Dr. Anthony Fauci, the False Prophet of Science

Over the past two years, we have been told repeatedly to trust in science, follow the science, and believe in those from the scientific community. In particular, many have raised Dr. Anthony Fauci to the status of a saint in the scientific community and believe every word he states. Blind belief in science is wrong and is terrible for science.

For prehistoric man, was his reality any less real than ours is today? In ancient civilizations that believed earth, wind and fire were basic elements, was their world any less real to them than ours, where we have a periodic table of over a hundred elements? Reality is what we interpret it to be based on our experiences and understanding. Science is only a tool that helps us in that interpretation. Science is not reality. Science at its very best is imprecise. Those individuals who would have us believe and not question science are not true scientists.

The scientific method is based on the impreciseness of science and is designed to help ensure our understanding is as precise as possible. However, science can never be 100% accurate. Why is this so? There are many reasons. Because humans are fallible, and we bring our fallibility into everything we do. Because the math we use in science is imprecise as well.

Wait, what do I mean math is imprecise? Let's take the square root of 2, for example. The square root of 2 is 1.141414.... ad infinitum. It can never be expressed with exact precision as a number. Pi is another number we can never express with exact precision. Instead, we use approximations for their values. This is a common practice in science and math. We use notation or approximation to express values that cannot be expressed with precision.

Meteorology is possibly the best example of the inexactness of science. We all know the weatherman is terrible at predicting the weather; whether it be today's weather or next week's, he never seems to get it quite right. This is true of many sciences. Yet many scientists would have us believe in them blindly. So when scientists speak of or in absolutes, they speak of false science.

The situation is even worse when those practicing science fail to recognize their own fallibility and the fallibility of science. For example, when a scientist develops a model meant to represent the natural world and predict future outcomes, he must accept that the model will be inaccurate at best. He should never use the predictions as gospel. This is true for climate change models as much as for COVID-19 models. All models make assumptions and use parameters to represent the natural world. No scientist can be 100% certain he has made all of the appropriate assumptions or included all pertinent parameters. In part because knowledge changes. We discover new information all of the time. Our understanding of the world today is different from a year ago. Models must be adapted to incorporate both new knowledge and missing parameters.

So when Dr. Fauci says, "if you question me, you are questioning science," I say you are absolutely right Dr. Fauci. Science is meant to be questioned. Science is never the truth. It is always our best approximation. It is always our current understanding based on our present knowledge.