America has reached an epistemological breaking point. For the first two months following the coronavirus outbreak, public-health experts insisted that we “follow the science” and implement their recommendations, even if it meant millions of lost jobs and significant restrictions on constitutionally protected activities, such as church attendance and freedom of assembly. Blue-state governors quickly positioned themselves as executors of this neutral scientific knowledge, condemning anti-lockdown protesters as “anti-scientific;” meantime, social media companies banned anti-lockdown groups and censored content from lockdown skeptics.
But when protests erupted in the U.S. after the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, many public-health experts reversed course—and subordinated “science” to their activist politics. The same doctors and nurses who once shamed churchgoers released petitions in support of Black Lives Matter and marched with tens of thousands of protesters in the streets. They categorized racism as a public-health threat and rationalized their participation in street demonstrations by deeming Covid-19 transmission the lesser of two evils. In other words, public-health experts rejected science in favor of progressive politics.
Read Full Article »