I’ve borrowed from that noted philosopher, Yogi Berra, for the title of this post.
Déjà vu is indeed kicking in all over again, as science is politicized and weaponized by people with political and other agendas. While there are many instances through history of science being kicked around this way- and I’ll also touch on some of those- it’s the Galileo Galilei case and the Inquisition, about 400 years ago, that resonates the most as Covid-19 makes its way through the world and our lives.
Why? Only because it is quite possibly the most famous instance of data being reinterpreted to suit the dogmas and beliefs of the day. In that sense, it is perhaps the first recorded case of the ‘alt facts’/parallel reality world we now live in. And, unlike the Galileo incident, that’s a lot more than just too bad- people’s lives are at stake this time.
What the science says
Let’s briefly review what the data and science tell us about Covid-19. We know that it is highly infectious and travels human to human; we know that physical proximity accelerates infection, particularly when people don’t wear masks; we know that people die from it at much higher rates that the common flu.
This knowledge guided the social distancing, Shelter In Place and Stay At Home provisions much of the world followed and helped flatten the infection and mortality curve everywhere, especially when enacted early. But these measures have steadily been relaxed everywhere, even as fears of secondary and tertiary outbreaks persist, and in spite of all the medical recommendations and advice (the Science).
The message seems very clear: ‘screw your data and empirical evidence, it doesn’t fit with our beliefs, and yeah, we’re going to open things up as we see fit and yeah we’re not going to mandate that people wear masks, and yeah, tell someone who cares how you feel about all this’.
Hmmm. Dogma superseding Science. Have we seen this before? Yes, actually, lots.
The Galileo Affair– Part I
As a start let’s go back to ca. 1610, when the epic cosmology battle between Galileo and The Vatican started. Our conception of the world then was based on Aristotle’s and Ptolemy’s Geocentric model, which put the Earth at the center of the universe and stated that all other celestial (‘heavenly’) bodies- the Sun, Moon, planets, and fixed stars- rotated around it.
The Scriptures (Bible) codified this view- even though Copernicus, in 1543, had already proposed the Heliocentric model, with the Sun at the center of the universe and everything else, including Earth, rotating around it.
Copernicus’ reward was to have his book De revolutionibus orbium coelestium banned by the Vatican (in 1616, as a response to Galileo). However, in an early case of cherry-picking fact, his underlying foundational ideas were endorsed by Pope Gregory in 1582, giving us the Gregorian Calendar- the calendar we then began to use around the world. Go figure.
Back to 1610 or so. Enter one Galileo Galilei and his famous telescopes. Through his observations of Venus and Jupiter, and his Theory of Tides, Galileo thought he had found proof for Copernican ideas and Heliocentrism- that those heavenly bodies, including Earth, might actually rotate around the Sun.
Reaction to his proposals was swift. The Vatican dispatched a respected Cardinal, Roberto Bellarmino (aka Robert Bellarmine, later a Saint) to investigate via an Inquisition and it was Bellarmino who gave us an early rejection of science in favor of a dogma.
Galileo’s views were first rejected as “foolish and absurd in philosophy, and formally heretical since it explicitly contradicts in many places the sense of Holy Scripture”; Bellarmino then instructed Galileo to ‘abstain completely from teaching or defending this doctrine and opinion or from discussing it… to abandon completely… the opinion that the sun stands still at the center of the world and the earth moves, and henceforth not to hold, teach, or defend it in any way whatever, either orally or in writing’.
But. Bellarmino went much, much further when he said Galileo’s work could only be accepted as a ‘mathematical hypothesis—-invented and assumed in order to abbreviate and ease the calculations’.
In other words: all the science was just supposition- the Scriptures could not be contradicted. Galileo- denounced in 1615- recanted to save his life.
The Galileo Affair- Part II
And yet, he persisted. Galileo was back at it in 1633, with a new Pope in town, and this time he was accused of heresy by the Vatican. He accepted house arrest for the rest of his life but not without, reputedly- muttering ‘and yet, it moves’.
For the record Galileo was rather luckier than one Giordano Bruno, who had been burnt at the stake in 1600 for also believing the earth moved around the Sun, among other wild notions. The Vatican didn’t clear Galileo of heresy- or accept his views- until 1992. Yes, you read that right. Nineteen. Freaking. Ninety. Two.
There are other prominent examples of Science’s misuse and abuse. See the Eugenics movement of the early 20th century, which enabled the Nazi’s to promulgate their racial superiority ideology, with ghastly and tragic effect; it is still with us today. More recently we’ve had to deal with the denial of Climate Change and Global Warming measurements and data.
So, Here We Are.
Everything the science and scientists said has come true. After a brief Summer plateau, in October 2020 we are looking squarely at the rise in infections and deaths that they predicted, with no soft landing in sight until sometime in 2021.
What do you do as a medical and scientific practitioner in the Covid-19 world? Where your data and science is horribly inconvenient and more accurately a very significant threat to those who want to stay in power by any means necessary? Even when that means putting people at risk and costing more lives long term? A world where leaders want things to be as they want, and not as they actually are?
Well, I for one hope that the world of science will stand up, as so many have- to remind people of the data.
And I hope they will channel Galileo and shout- not mutter:
AND YET, IT MOVES.
Writer: Deepak Kamlani
Image: Mitch Hodge, Unsplash
