When the chips are down, who can you really trust?
Your pilot, your doctor? Yes. Your family and friends? Probably. Your boss? Hmmm, maybe. Politicians, journalists? OK, well it was worth asking.
In the surveys of the most trusted professions, another group often features highly. These people dedicate their lives to making our lives better and to expanding the frontiers, and sum total, of human knowledge.
Without scientists, the world would be worse off in many ways. As awful as the Covid-19 pandemic is, it hardly bears thinking about how much more terrible it would be if the combined heft of scientists across the globe had not invented and developed several vaccines in such a short time.
Unfortunately, not everyone does trust science or scientists. Science is often complicated and requires people with strong analytical skills and high levels of intelligence — that mistrust from some may be because they do not understand the work or the methods involved.
Social media has given scientists a broader platform from which to explain their research and their discoveries, but it has also opened the door to abuse from online trolls and those who, in the case of the pandemic, have gone down the rabbit hole of misinformation and disinformation.
The abuse and violent threats that some of our scientists have received as a consequence of their Covid-19 work is disgraceful and totally unnecessary.
Many of those firing the barbs would probably be first in line to complain if their lives were affected by something science could have averted.
Two examples from recent days illustrate this. New Zealand has particular strengths in natural hazard science and the earth sciences, hardly surprising given the country’s position on the shaky Pacific ring of fire and how our volatile weather affects many endeavours, including the primary industries the economy relies on.
We take it for granted — even those who don’t trust scientists — that we will get a good steer each day on the likely weather ahead. Imagine the complaints if weather forecasts suddenly stopped appearing.
As atmospheric science has advanced in the past decade, we now expect not only reasonably accurate monthly predictions but seasonal forecasts too.
Niwa and WeatherWatch have both just released their predictions for this month and for the summer, suggesting we are in for another milder-than-average season.
A brewing La Nina weather pattern meaning a wetter, cloudier summer is on the cards for northern and eastern parts of the country, and drier conditions are likely the further south you live.
Such seasonal predictions are hugely useful for those whose livelihoods depend on the weather, giving a broad indication of possible stormy conditions. For many of us, they also provide valuable information from which we can plan our summer holidays and outdoor activities.
This week, scientists began installing the densest network of seismometers to date along the South Island’s hazardous Alpine Fault. The latest research says this could rupture in the next few decades and generate a magnitude 8 to 8.2 earthquake.
About 50 seismometers from Milford Sound in the south to Springs Junction in the north will measure tremors too small to be felt to give researchers a better idea how the fault might break in the next big
earthquake.
That will also show how the energy travels between the fault and urban centres to better predict shaking and damage, and avoid fatalities, in those places.
Such information is invaluable for all New Zealanders, even those who don’t understand or believe or trust scientists.
So why do some Kiwis steadfastly refuse to get vaccinated and not trust the science and the scientists on this? It’s not easy to answer, unless you consider that perhaps it is fear or a desire to bury one’s head in the sand that overrides a logical response.
After all, if you don’t trust science, with its objective approach, and scientists, who communicate discoveries without fear or favour, who will you put your trust in?
We ignore science at our peril.
