Restoring Gold Standard Science: A New Trump Executive Order That Is A Very Big Deal in the Battle for Real Science

Guest Post by John Droz, Jr. of Critically Thinking About Select Societal Issues.

For years now, I have preached a central theme: the main underlying cause of almost any societal technical problem is that we have replaced real science with political science. Think COVID, climate change, renewable energy, etc.

The root problem with all of these (and many more) is that real science had been summarily escorted out of the building, and the issue was taken over by lobbyists and a slew of other self-serving, scientifically-challenged parties.

Despite my writing about this ad nauseam (e.g., here, here, here, here, here, here, etc.), it doesn’t seem to have resonated with enough key people.

Until now!

On May 23, President Trump issued a new Executive Order (EO), titled: Restoring Gold Standard Science. Although it did not specifically say that “political science” was being substituted for Real Science, that was the crystal clear message.

I have also repeatedly asserted (e.g., here, here, here, here, etc., etc.) that a true Scientific Assessment will have four key characteristics: 1) Objective, 2)Comprehensive, 3) Empirical, and 4) Transparent. The EO did not use this simple four-part tool, but covered most of this at one point or another.

The EO had some good definitions, but under “plagiarism” they should have included unattributed material from any Artificial Intelligence (AI) source. This is exploding right now, so it needs to be cut off at the pass.

The EO did not address one of the primary tricks used to fool the public: Statistics. One other constructive suggestion is that although they mentioned “risk models,” they did not address the elephant in the risk room: that many suppliers of medical products, etc. convey to the public the relative risk of their product rather than the absolute risk. (See here for details.)

Please read the EO carefully, because if this is actually properly adopted across much of the federal government — even without my employing my helpful suggestions — this will be one of the most important and far-reaching US developments in many decades.

You can thank me later for teeing this up years ago!

Another missed opportunity is that the EO did not mention what is arguably the most significant corruption of Real Science: what is taught to our K-12 children, every day. This is one of several chances for the Department of Education to shine (see here) — as States have dropped the ball.

PS — If any readers know who actually wrote this — and have a connection with that person — please email me that info.

#JohnDroz #Science #PoliticalScience #Trump #ExecutiveOrder #ReallScience #AI #Plagiarism