The problem with taking a purely scientific approach to public policy is that science does not account for humanity.
Science has no feelings.
Science does not care about the people behind the data.
It can’t.
Feelings are not science.
Caring is not science.
Science is objective.
But we are not objects.
We are humans.
We do not operate on logic alone.
We have feelings.
We have hopes.
We have desires.
We have dreams.
We have opinions.
And, quite often, these have nothing to do with logic at all.
They can’t.
If humans only consider what is, nothing changes.
We have to fantasize.
We have to imagine what can be.
We have to dream about the world we want to create.
We have to hope to improve our lives, ourselves, our relationships, and our circumstances, and then we have to act.
We have to do this even if it defies logic altogether.
We have to do this especially when it defies logic altogether.
Life is not improved by accepting what is.
We do not improve by accepting what is.
Improvement comes from reaching beyond what is into what was never before thought possible.
Science does not value our lives.
Science has no values.
It is nothing more than a method for studying the world and improving our lives.
When science fails to do this, its usefulness to us is negated.
This is our life.
This is our world.
This is our only opportunity to live.
When humanity defers to science and forgets about humanity itself, we have lost.
We have failed.
Science does not consider the psychological and emotional turmoil and devastation caused by policies created in its’ name until that turmoil and devastation becomes a trend significant enough to study.
By then it is too late.
The damage will already have been done.
Do we really want to wait until then before we realize that we need connection, before we realize that we need communion, and before we realize that community is more important than the dubious safety of sterile isolation?
Science does not care about anxiety.
Science does not care about loneliness.
Science does not care about depression.
Science does not care about confusion, frustration, and hopelessness.
That is left to us.
We must choose to care.
We must choose each other.
We must choose to rise above our fears.
We must choose to care about what is going on inside of us and in those around us, not just what the data tells us.
We must choose to put humanity first, actual humanity.
We must choose humanness.
This is not a denial of science.
This is an affirmation of that which science is intended to improve.
This is an affirmation of our lives, our needs, and of all that make us more than what science alone can explain.
We must stop pretending that science can save us from pain, from loss, and from toil.
The best science can do is to mitigate these, but if the mitigation itself robs us of hope, of community, and of purpose, it has robbed us of that which makes life worth living in the first place.
We are not here to serve science.
We are here to serve each other, to serve humanity, and to express our humanness in all of its beautiful imperfection.
Science may allow us to study this and may help to inform us in the way that we do it, but a life lived based on science alone is not likely to be a life worth living.
We deserve better and we must demand better.