Face Masks & Bad Science

Virginia Governor Ralph Northam has decided that all Virginians must wear face masks in “indoor public areas.”  An enlightened authority, he declares that he has good reason for his decision. 

“I am taking this step because science increasingly shows us that the virus spreads less easily when everyone is wearing face coverings,” Northam said during a press conference.

It’s nice to know that science shows this.  It would be helpful to know where we go to consult science.  Perhaps to one of science’s spokespersons, such as Dr. Anthony Fauci. 

"I want to protect myself and protect others, and also because I want to make it be a symbol for people to see that that's the kind of thing you should be doing," Fauci, the nation's top infectious disease expert and a member of the White House's coronavirus task force, told CNN's Jim Sciutto on "Newsroom."

Fauci said he believes that while wearing a mask is not "100% effective," it is a valuable safeguard and shows "respect for another person."

There are two very different argument in favor of face masks here.  One is that face masks serve as a symbol of virtuous intent.  It serves as a symbol for what people should be doing and it shows respect for other persons.  I confess that I am skeptical.  I happen to think that public health policy should be designed to advance public health and not to send signals. 

At any rate, it is surely not within the powers of the governor of Virginia to force people to wear cloth over their faces in order to show respect for others.  As Joe Biden might put it, there’s that thing… the thing in this case being the Free Speech clause of the First Amendment. 

The second argument is that a face mask is “a valuable safeguard,” even if not “100% effective”.  Okay.  Only an idiot would suppose that this practice is perfect.  But if not 100%, then what?  Does science tell us that face masks are 75% or 50% or 15% effective?  A little more precision would help in evaluating Governor Northam’s dictate. 

Dr. Fauci gives us none, but the British Guardian is more helpful.  Here we find a report from “a multidisciplinary group convened by the Royal Society called Delve – Data Evaluation and Learning for Viral Epidemics.”  This is what Delve has to say:

Our analysis suggests that [face mask] use could reduce onward transmission by asymptomatic and pre-symptomatic wearers if widely used in situations where physical distancing is not possible or predictable, contrasting to the standard use of masks for the protection of wearers,” the report notes. “If correctly used on this basis, face masks, including homemade cloth masks, can contribute to reducing viral transmission.

Someone should ask Governor Northam if when he says science, he means Delve.  It turns out that Delve isn’t exactly science.  The Guardian piece goes on:

The [Delve] report prompted other scientists to express their reservations, warning that it amounted to no more than opinion and overstated the available evidence.

Dr Simon Clarke, associate professor in cellular microbiology at the University of Reading, Dr Ben Killingley, consultant in acute medicine and infectious diseases at University College London hospital, and Dr Antonio Lazzarino of the Department of Epidemiology and Public Health at University College London all had the same view of the Delve Report.  To quote Dr. Killingley:

The report is overly optimistic about the value of face coverings and it is incorrect to conclude that the evidence shows that face covering can reduce viral transmission in the community,” he said. “There is in fact no good evidence that face coverings achieve this.”

Dr. Lazzarino goes further:

Based on what we now know about the dynamics of transmission and the pathophysiology of Covid-19, the negative effects of wearing masks outweigh the positive.

We might also consult the World Health Organization:

If you are healthy, you only need to wear a mask if you are taking care of a person with COVID-19.

Is that science? 

I am not competent to judge the science here, but Governor Northam’s dictate was a political act and there I have some expertise.  He knows no more about science than a hog knows about Sunday. 

Political Science

I have been reading a very interesting article tonight, in the Atlantic: The Nastiest Feud in Science.  It is a feud that I have been interested in for decades.  The issue concerns what killed off the dinosaurs, and it has divided scientists concerned with this question into two hostile factions. 

The majority faction holds that the dinosaurs went extinct due to a sudden event: an asteroid, “larger than Mount Everest is tall, slammed into our planet with the force of 10 billion atomic bombs.”  This is the “bad weekend” thesis.  By Monday, the dinosaurs were history. 

The minority faction holds that the major extinction event that included the dinosaurs but also almost all the rest of the creatures on earth was a much more gradual process.  The culprit here was a series of eruptions in East Central India, the Deccan Traps, that went on for 350,000 years. 

Both sides have strong evidence to bring to the table.  Deposits of iridium are found all over the world that seem to have been deposited at the same time as the mass extinction and that must have come from the asteroid collision.  On the other hand, “at the same time” is ambiguous in geological terms.  The big boom may have come 200,000 years before the mass extinction.  That’s a long weekend. 

What is clear is that the two sides do not merely disagree.  They despise one another and have long been at war with one another.  They accuse each other of any number of scientific sins in the most bitter of terms.  The asteroidsheviks have gone to great lengths to torpedo the careers of any scholar who dares challenge their thesis. 

I am a student of Plato and so I know very well that philosophical and scientific quarrels almost always become political quarrels.  Socrates relentlessly embarrassed the sophists and orators of ancient Athens and they responded by using the machinery of the Athenian court to kill him.  This conflict became political in a more direct sense because Socrates’ enemies included politically powerful men.  See The Enemies of Socrates. 

The quarrel between the worshipers of asteroid and those of the volcanoes is much the same.  A key to the larger political question implicated by this quarrel about ancient geological history lies in this passage in Bianca Bosker’s Atlantic piece. 

Understanding the cause of the mass extinction is not an esoteric academic endeavor. Dinosaurs are what paleontologists call “charismatic megafauna”: sexy, sympathetic beasts whose obliteration transfixes pretty much anyone with a pulse. The nature of their downfall, after 135 million years of good living, might offer clues for how we can prevent, or at least delay, our own end.

When someone who is not an idiot writes a passage like that, you can be sure that there is something else going on.  Let’s consider: if the one side is right, all we have to do is figure out how to shoot down asteroids.  If the other side is right, all we have to do is figure out how to plug volcanoes.  Allow me to humbly suggest that neither can “offer clues for how we can prevent, or at least delay, our own end.” 

I suspect, though, that the tide may soon turn in favor of the volcano side.  Greenhouse gasses produced by human industry look a lot more like volcanoes than like asteroids.  Of course, this is only a metaphor.  Comparing the human activity over the last century to a range of volcanoes pumping out clouds of gases for hundreds of thousands of years is like comparing a Florida sink hole to the Grand Canyon.  The volcano thesis tells us nothing useful about the climate change question.  In politics, however, that is not what matters.  What matters is the emotional impact. 

I am a climate lukewarmer.  I don’t doubt that the world warmed significantly over the last century and I think the evidence supports the claim that human activity had something to do with this.  I am not at all certain that this bodes ill for human beings and most other creatures.  I am certain that we are not going to do anything significant in the short run to control global emissions.  I am very certain that the dinosaurs aren’t going to teach us what to do. 

The Bosker piece is, I suspect, largely intended to support the alarmist agenda on climate change.  Read reasonably, it does the opposite.  The same politics that infects the dinosaur controversy infects the climate change controversies.  Anyone who doubts the alarmist agenda is vilified.  Bosker’s piece suggests that we should be suspicious of everyone on both sides of such questions. 

Science is the best guide we have to the nature of the world.  Scientists, however, are just as human as anyone else.  Man, as Aristotle boldly claimed, is the political animal. 

Science & Politics

It is generally assumed that religion is a cause of political conflict.  That assumption is wrong.  Politics is the cause of political conflict.  Religious controversies drive politically controversies only when theological doctrine and religious practices become part of the self-identification of some political faction and/or, more importantly, when some faction comes to regard certain doctrines or practices as definitive of its enemies.  

Much the same thing is true when we consider the politicization of science.  The political left in the United States often accuses the right of being “anti-science” and the left is right, if you mean that conservative political views often determine what scientific evidence a conservative is willing to accept.  However, according to Erik C. Nisbet and R. Kelly Garrett.  They conducted a recent study of how political bias leads conservatives and liberals to distrust science.  The study is published in the ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science and they summarize their findings in The New Republic. 

Nisbet and Garrett found that “Conservatives are no more biased about science than liberals are,” to cite the title of the TNR piece.  The authors consider two explanations for the ideological divide between conservatives and liberals over scientific issues. 

The first explanation assumes that conservatives are inherently anti-science as they tend to be more dogmatic and close-minded compared to liberals. They are therefore more “motivated” to reject scientific information that clashes with their world view and distrust its sources (in other words, scientists).

In contrast, the second thesis argues that though there are some nuanced psychological differences between liberals and conservatives, it would be a mistake to overstate them. Liberals are viewed as no less likely to respond to scientific information in biased manner than conservatives.

For instance, liberals and conservatives are equally likely to reject fact-checking messages that contradict misperceptions or believe in false political rumors about candidates they oppose.

I am inclined to accept the second explanation, whether because of brain design or because it happens to confirm my thesis, stated above.  

Unsurprisingly, we found that conservatives who read statements about climate or evolution had a stronger negative emotional experience and reported greater motivated resistance to the information as compared to liberals who read the same statements and other conservatives who read statements about geology or astronomy.

This in turn lead these conservatives to report significantly lower trust in the scientific community as compared to liberals who read the same statement or conservatives who read statements about ideologically neutral science.

Significantly, we found a similar pattern amongst liberals who read statements about nuclear power or fracking. And like conservatives who read statements about climate change or evolution, they expressed significantly lower levels of trust in the scientific community as compared to liberals who read the ideologically-neutral statements.

Biased attitudes toward scientific information and trust in the scientific community were evident among liberals and conservatives alike, and these biases varied depending on the science topic being considered.

As is the case for religious ideas, some scientific ideas are politically significant and some are not.  The former are those around which genuine political factions coalesce. 

There is probably no way to remedy this.  Religious wars in the West were ended not so much by deciding that religion was politically irrelevant as by a collective decision that politics was religiously irrelevant.  We discovered that we are not such fools as to believe that God needs us to save Him.  It will be harder to work that same strategy for science and politics.  Evolution is the right theory or not, regardless of whether a school board in Texas likes it.  Deciding what to do about climate change requires a lot of judgment calls on scientific questions and those calls must be made in political, not scholarly forums. 

Hobbes' Materialism & His Political Agenda

Thomas Hobbes begins his magnum opus with one of the most materialist accounts of mind in the history of philosophy.  The obvious question that confronts any reader of Hobbes is why this is appropriate in a work on political science.  A less obvious question is what it says about Hobbes’ view of man and God.  Here is the opening of the second chapter, “On Imagination”.  I have added additional paragraph breaks.

THAT when a thing lies still, unless somewhat else stir it, it will lie still for ever, is a truth that no man doubts of. But that when a thing is in motion, it will eternally be in motion, unless somewhat else stay it, though the reason be the same (namely, that nothing can change itself), is not so easily assented to.

For men measure, not only other men, but all other things, by themselves: and because they find themselves subject after motion to pain and lassitude, think everything else grows weary of motion, and seeks repose of its own accord; little considering whether it be not some other motion wherein that desire of rest they find in themselves consisteth.

From hence it is that the schools say, heavy bodies fall downwards out of an appetite to rest, and to conserve their nature in that place which is most proper for them; ascribing appetite, and knowledge of what is good for their conservation (which is more than man has), to things inanimate, absurdly.

The first two sentences introduce the concept of inertia and grounds it in the claim that “nothing can change itself”.  This principle is fundamental, as I think that it constitutes a deliberate rejection of Aristotelian biology.  Aristotle supposed that nature was precisely a motion that originated in the organism; for what is life, except something that can move itself, either in space or by development over time?  If nothing can move itself, then everything is moved by something else.  If that is so, then whence comes the source of all motion?  This seems to suggest a perfectly determined, mechanical Kosmos consisting of matter and motion alone. 

The second part explains why the principle of inertia seems contrary to common sense experience.  We are used to the idea that a rock will not leap up into the sky and that a rock thrown into the air will return to earth and remain there.  We base the idea that motion requires an explanation whereas rest does not on our own lethargy. 

The third part is a direct attack on Aristotelian physics.  Aristotle and the Aristotelians seem to have supposed that basic substances (earth, air, fire and water) had a natural place to which they naturally return.  Of course, Aristotle also recognized that the place of some things such as the heavenly bodies included motion, so Hobbes is being a little bit unfair here. 

What is the point of this physical reference?  The second paragraph explains. 

When a body is once in motion, it moveth (unless something else hinder it) eternally; and whatsoever hindreth it, cannot in an instant, but in time, and by degrees, quite extinguish it: and as we see in the water, though the wind cease, the waves give not over rolling for a long time after; so also it happeneth in that motion which is made in the internal parts of a man, then, when he sees, dreams, etc.

For after the object is removed, or the eye shut, we still retain an image of the thing seen, though more obscure than when we see it. And this is it the Latins call imagination, from the image made in seeing, and apply the same, though improperly, to all the other senses. But the Greeks call it fancy, which signifies appearance, and is as proper to one sense as to another. Imagination, therefore, is nothing but decaying sense; and is found in men and many other living creatures, as well sleeping as waking.

Hobbes presents us with a model of internal human experience.  All the contents of the mind originate in the external world.  External motions collide with the senses, which transfer the motion to the nerves and then to the brain.  There the internal motions result in images of external objects.  The internal motions do not maintain their original force, which is why our memories of things are less vivid than direct observations.  When new motions come in they frequently overwhelm the decaying motions that constitute the mind’s present contents.  Within the mind, such motions are constantly competing with one another.  Yet clearly, some motions received from outside keep going for long periods of time, which explains long term memories. 

What Hobbes is after is an explanation of ghosts.  He has a theory of dreaming. 

And seeing dreams are caused by the distemper of some of the inward parts of the body, diverse distempers must needs cause different dreams. And hence it is that lying cold breedeth dreams of fear, and raiseth the thought and image of some fearful object, the motion from the brain to the inner parts, and from the inner parts to the brain being reciprocal; and that as anger causeth heat in some parts of the body when we are awake, so when we sleep the overheating of the same parts causeth anger, and raiseth up in the brain the imagination of an enemy.

This gives rise to the belief in ghosts. 

We read of Marcus Brutus (one that had his life given him by Julius Caesar, and was also his favorite, and notwithstanding murdered him), how at Philippi, the night before he gave battle to Augustus Caesar, he saw a fearful apparition, which is commonly related by historians as a vision, but, considering the circumstances, one may easily judge to have been but a short dream. For sitting in his tent, pensive and troubled with the horror of his rash act, it was not hard for him, slumbering in the cold, to dream of that which most affrighted him; which fear, as by degrees it made him wake, so also it must needs make the apparition by degrees to vanish: and having no assurance that he slept, he could have no cause to think it a dream, or anything but a vision.

The confusion caused by dreaming gives rise to a false belief that the dead can reappear.  Such beliefs are important politically because unscrupulous men can exploit the fear of such things. 

And for fairies, and walking ghosts, the opinion of them has, I think, been on purpose either taught, or not confuted, to keep in credit the use of exorcism, of crosses, of holy water, and other such inventions of ghostly men. Nevertheless, there is no doubt but God can make unnatural apparitions: but that He does it so often as men need to fear such things more than they fear the stay, or change, of the course of Nature, which he also can stay, and change, is no point of Christian faith.

But evil men, under pretext that God can do anything, are so bold as to say anything when it serves their turn, though they think it untrue; it is the part of a wise man to believe them no further than right reason makes that which they say appear credible. If this superstitious fear of spirits were taken away, and with it prognostics from dreams, false prophecies, and many other things depending thereon, by which crafty ambitious persons abuse the simple people, men would be would be much more fitted than they are for civil obedience.

That last part, I think, explains the political function of Hobbes materialist science.  If men did not believe in ghosts, if they were not subject to confusion about the nature of reality, then they would be more fit for civil obedience. 

Hobbes lived at the end of a long period of terrible religious wars.  It was not, however, the belief in personal ghosts (like Hamlet’s father) that made so many men ungovernable.  It was their belief in the Holy Ghost.  Hobbes has to be careful.  He cannot explicitly the Christian faith.  He does, however, give us clues as to his inexplicit thoughts. 

Whatsoever we imagine is finite. Therefore there is no idea or conception of anything we call infinite. No man can have in his mind an image of infinite magnitude; nor conceive infinite swiftness, infinite time, or infinite force, or infinite power. When we say anything is infinite, we signify only that we are not able to conceive the ends and bounds of the thing named, having no conception of the thing, but of our own inability. And therefore the name of God is used, not to make us conceive Him (for He is incomprehensible, and His greatness and power are unconceivable), but that we may honour Him.

Also because whatsoever, as I said before, we conceive has been perceived first by sense, either all at once, or by parts, a man can have no thought representing anything not subject to sense. No man therefore can conceive anything, but he must conceive it in some place; and endued with some determinate magnitude; and which may be divided into parts; nor that anything is all in this place, and all in another place at the same time; nor that two or more things can be in one and the same place at once: for none of these things ever have or can be incident to sense, but are absurd speeches, taken upon credit, without any signification at all, from deceived philosophers and deceived, or deceiving, Schoolmen.

So Hobbes tells us that we can have no concept of God because we can have no concept of the infinite.  So far, so good; as this is nothing that Aquinas or Maimonides would not say.  Then he goes on to say that any words not grounded in sense perception are absurd speeches from deceived philosophers and deceived, or deceiving, Schoolmen.  I think we can put two and two together. 

As evil men exploit the superstitious fears of their fellows in order to encourage civil disobedience, so Hobbes intends to exploit modern science to make men more governable.  His materialistic account of the human being is introduced to wean men, by degrees, from belief in external powers and heavenly rewards.  If this life is all we have, then the best that most of us can hope for is comfortable self-preservation.  That is a person more fit for civil obedience. 

I end by noting that, while Hobbes’ physics are sound, it is sound only at the level of physics.  His materialism can account for matter alone; it cannot account for biological wholes.  Aristotle’s view that living organisms are self-moving beings is altogether viable and essential for a science of biology.  I suggest also that the notion of self-moving organisms is the metaphysical ground of human autonomy, something that is certainly diminished in Hobbes political philosophy.