The current global crisis of the COVID-19 epidemic has allowed us to witness the ability of scientists to design and deploy in record time various technologies to mitigate the devastation caused by the virus, such as the creation of vaccines reducing mortality by more than 90%, the development of new antiviral therapies or the identification of the best behaviors to adopt to limit transmission. As our managers have also essentially used the results of such advances to guide their decision-making, we have been able to appreciate the benefits of such an approach. Does this mean that we have learned how to use our scientific or technological discoveries to solve the difficult problems that we will have to face in the future?
Certain events of the last days seem to show us that nothing is less certain. Thus, two reports from official and competent organizations have recently highlighted the flaws in the design of the REM de l’Est project. In its response, this same government, which prides itself on letting science guide its decisions, mainly strived to insult the authors of the report and to cavalierly encourage them to “redo their homework”. Instead of being inspired by an exhaustive analysis of needs based on reliable data, we have chosen to serve up a fight of alley cats. This attitude of the government does not seem to be an exception, being in the end very similar to that adopted in other files, such as those of the possible third link or the tramway in Quebec, or the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions from greenhouse in the province.
In the near future, we will have to face an ever-growing list of existential problems: climate change, loss of biodiversity, the emergence of new epidemics due either to the appearance of new pathogens or to the development of resistance to therapies structures, the organization of urban living environments… More than ever, we will therefore need the expertise of scientists. Traditionally, the conditions that allow them to best develop their imagination and creativity are found within a space where educational and intellectual freedom take precedence. While it is conceivable that a democratic system would be best able to promote such conditions, we unfortunately find that science and technology are in fact held hostage by these same leaders whom we have democratically elected.
We deserve better than a system where problem solving relies more on the whims of the politicians of the moment than on the results of professional, rational, and sensible analysis. Churchill said that democracy was a bad system, but that all the other options were worse. That shouldn’t stop us from trying to improve it though. Without being able to improve our politicians, we could imagine structures where decision-making would be protected from their excesses.
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