The phrase “follow the science” may very well be one of the most annoying to emerge from this pandemic. It’s proudly used by politicians, often to talk down to the rest of us when they are trying to chide political conservatives or religious people (not always the same thing) on an array of issues.
Was New York’s Gov. Andrew Cuomo “following the science” when his executive order last year forced elderly patients with COVID-19 be returned to nursing homes rather than kept in hospitals? He eventually reversed the order — but his administration remains in hot water after admitting they covered up the number of nursing home deaths. At least he didn’t fly to Cancun in the middle of all of it.
While he received wave after wave of positive press coverage, Cuomo’s actions last year were anti-science, since understanding how the virus was spreading at the time was critical to stopping it nationwide. The U.S. Attorney in Brooklyn and the FBI are now investigating the matter.
“Follow the science” is a phrase that has been used by politicians and mimicked by the mainstream press. A Google News search of the phrase yields 203,000 mentions. In mainstream news outlets, particularly last year when Donald Trump was president, the phrase became an attack on the administration’s handling of the virus. Post-Trump, the phrase continues to be one that journalists, especially in newsrooms like The New York Times are eager to quote.
This piece — “Studies Examine Variant Surging in California, and the News Isn’t Good” — began like this:
A variant first discovered in California in December is more contagious than earlier forms of the coronavirus, two new studies have shown, fueling concerns that emerging mutants like this one could hamper the sharp decline in cases over all in the state and perhaps elsewhere. …
“I wish I had better news to give you — that this variant is not significant at all,” said Dr. Charles Chiu, a virologist at the University of California, San Francisco. “But unfortunately, we just follow the science.”
This pandemic may have led to the wide use of this feel-good phrase, allowing government officials (copying what they hear from scientists) to exert enormous powers. However, other politically polarizing issues — such as abortion, transgender rights and climate change — have also led to its overuse. For many journalists, it means something like this: We have the truth on our side, while the rest of you believe in conspiracy theories. It’s a way to stifle debate, while offering lopsided news coverage.
What does it mean for journalism and particularly the impact of Catholic voices in news stories? That Catholics, and traditional religious believers in general, are seen as anti-science puts them in direct contradiction with what these politicians say and want.
That may be why the Catholic church and religious organizations are often left out of such news coverage. When they are a major part of the story, the piece is often framed by the mainstream press in ways that reveal bias against faith-based institutions.
Daily press briefings by many governors across the country argued that “follow the science” was the only way to defeat the coronavirus. But “science” in these cases most-often referred to public health policies and models trying to predict future spread. But journalists always need a good dose of skepticism when approaching a news story, but the “follow the science” mantra can often mean anti-Catholic bias.
Since churches were shut down last year, some dioceses have been on the forefront of the legal fights to re-open churches, particularly in New York and San Francisco. It was this time last year, for example, that we all experienced a Lenten season like no other in our lifetimes. At the same time, liquor stores and big-box stores remained open.
Mainstream journalists should know that Christianity — and specifically Catholicism — is not anti-science. The truth is quite the opposite. When the church goes to court to re-open churches, it’s not because they’re anti-science. It’s largely a fight over what activities the governments chose to deem as essential.
Science had little or nothing to do with church closures. After all, Walmart and Target remained open because food is essential. Thousands of people walked into those stores. When a snowstorm and power outages affected Texas last week, it was churches that tried to help those most in need.
The need for church communities is a subject that’s important throughout the year, but Lent does put the focus more clearly on what it means to attend Mass in preparation for Holy Week. The Supreme Court ruled last summer, after a lawsuit was brought by the Diocese of Brooklyn in New York against the state, that COVID-19 restrictions “single out houses of worship for especially harsh treatment.” In the United States, the Supreme Court, and appeals to the First Amendment, allowed for churches to reopen with smaller crowds and social distancing.
It was last September that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who the Associated Press referred to as a “practicing Catholic” in its news story, called on churches to “follow the science” when it came to restrictions. The comments came in retaliation to San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone’s position that the closures are too draconian.
In that very story, the topic of faith and science came up. Here’s how that part of the AP story was written:
Pelosi noted that faith and science are sometimes seen at odds.
“Around here, people say to me, You’re a person of faith, why do you believe in science?” she said.
“I say, I believe science is an answer to our prayers. It is a creation of God, and one that is an answer to our prayers.”
Science is an answer to prayer, so therefore she believes in it? The news account ended on that quote so there was no deeper exploration of it. Going deeper could help secular journalists understands the connection between faith and science, at least in a Catholic context, when looking at these issues as we enter Year 2 of this pandemic.
Here's another example: President Joe Biden, who like Pelosi is both a Democrat and a Roman Catholic, is also a frequent user of the phrase. After all, he campaigned on “science and truth” as a way to combat former President Trump. Now that he’s president, that mantra has collided with political reality.
A Feb. 13 Politico story made the following point in regards to the virus, its fast-spreading variants, and the re-opening schools:
But nearly a month into Biden’s presidency, the push to reopen schools is laying bare the thorny balancing act between science and politics. After promising to reopen schools by his 100th day in office, Biden's already walked back the pledge to just elementary and middle schools, and then, as White House press secretary Jen Psaki said this week, “the majority of schools — so more than 50 percent.”
The shifts reflect the challenges the White House faces in restoring a sense of normalcy. Blanket vows to “follow the science” create expectations of a fixed path toward defeating the coronavirus, without factoring in the inherent politics.
“You can take science and reach a number of different policy conclusions and policy directions that are different, but are still true to the science,” said Rich Besser, a former acting Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director and CEO of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
The story does not have a religion angle, although it could have. In an Op-Ed piece that ran the previous day in USA Today, Ashley McGuire, a senior fellow with the religious freedom advocacy group The Catholic Association and the author of Sex Scandal: The Drive to Abolish Male and Female, made the following point:
Catholic schools in all 50 states opened this fall for in-person learning where the local government officials would allow it. And where they would not, parochial schools fought hard for the right to open. Meanwhile, teachers’ unions have taken the opposite approach. They’ve fought every effort to get kids back in school and continually moved the goalposts, despite the facts, science and the increasingly loud and unified voice of the scientific and medical community arguing that kids belong in school.
McGuire concluded her piece with an appeal to Biden:
Nearly a year into the pandemic, Catholic schools have shown the nation how to open safely on a dime. If President Biden wants to make good on his campaign promise to open America’s schools within his first 100 days in office, he might start by sitting down with the heads of America’s Catholic schools.
Catholic media may be the quickest answer in trying to understanding “the other side” in these debates, given how more attuned these outlets are to theological issues.
Last month, Catholic World Report, a news magazine published by Ignatius Press, put a post up addressing this very issue. Here is the key section:
The successes of science, from engineering to medicine to technology, show us that our faith is rightly placed. But we cannot forget that scientific data do not constitute dogmas that must be believed by everyone, as its champions allege. All experimental data require interpretation, which is not an act of science, but of human reason that is fallible and influenced by prior assumptions and outside factors. We would not seek “second opinions” in medicine if it were so easy to draw conclusions from data.
We do not like to admit it, but our interpretations of science are acts of faith, that is, acts of trust based on reasonable circumstances. From this follows an even more unpleasant conclusion: we can interpret science incorrectly, as too many government orders in response to coronavirus have taught us.
In a world where everything is politicized, the notion of “second opinions” is exactly what the journalists’ toolbox demands in the form of quoting researchers, academics or anyone else that represents the “other side” of an issue.
This is the other key part of the post’s main argument:
Our science-obsessed world has to acknowledge the gap between scientific data and human interpretation. Declarations such as, “The science tells us what to do,” or “Follow the science,” conceal the interpretive element in order to squash potential dissent before it can arise. In this way, “follow the science” really becomes a form of fundamentalism: this dogma is true; do not argue. Ironically, “champions of science” hate nothing more than religious fundamentalism, yet they have formed their own kind where a deified “Science” replaces God.
On Feb. 19, the National Catholic Register ran a piece arguing the need for parishioners to return to in-person Mass and the need to receive the sacraments, most of all Holy Communion. Here’s what the piece argues:
The most important part of Mass isn’t simply that it happens. It’s that Catholics are invited to participate in the sacrifice of the altar, when they consume the Eucharist — the body, blood, soul, and divinity of Jesus Christ. The Eucharist is so important that Jesus himself commanded us to do it, saying “do this in memory of me.”
When Catholics receive Holy Communion, we are literally joined with our Lord and Savior, as if we are there with him at Golgotha, on Good Friday. The angles and saints surround us as we become filled with the grace to lead lives worthy of Christ.
But when we can’t receive the Eucharist, none of that happens. We miss the thing we need the most — God’s grace. Online Mass isn’t just inherently different, it’s inherently inferior.
The piece did not address science — but it did address the desperation on the part of the church to get people to return to Mass. Nothing demonstrated that more than a priest in New York who recently took to the streets to get people to return.
For some context on Catholicism and science there are many places to look. In 2019, in a pre-pandemic world, The Conversation ran a piece on Pope Francis and how the church continued to look towards science. Here’s the key takeaway:
The Catholic Church is not a scientific institution and it would be foolish to suggest it is.
Its religious purpose may be compatible with many aspects of science but, unlike science, its core tenants are not open to revision, even though these core tenants have seemed somewhat malleable over the centuries.
Despite this, the relationship between science and the church looks better now than ever before. The development of this relationship will have a significant impact on the public’s understanding of and engagement with science.
The church may not be a scientific institution, but everyone from cardinals and bishops to church-goers have an opinion on the matter. More of these people need to be interviewed. As recently as last month, Cordileone penned an opinion piece on what “follow the science” means, although his viewpoints are often seen in commentaries he has written, not in news stories.
Writing in the National Catholic Register on Jan. 28, this is what Cordileone wrote regarding abortion, an issue that has fractured the U.S. bishops and their relationship with Biden:
“Equality.” It’s a deeply ingrained American ideal and even a national passion. How ironic, then, that since the COVID-19 pandemic struck almost a year ago now, governments have taken it upon themselves to decide who is essential, and therefore by contrast, who is dispensable.
“Essential worker” and “essential service” are categories that are deeply alien to our ideals, but for the first time in the history of our country the government is deciding which services – and therefore which workers – are essential to society. Everyone else loses out. So, for example, we’ve watched governments this past year decide that liquor stores are more important than worship, and issue edicts that ruin the lives and livelihoods of hard-working people with no clear scientific data to back it up.
“Follow the science” is another cliché we hear bandied about quite a bit nowadays. It’s curious, though, how both science and equality are abandoned when they become inconvenient. But the most blatant example of denying the science to endorse inequality is abortion. It is science, not faith, that teaches us that human life begins at conception.
Catholics have made enormous contributions to science over the centuries. It’s time journalists understand the role of the church in these politically-charged debates, especially when a politician utters the phrase “follow the science.”