Science, Politics, And The Coronavirus: "A Tragedy of Denial"

Interview Highlights

On the conflict between science and politics in relation to COVID-19: 

"What we've seen in the last few weeks and months is, as you said, a fault line that already existed for the last 40 years or so in the United States. We've seen the growth of what my colleagues and I call 'implicatory denial' — people who reject scientific evidence, not because there's anything wrong with the science, but because they don't like its implications. And the place we've seen this most clearly, and the reason why it lines up with partisan politics, is because a lot of scientific evidence in the area of environmental science and public health points to the need for government interventions to address the problem. This clashes with the conservative ideology of personal responsibility and limited government."