drawn and quartered in the market square.

Has that fear passed its prime or have scientific advisors spent their dime?

But how did we get to the point where, on a daily basis, we were watching scientific advisors telling us what needed to be done (with death-tellers on the side of our screens keeping us terrified).

• COVID-19 had created a high state of fear, uncertainty and anxiety.
• After two decades of precaution, policymakers had lost the capacity to manage risks or make hard decisions.
• Populist leaders were not trusted so the media turned their focus to the experts.
• The “Listen to the science” climate campaigns had created a political environment ripe for scientism.

An ongoing British public inquiry into the management of the COVID-19 crisis has sparked some interesting debate on how the SAGE (Scientific Advisory Group on Emergencies) functioned. Kevin Bardosh, in his analysis, observed from the hearings how it was unclear to the SAGE members whether their role was to provide objective advice or decision-making. The SAGE composition was imbalanced providing a bias and groupthink that affected the advice given. It also lacked autonomy, transparency and accountability.

Bardosh concluded:

The willingness of politicians to empower Sage appears to be, at one level, a symptom of the inexperience and dysfunction of the Johnson government, which is now well appreciated by the British public. In effect, one outcome of this is a further descent into a technocratic state. 

That technocracy was imposed by weak leaders whose claim to “follow the science” was seen as a means to avoid accountability. And like the BSE crisis almost three decades before, the scientific advisor was set up to take the blame. Imperial College’s mortality modelling was publicly credited as the advice that convinced the UK government to go into lockdown. Disagreements with those models was picked up in the British press and Professor Neil Ferguson soon became the most despised scientist in the UK. His resignation, ultimately on ethical grounds, was celebrated and the much-maligned scientist was publicly ridiculed.

The Threat of Scientism

Post-COVID scientific advice has adopted a new, front-line role that has led it into risky territory. We seem to be falling into a technocracy based on scientism – that only the science matters and only science is capable of determining “the truth”. Scientism entails a certain impatience with alternative approaches and other forms of knowledge within the scientific community (some would call this “arrogance”). When one takes on the title: “expert”, it implies a superior value within the decision-making process.

When you spend your days in a lab determining what is right or wrong, you assume that your position, mirroring the truth, is right and that then gives you ‘the right’. But in policy debates, especially in a participatory haven like Brussels, the scientific expert is just one voice in the process. When scientists step beyond saying: “This is the information you should consider” and move to “This is what you should / must do”, then scientific advice has fallen into the trap of scientism.

In the last decade this seems to have become the norm. Frustrated by what is perceived as insufficient policy action, a certain group of climate scientists have become excessively assertive in pushing their advice beyond the risk assessment process. NGOs and the media have amplified their statements as part of their role in the policy debates, often creating backlashes and personal attacks on these advisors.

But COVID-19 created a situation where scientism was elevated to technocratic levels in the decision-making process. In a heightened period of fear and uncertainty, policymakers tended to hide behind their scientists, putting them forward in their daily news briefings to try to communicate simply during a period of complex emerging health evolutions.

If only this were the biggest problem for public trust in science.

Worse than the disdain for the non-scientific positions was the utter intolerance and public attacks certain scientists inflict on other scientists with differing views. I am not just talking about the Ramazzini radical zealots here. When the human toll of the long-standing COVID-19 lockdowns were taking effect, advocates of the Great Barrington Declaration were labelled “COVID deniers” by the John Snow (precautionary) signatories. The abusive, intolerant and arrogant position taken against scientists who dared to disagree was proof enough that such narrow-minded ideologues should be kept far away from technocratic policy levers.

The most dangerous threat to scientific discovery is a group of scientists declaring that they have the consensus who then turn their venom on other scientists with the ‘denier’ charge. Scientists must be sceptical by nature and open to all ideas.

Status (and stature) is a dangerous thing. When a scientist is appointed to an advisory position (like the EU’s Scientific Advice Mechanism), it is celebrated by the academic’s institution. It is a power promotion but these lab-driven experts are often dropped into unfamiliar waters. I worked many years in a research centre of a large Belgian industrial group. The only career progression up the corporate ladder for scientists was to promote them out of the lab to managerial posts. Problem is they were never trained in management (or communications). The same holds true for many scientific advisors suddenly finding themselves in complicated policy debates. Fish don’t do well when perched in trees.

The Consequences

Not having a clear role for scientists in the policy process has undermined the public trust in science. Other actors in the policy debates have manipulated the unclarity for their own interests. In the 1990s, during the BSE crisis in the UK, British regulators hung their scientists out to dry when the cows began to wobble and affect their credibility. The fallout from that disaster should have been a lesson to the scientific community to keep their advisory role confined within the risk assessment limitations. But the history of science is not a well-studied field.

The glyphosate saga 2.0 , where the ECHA and EFSA scientists recently used clear, mono-syllabic statements on how glyphosate is safe, essentially left these agencies with targets painted on their backs. I noted how the activists have recalibrated their arsenal, aiming their attacks no longer on industry (Monsanto is gone), but on the regulatory scientists. NGOs may not have scientific evidence or facts on their side, but they are master communicators who can control the narrative and protect themselves from any campaign threats. So when some scientists stick their neck out and publicly present the facts, activists don’t hesitate to bring their chopping block out.

Another option is for NGOs to simply ignore scientific advisors and treat them as irrelevant or captured by industry. A recent spectacle in Canada exemplified just that. The American NGO, the Natural Resource Defense Council (NRDC), released a report that tried to claim that the Canadian forestry industry emits more CO2 than the Alberta tar sands. When the regulator, Natural Resources Canada, responded with evidence and explanations to show that Canadian forestry was being responsibly managed, the NRDC just ignored them. The NGO continued their campaign, based on their politically-driven claims generated from their New York law offices, using their journalists to further spread disinformation from their contrived report.

In an article in The Firebreak, I made the following observation:

Today there is no longer any need to implant industry as the source of the rot threatening human health and the environment. Now the rot is emanating directly from government scientists who must now be excluded. … Activist groups have perhaps prematurely started implementing their long-term strategy of mass delegitimization. Once we no longer trust industry, the academe and government, the story goes, we will embrace the activists’ alternatives: citizen scientists supporting decisions made mostly via citizen panels and townhall citizen assemblies (ie, run by activist groups).

The Forest for the Trees

So is the only alternative to scientists leading the policy process then the complete opposite: removing expertise and leaving decisions in the hands of citizen panels? If we are remotely serious about this option, then the risk management process must be dead and buried.

How do we Fix this Mess?

I wish I had an easy answer to this question. This hole was dug when a group of myopic activist NGOs pressured a weak Brussels leadership to remove the post of Chief Scientific Advisor to the President of the European Commission in 2014. The proposed alternatives were weak and then the climate and COVID-19 crises added salt to the wounds of scientific advice.

Shouldn’t there be something between the two extremes of scientism in an unaccountable technocratic state, at one end, or a group of scientific experts kept in tight confines and easily ignored at the other? This article hopefully showed there are serious trust and policy issues when scientists are put on top. So what are the ‘on tap’ alternatives? For the next European Commission to be installed in mid-2024, I would like to propose the following ideas.

1. Bring back the role of the Chief Scientific Advisor to the President of the European Union. The Commission needs the quiet support of a scientist in the room to avoid being pulled away from the best available evidence. This is much more valuable than some advice mechanism that can take over a year to publish a 500-page report on an emerging issue that no one will read. But this person needs a budget and a team, much like the American system where the chief science advisor sits at the cabinet level.
2. Define clearly the risk management process, how the policymaker is the risk manager drawing on scenarios based in part on risk assessments providing the best available evidence. Produce a White Paper to clarify the roles and the process. It should also be clear where precaution comes into the process (not in the beginning when an uncertainty is present, but only at the end of the process, when it is clear the risks cannot be adequately managed).
3. The risk managers need to keep the advice questions clear, asking for specific information and evidence rather than policy options, maps and conclusions. To ask experts in ivory towers to provide the best plan for a systemic (food, energy, mobility …) transition is not a proper question (or a proper way to lead).
4. Policymakers need to draw from a wide array of scientific advice. To only listen to advisors who are telling you what you want to hear leads to poor policies. In the EU Farm2Fork fiasco, so many scientists were warning against the Commission’s aspirational targets, and yet after three years, they did not consider any of their points. In an ideal process, the scientific advice should be kept confidential and interpreted within the risk management process (perhaps by a better regulation committee).
5. And finally the advisors need to be protected. The risk assessments are to be kept separate from the policy decisions and the “follow the science” mantra should be avoided. Science will rarely provide one clear option so any leader who puts the scientist as the owner of the decision is not responsible.

The two-day conference ended with a speech from Joanna Drake, Deputy Director General for Research and Innovation. She closed the event with a sober reminder: “Science should inform, but not legitimise”. Our regulators need to stand up and take responsibility rather than using science to legitimise their technocratic policy decisions. But that takes courage – a characteristic sadly lacking among our present crop of leaders.

So more and more those scientists who feel empowered to stand on top of the policy process had better learn how to duck.

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