I was composing this for a thread that was deleted before I finished. The thread was questioning the scientific acumen of people who post about Covid issues.
---
The people who say "follow the science" are implying that they are making an objective decision, not a subjective value judgment. The implication is that science has "the answer," an objective answer regarding things like whether or not to get vaccines or whether or not to wear a mask. This is not true.
The risk of getting Covid if you are unvaccinated is non-zero.
The risk of getting Covid if you are vaccinated is non-zero.
The risk of a complication from getting a vaccine is non-zero.
These three statements are all scientific facts.
Science can also tell us which of these non-zero risk is greater or lesser than any of the others. For example, the scientific evidence shows us that there is a lower risk of death from Covid if you are fully vaccinated. Lower. But not zero.
Whenever the risk is non-zero, one must make a judgment about the level of risk that is acceptable.
This is what we are all arguing about. We're not making any progress because the people who say "follow the science" refuse to admit that they are making judgments, not following science. They are saying that such-and-such is an acceptable level of risk but so-and-so is an unacceptable level of risk.
Seen from this angle, people who decide not to get the vaccine because there is a possibility of complications are actually acting in a scientific manner. According to scientific evidence, the risk of complications from a vaccine is not zero. They have decided that they do not want to take that risk.
Yes, I understand that some people think this doesn't make any sense because it would seem that the risk of being not vaccinated is higher than the risk of getting the vaccination. This is one of the main arguments with the people who say "follow the science." Of course this is not science. These are statistics.
But perhaps we should follow the statistics.
Perhaps human behavior should be governed entirely by always making decisions that minimize risk. I believe this this is what most of the "follow the science" people mean when they say "follow the science." They have a set of actuarial tables in their brains, assessing the levels of risk of various behaviors. In a way, they are thinking like insurance companies rather than scientists.
Wearing a bicycle helmet while cycling reduces the risk of head injury. Not bicycling at all reduces it even more. Thus, one should never ride a bicycle. One should, however, wear a bicycle helmet in the shower as that would reduce the risk of head injury if one were to slip in the shower.
Here is where "follow the science" people will accuse me of being absurd, of taking it to an unreasonable level.
And there you have their admission that they do, in fact, recognize that there are levels of risk that they deem acceptable and unacceptable.
Admittedly, negotiating an acceptable level of risk for a society would be an extremely difficult thing to do. The debate would certainly be fractious, and it's possible that we wouldn't be able to reach any common ground. Nevertheless, that is the debate that we should be having. Unfortunately, "follow the science" is often used to shut down debate. At best, it is a non-sequitur in the discussion we need to have. The science can only tell us what the level of risk might be; people still need to decide what to do with the data.