Politicized Science vs. Pseudoscience: Which Erodes Public Trust More?

      In January the White House posted a statement about DEI and environmental justice politicizing scientific research, subtly referencing the idea of “DEI hires” by suggesting that DEI undermines merit-based decisions. They also said that such a situation erodes public trust. Now, I am not certain of the exact policies so I am not sure if that is a legitimate concern. I suspect it is not. I would say that it could erode public trust if it was perceived to be a problem by those in scientific research, but I have not heard of any issues aside from those alleged by politicians, and I seriously doubt there are any real concerns about the quality of the people involved in scientific research. The full quote that I found disturbing was as follows:

“The pursuit of scientific truth is under threat from ideological agendas that prioritize group identity over individual merit, enforce conformity at the expense of innovative ideas, and inject politics into the heart of the scientific method.” 

“These threats have not only distorted truth, but have eroded public trust, undermined the integrity of research, stifled innovation, and weakened America’s competitive edge.”

 That is over the top. There is no evidence that leftist ideology of any sort or any ideology is having any kind of effect on the legitimacy of scientific research and to suggest otherwise without evidence that the scientific truths have been distorted is not correct. I have not seen nor heard about any evidence to suggest anyone is seeking to “enforce conformity at the expense of innovative ideas” nor to “undermine the integrity of research.” It is consensus that guides, not forces, conformity, with prevailing scientific paradigms. Consensus is a part of science as noted and explained by Thomas Kuhn in his 1950s book, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Consensus is secondary to observed facts that are arrived at through experimentation, but it is how prevailing paradigms remain the same or change. While there are certainly some concerns about the Biden administration’s focus on DEI, and lesser concerns about its overfocus on environmental justice and climate change, to call it being “under threat from ideological agendas” is a stretch of the imagination. I would characterize some of the Biden focuses as mildly politicized science.

      Trump and company seem to have a big problem with telling the truth, and while Biden certainly politicized things he shouldn’t have, it seems as if the payback is severalfold with the new administration politicizing everything they can, sticking to aggressive talking points. Truth is something, it can be argued, that Trump has had difficulty with, starting with his intense denial of the 2020 election. Perhaps the story of Trump in a sentence is “Who needs truth when you have leverage?” And that leverage can seemingly even be manufactured as needed.

     Pseudoscience is a way of depicting as science ideas that do not follow the scientific process for the goal of legitimizing fringe ideas. Sometimes actual scientists will fall for it and become part of it, but this is not common. It is prevalent in health science and medicine with so-called quack cures. These have the potential to actually harm people and have done so. It can be argued that such ideas led to the unnecessary deaths of many, probably tens of thousands, during the height of Covid. People also failed to follow basic simple guidelines because they distrusted the government, leading to mass deaths. Vaccines prevented thousands, or more likely millions of more deaths, but occasionally had some negative effects which were amplified to feed narratives of government distrust. Now the new, and arguably whacko, HHS head RFK Jr. wants to limit mRNA vaccines and emphasize alternative cures and preventatives over traditional vaccines like those for measles.  News organization Pennies to Save recently noted RFK’s nod to vitamin A as a measles preventative to the shock of the medical establishment:

 

“Recently, Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has sparked controversy by publicly claiming that vitamin A supplementation can effectively prevent or treat measles, raising significant concern among health experts. While vitamin A can support overall immune function and may slightly reduce the severity of measles complications in malnourished populations, public health officials stress that it is not a substitute for vaccination. The CDC and medical experts overwhelmingly advocate vaccination as the only proven and reliable method to prevent measles and its serious complications. Health officials warn that misinformation surrounding alternative treatments like vitamin A can dangerously undermine public trust in vaccines and reduce vaccination rates, exacerbating outbreaks like the one currently experienced in Texas.”

     To answer the question of what erodes public trust more requires details like how politicized the science is and what the actual pseudoscience is promoting, so there is no exact answer. Both can distort the truth but in this case, the answer is clear. Pseudoscience can and has harmed many people. Politicized science has arguably not harmed many or any people, especially things like DEI. The Trump administration seems to be arguing that hiring more minority people is harmful because they were not hired based on merit and that may not be true at all. Hiring on merit is a judgment call by hirers and whether a person’s ethnic or racial makeup is a factor that is difficult to determine in hiring. Research also shows that more diversity in problem-solving teams can be important in bringing in more perspectives that can lead to better collaborative science. To suggest that so-called “DEI hires” are causing safety and quality issues is simply not supported by any evidence. However, hiring people like RFK Jr. to lead HHS is an example of the kind of “fox guarding the henhouse” logic that Trump has championed in his assault against competent government.

     Ted Nordhaus notes in a Breakthrough Journal article that it was once solely the political Left that championed, at least on its fringe, ideas like synthetic chemicals and foods are bad because they aren’t natural, and they are made by corporations. The list also includes genetic modification, which has never been proven to have any negative effects. Now, with RFK Jr. in that position, what I think of as probably some of the worst excesses of the political Left is now at threat of becoming mainstream on the political Right. I sensed this years ago with people like Tulsi Gabbard who championed dictators, tyranny, and implausible ideas over the “evil” mainstream Democrats, often on Russia Today News. Nordhaus shows that the fringe ideas of the environmental Left have been incorporated into the MAHA movement:

“What distinguishes both the environmental movement’s long standing claims and MAHA’s more recent claims in most cases is an implicit theory about human health and the environment that is functionally the same as homeopathy. Both tell us that there are invisible environmental poisons, originating in industrial processes and pollutants, that even in infinitesimal doses are responsible for death and illness at vast scales. Hence, the President’s MAHA executive order directing the commission to investigate the causes of “the childhood chronic disease crisis” includes “absorption of toxic material,... environmental factors,... food production techniques, [and]... electromagnetic radiation…”

“The embrace of all that is natural and wholesome, in contrast to that which is artificial, synthetic, unnatural, and corrupted, offers a seemingly simplistic framework for navigating the contradictions of modern life and the afflictions of societal affluence. But the claims and remedies, whether offered by environmentalists or MAHA influencers, are almost always retrograde and shot through with a kind of privilege that masquerades as virtue. MAHA’s remedies, like so much that has long been advocated by environmentalists, are really leisure class luxuries—diets, supplements, personal trainers, and organic foods. They are all, at a personal level, exclusionary, and at the level of policy and society functionally regressive, insisting that making the poor and working class pay more for food, medicine, energy, and consumer goods will pay for itself through good health. I have joked for years that it is always wise for working people to beware of environmental geeks bearing gifts. The same will be true for MAHA’s many naturalistic remedies and public health apostasies.”

     The bottom line is that science is good and necessary, even if it is sometimes politicized a bit. The Trump administration wants to promote fossil fuels to the horror of climate change activists. But there are some good reasons to promote fossil fuels: they are cheap, they can be extracted and used responsibly to a certain extent, they are reliable, they can provide more comprehensive energy access and lower costs for the poor, and they can provide better energy security. There are also good reasons to pursue alternative energy like solar and wind. They lead to less pollution and carbon emissions and fewer environmental impacts, and they can be cheap to dispatch (when available). Mandating them, a form of politicizing them, however, can lead to reliability problems and high grid integration costs and issues. The mandates are a more dangerous form of politicization, which is one reason I often argue against them. The whole idea of net zero by 2050, often considered a reasonable aspiration, may end up not being so reasonable if technologies don’t evolve fast enough and energy costs for the poor rise too much. Aspirations are fine, mandates are usually not. Pseudoscience is rarely useful and often harmful. Sure, there can occasionally be grains of truth in some of those ideas, but we should be cognizant that lunatic fringe ideas rarely ever become mainstream. Mainstream means supported by consensus, in this case, scientific consensus, and as Thomas Kuhn pointed out consensus only changes when new ideas are proven by experimentation and accepted by scientists into new paradigms.

 

 

References:

 

CDC Responds to Measles Outbreak. Pennies to Save.  March 17, 2025. CDC Responds to Measles Outbreak - penniestosave.com

Fact Sheet: President Donald J. Trump Launches PCAST to Restore American Leadership in Science and Technology. The White House. January 23, 2025. Fact Sheet: President Donald J. Trump Launches PCAST to Restore American Leadership in Science and Technology – The White House

Quackery Is As Quackery Does: Environmental Chickens Come Home To Roost With RFK Jr’s Confirmation. Ted Nordhaus. Breakthrough Journal. March 5, 2025. Quackery Is As Quackery Does - The Breakthrough Journal