In an attempt to respond effectively to the COVID-19 pandemic, policy makers and scientific experts who advise them have aspired to present a unified front. Leveraging the authority of science, they have at times portrayed politically favored COVID interventions, such as lockdowns, as strongly grounded in scientific evidence—even to the point of claiming that enacting such interventions is simply a matter of “following the science.” Strictly speaking, all such claims are false, since facts alone never yield moral-political conclusions. More importantly, attempts to present a unified front have led to a number of other actions and statements by scientists and policy makers that erode the authority of science. These include actions and statements that: (1) mislead the public about epidemiological matters such as mortality rates, cause of death determinations, and computerized modeling, or fail to correct mainstream media sources that interpret such concepts in misleading ways; (2) incorporate moral-political opinions into ostensible statements of fact; and (3) misrepresent or misuse scientific expertise. The fundamental thesis of the paper is not primarily that such actions and statements have proliferated during the COVID-19 epidemic (though I think they have), but rather that they are unscientific and that presenting them as science undermines the authority of science. In the moral-political realm, the great power of science and the source of its authority derives from its agnosticism about fundamental moral-political claims. Science, for instance, has no built-in presumption that we should respect life, promote freedom, or practice toleration; nor does it tell us which of these values to prioritize when values conflict. Because of this agnosticism, science is recognized across a broad diversity perspectives as morally and politically impartial, and authoritative within its proper sphere. When it is infused with partisan bias, it loses that authority.

为了有效应对 COVID-19 大流行，决策者和为他们提供建议的科学专家渴望形成一个统一战线。利用科学的权威，他们有时将政治上偏爱的 COVID 干预措施（例如封锁）描述为以科学证据为依据的有力证据——甚至声称实施此类干预措施只是“遵循科学”的问题。严格来说，所有这些主张都是错误的，因为单凭事实永远不会得出道德政治结论。更重要的是，试图提出统一战线的尝试导致了科学家和政策制定者的许多其他行动和声明，这些行动和声明削弱了科学的权威。其中包括以下行为和声明：(1) 在诸如死亡率等流行病学问题上误导公众，死因确定和计算机化建模，或未能纠正以误导方式解释此类概念的主流媒体来源；(2) 将道德政治观点纳入表面上的事实陈述；(3) 歪曲或滥用科学专业知识。该论文的基本论点主要不是这样的行为和声明在 COVID-19 流行病期间激增（尽管我认为它们有），而是它们是不科学的，并且将它们呈现为科学会破坏科学的权威。在道德-政治领域，科学的强大力量及其权威来源源自其对基本道德-政治主张的不可知论。例如，科学并没有内在的假设我们应该尊重生命、促进自由或实行宽容；当价值观发生冲突时，它也没有告诉我们优先考虑这些价值观中的哪一个。由于这种不可知论，科学在广泛的多样性观点中被认为在道德和政治上是公正的，并且在其适当的领域内具有权威性。当它充满党派偏见时，它就失去了权威。