Never Again: We Need Science Based Government | Hacker News Reader

Never Again: We Need Science Based Government

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10 pointspbw40 comments

Another view, is that applied science that impacts policy making, has become utterly corrupt, and largely unreliable. The transformation happened in the last 30 years or so.

Deeply flawed academia reward system [1], combined with accountability-free bribe dispersing machines (eg book/documentary deals, speech fees, gifted real-estate, insider trading tips), have made this type of science very similar to 'Instagram likes' or 'Amazon reviews' in its reliability.

On top of that, given that elected officials, at least in US, delegate law writing to K-Street [2], who, then, works through lobbyists to entice politicians to buy-into those laws -- we have really, no checks and balances.

With the above point of view, 'Draining the swamp', makes sense for science as well, maybe ?

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24680154 [2] https://politicaldictionary.com/words/k-street/

Well put. I would say that one possible remedy to this issue is transparency but seeing as the specific details of how transparency is implemented would be determined by the same corrupt officials that rely on financing by "k-street" as you've put it, it will likely mean total transparency for the average citizen but special edge cases and exceptions a-la "Citizens United" or Too Big to Fail Banks for our elite rulers and thier scientists.

I would argue that science would be a good welcome addition if it can be decoupled from this "k-street" dilemna. Otherwise its likely to make matters worse because political interests and agendas can be more easily legitimized as absolute and unquestionable truth. Couple that with a tight grip on information flow and weve got a serious problem on our hands.

My mind is boggled by the tone of these comments.

“Science can be wrong! This would be a disaster!”

What?

Of course scientists can be wrong, but letting politicians ignore science, as we currently do, is clearly a disaster.

This is supposed to be a site for technical people and I see much more trashing of this post than discussion of how to actually address the issue it’s raising. Can someone tell me what’s going on there??

No way! Look at the book

"Wrong: Why experts* keep failing us--and how to know when not to trust them" by David H. Freedman

https://www.amazon.com/Wrong-us-Scientists-relationship-cons...

to see why. Experts and expert organizations, scientific or otherwise, often provide wisdom about all aspects of life - and all wrong!

The Covid pandemic proves this point: we can't get agreement on most anything. We'd do better to shitcan the CDC and most other academic and governmental institutions, forget about WHO and start all over again but with an eye to our failed past.

Sure would save a lot of money too, even though it would put a multitude of incompetents onto the streets looking for jobs.

I have not read it, but I read this excerpt: https://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/11/books/excerpt-wrong.html

I don't think any of that applies to what I'm talking about. I'm talking about scientific consensus, not what foods cause cancer but does smoking cause cancer. Not what medical procedure is best, but do vaccines work.

Some 97% of scientists agree climate change is caused by man, but we allow the person in the highest position in the land to disbelieve that. To make decisions for 330M people based on false beliefs that everyone knows are false.

And when he's out of office, we'll be sitting around waiting for the next Trump-like person to get elected. We have to do something, if not this, something better. Yes there's a ton of science that's speculative and gets overturned, but we now a shit-ton of things for sure, about math, statistics, probability, physical, chemistry, biology, we know a lot that's not getting overturned. The third law of thermodynamics is not getting overturned.

Well i wouldn't be too concerned about climate change if i were you. United Nations Agenda 2030 is already in full force were likely to have dealt with those issues by then as a result of incentives given to participating business leaders like Ben Geortzel, Bill Gates and Elon Musk. But you do make a good point about about what we do about the next Trump-like president whether on the left or the right. Im not picking sides here theyre both full of shit imo but i do worry about a single person or group obtaining a monopoly on information and scientific discourse. Thats bad and will lead to a very dark future if we dont address it soon. Even if we do and we screw this up the damage could result in a butterfly effect that will be utterly devastaing to humanity in a decade or two.

> but if someone down the line once again claims climate change or a pandemic is a hoax, the council would respond with full force using whatever political mechanisms we grant it.

"Whoever disagrees with our priests, shall by severely punished!"

Hahaha.

Im trying to find what youre quoting but nobody is saying anything about a priest. This comment seems disingenuous and im surprised it hasnt been flagged as such like some of the other comments below.

> im surprised it hasnt been flagged

Yes, we should most definitely send some authority to punish this awful display of mocker of our religion. It's real science we're talking about here!

Science is never consensus. Not any government could possibly be ruled "by science" because science is never with, or only have workable theories. By the way, not ever should a government rule the people's liberties, they are not entitled to do that.

The proposal it not that the government "be ruled by science" at all. The proposal is all three branches of the government still exist. The legislative still makes the laws, the executive still runs things, the judicial still interprets the laws.

It's just a question of wedging in a small check and balance that most of the time does nothing, but who can intervene, in TBD ways, if things go gonzo bonkers. Have you seen Handmaid's Tale? The religious right is not far from that. We don't want that.

Technocratic World Government here we come..

https://www.worldgovernmentsummit.org/

What concerns me is that science is ever changing and those that promote it are not in any way immune to human falability like corruption, self interest, deception etc. Im sure someone here knows what im talking about i dont need to say more..

> What concerns me is that science is ever changing

“Science” is just a set of methods for finding out about the world. Scientific findings are our best-guess beliefs about the world. Those beliefs change as new evidence is uncovered. What would you rather?

Well assuming a lack of political incentive i would agree that this would be the best course of action. What im trying to get at is how do we keep them from devolving to politicians with scientific titles.

Furthermore especially in the early stages of any scientific venture, the scientific method basically necessitates trial and error. Is that really an optimal approach over agreed principles AKA the social contract? Im hesitant to jump to conclusions but just because things are a mess doesnt seem to me an adequate reason to totally throw away the current approach without a careful assessment of potential pros and cons

Yes, knowing how the world works and what one should do are very different. Knowing the dynamics of a system (how the world works - science) and defining an objective function (aka a desirable outcome) are totally separable, and it'd be unfortunate if we didn't see that.

Also the rapid pace at which scientific progress is made may overwhelm society's ability to cope with the changes. That may be a moot point because i think were only talking about science serving as an advisory function but where do we draw the line as to what is an acceptable rate of change and what is not? See thing is there are a whole bunch of issues that need to be worked out. Im glad that this is being discussed in a public forum but as ive already suggested it seems these decisions have already been made for us and our discussion over them is mostly irrelevant. Its more a matter now of justifying what has been done over determining what we should do as a society. Nobody voted for this. But thats whats happening. So now we just have to deal with it and try to keep it from turning into something ugly.

i misread this title never again: science based government i thought it was advocating for the opposite of what the post is about

Too politicized. We have plenty of “science based government” and they all failed. Yes Trump failed big, but the CDC also failed, as well as the WHO. The whole world was in a big amateur hour dealing with the Coronavirus issue.

Likewise lockdowns seem to be political now, even though they are scientifically ineffective regardless of how you look at it. There's a big difference between "health politician in chief" and "actually does real research" in terms of "science".

What would you think about a forum of scientists endorsed by years of published and peer reviewed research that is open to public scrutiny. I guess something like open source for scientists where thier track record and connections are transparent and not blocked by needless complecity and or paywalls. Scientists with skin in the game that have an incentive to stay faithful to honest investigation.

Im just thinking out loud. Overall i agree with you as things currently stand. I'm just trying to think through a set of possible solutions.

complexity

> even though they are scientifically ineffective regardless of how you look at it.
Two words: New Zealand. COVID can't get a foothold in there because every time it shows up, Jacinda locks the whole country down.
The USA being literally the worst developed nation in the world in terms of COVID infection and death rate has everything to do with us playing slapsy maxie with a deadly pandemic and not having the political will to do what needs to be done to stop it from spreading.

I said “science based government” in the HN title, but really it's about adding a relatively small science-based check and balance to an existing system. Not replacing what we have just inserting something to keep it from going totally off the rails. To tug it back to reality. Political differences are fine. But someone needs to step in if a branch of the government, any branch and any party, goes so drastically far afield of what is known to be true.
Next time it might be 10X worse. We need to patch the OS and not just say “boy I’m glad that will never happen again!”

I would agree that in a society that basically measures political success on who is a better liar, we need a truth counterweight but how do we ensure that this does not become a tool of corrupt governments or officials to impose thier ideologies as absolute truth with selective reporting?

Yes counterweight is a great way to put it. I don't at all know how to implement this idea, but I feel strong if we don't figure that out, with the best minds we can find, we are doomed. Imagine Trump but more religious, with more power, more aggressive, more grandiose, more ties to dictators. We've seen proof positive the system is vulnerable to single loose cannon. We need to at least attempt to improve the system. To not do that is total negligence.

I applaud your idea, but it won't work. There are already checks and balances. The president is not a dictator.
Congress is one of them. Both chambers are elected separately and provide a counterweight to a freewheeling president. Unless they also freewheel of course.
The Surpreme Court is another one. Supposedly very educated, almost "wise" people sit there to stop things that go wrong if president AND congress go too far.
You are proposing another instance that can stop bad things from happening if ALL of the above fail. If the majority in congress joins the president with nonsense. Both Chambers. AND the Surpeme Court too. All of those have to fail for your proposal to kick in and make sense.
And you know what? If that happens, it's too late. If all the above fail, your Science Council will just be sucked into the same politicized dark alley that the other branches are in. Why? Becaude they don't exist in a vacuum. No matter how they are appointed, by election, by lifetime appointment, whatever process, once they have real power, this process can be corrupted just as much as for the other branches. You see it right now happening with the Supreme Court. People on the Science Council will live in the real world, they are not infinitely wise (wo)men falling from the sky. They need to be picked and agreed upon. If that process fails for congress AND presideny AND the Supreme Court, then it's going to fail here too.
And worse, it can be counter productive. As long as the scientific community is as "independent" as it is today, a global community not answering to a single country, it can't be easily corrupted by one countries gov going crazy. The moment you install an official council with actual power, it can and will be. Now you'll have an official body where by some corrupted process the participants will officially denounce climate change science or covid or whatever, and now your assumed corrupt regime can point at it and use it in their favor.
In summary, good idea at first sight, but unworkable when zooming in.

Without out defending the Trump administration’s handling of the pandemic, it’s patently absurd to think policy should be purely driven by science, policy must incorporate ethics, national interest, individual liberty, economics, and a host of other pertinent factors...

My article says that this new science council would work with all three existing branches of the government. Not replace them. So, it is in no way suggesting it be driven “only by science”. It’s more a question of injecting a modicum of science into the existing system.

What do you propose would be appropriate in the hypothetical scenario in which science conflicts with basic human rights? Say for instance in the extreme example, there are too many people science suggests we need to depopulate. Or maybe such and such person is genetically predisposed to engage in disruptive or criminal activity therefore eugenics or pre-emptive incarceration. Reality may or may not reflect that but it wouldn't be the first time a powerful few used science to impose draconian and/or racist policies for political purposes.

I'm not proposing any specific implementation, I don't have one in mind, I'm only floating the goal. The goal is to get "some science" into the mix as a check and a balance. Not to have science take over or run things.
Just something that most of the time provides a very gentle nudge or advisory role, but in the case of another Trump would kick in a bit more strongly. It was a disaster this time, and even if Biden wins, in 4 more years we could a second Trump-type, then a third, then a fourth. The country will not survive that. We need to do something to fix the root problem, not just wait around until it happens again.
As for being hesitant to mess with what the founding fathers created this is a great commentary on that: https://youtu.be/Ti8cMxzmWoA

No i do understand your point and i would agree that we need to introduce some science into the mix to protect us from our leaders and even ourselves in a sense. But since we're opening this can of worms you cant blame me for taking a critical analysis of the situation. We agree for the most part im just trying to spark a discussion to we can start thinking about some of the caveats of how to make this work in practice. As for the video i havent yet watched it so please excuse me if it already addresses some of what im saying but i appreciate the honest dialogue and i very much intend to take a look shortly. Ill follow up after ive taken a look.

To literally change the government would be a ten year project at least. I'm just raising it create discussion. I just think when Trump leaves office people are going to rapidly forget how bad it was. And another Trump (potentially Trump Jr) is just one election away from winning.
But the idea is to guard against either party going nutso. Parties should be given the chance to steer the ship. But we shouldn't let them take apart the ship, and deny is there is water, something has to be out of bounds. Play is "freedom within constraints" there have to be constraints, reality should be a constraint.

Great commentary was a Joe Rogan clip? Im not impressed. And your arguing a point i never made.

Im not saying we shouldn't put the intentions of our founding fathers into context with the modern world im saying we should still protect individual human rights from government abuse of power. Isnt that what we were discussing? Protecting individuals from government abuse and authoritarian rule?

Not a single individual could shape policy without it being driven by what you listed not even if they explicitly wanted to. The actual matter at hand is hidden in the second echelon who is responsible for (pre) selecting / making people decisionmakers. They don't go for the honest guy and neither the one who provides the best scientific proof for whatever needs to be decided. They rather go with the dirty rat who consistently shows to know how to book tangible results. It is this success that people desire to be associated with and it trumps everything else. ( And this statement is written by someone with 15+ years of experiences with proof based decission making on both a national and supranational level. )

Yes. I share your concern but its becoming apparent that the current state of affairs is breaking down. People are too smart they're seeing through the b.s. more and more by the day, and they're pissed. So what do we do now?

Step one is to NOT repeat the cycle. Einstein once said something about trying the same thing twice. Step two is the application of specialized, temporary but powerful guerrilla politics while we try to figure out what Step 3 ought to be.
Just don't underestimate the power of step one in large numbers.

Well my suggestion is that instead of waiting around and crossing our fingers that everything will work out, we just figure step 3. Because otherwise someone else will and they probably wont give two shits about any of us if it interferes with thier incentives.

If you figured out step 3 and still think that a more swift party could have rendered you susceptible to the threat described, it is highly likely step 3 in fact was not really figured out while probably failing to incorporate step one while being at it. Although this has been written somewhat frivolously I did not make a joke when trying to convey the importance of Not repeating the cycle. But if some choose to not heed this warning, please let them setup a political party diametrically opposing what they desire only to sabotage the very same party covertly. Or as Lenin once said, the best way to deal with opposition is to lead it. This way at least some of your energy will lead to results.

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