Editor’s note: This commentary is by Robert S. Emmons, M.D., of Moretown, a part-time clinical associate professor of psychiatry at the University of Vermont who has maintained a private practice in this community for 31 years.
The outbreak of Covid-19 shows us that anxiety is as much a social condition as an individual pathology. The more we are vexed by medical science these days, the more it is clear that the messaging around it can function as a vehicle to carry unwanted emotions into our minds.
The dreary strain of living according to the premise that a deadly virus might lurk in the exhalations of every neighbor and on every surface we touch, without a cure in sight, has shown us the places in our minds where fear can take hold. While we may be breathing easier in Vermont lately, the social mechanisms that stir up agitation around science are still in place. The emotional contagion of lockdown times might motivate us all to learn more about the scientific method, so that others cannot attach their anxieties and agendas to our uses of it.
How Science Messaging Transmits Anxiety
I have observed a wide range of emotional responses to public programs of universal precautions, including: defiance, well-informed skepticism, irritation, weary resignation, zealous compliance, hygiene vigilantism, and lately in Vermont, cautious relaxation. It provokes anxiety to invest the smallest details of daily health practice with life and death significance, especially if decisions must be made on the basis of snippets of medical intelligence that can be found in the news media, or broad public health messages that are not tailored to individual needs. I have seen extraordinary levels of moral judgment, depending on one’s worldview, directed toward the politicians who want to bend our lives to their ideologies, the passersby who might kill us by breaking the rules, or the scolds who don’t understand that the rules are really unnecessary. As for social media, we already know that information delivery systems designed to command continuous attention do not promote calm, reflective states of mind.
In a culture that encourages the belief that science reliably conquers death, the discovery that journalistic formulas, commercialism and politics have always shaped messaging about medicine creates a certain kind of existential dread. It turns out that the authorities we thought we could trust to keep death at a safe distance have been making it up as they go along, they have things on their minds other than our best interests, and now they are charging us with the daily responsibility for fighting disease.
The Scientific Method
Those of us who do not have years of practice in the clinic or laboratory under our belts can still learn to recognize what is part of the scientific method and what is not. It is foundational in science to assess probabilities, form hypotheses, and then test them by collecting observations carefully and systematically. Theories are built to link together multiple experimental findings, and to plan the next sets of experiments.
The effective daily practice of science calls for certain attitudes. Bias and error are dealt with by forthright disclosure, which requires moral honesty and self-awareness. The practice of science is, in part, the practice of humility: hypotheses and theory are always open to revision in light of new evidence. Science is never settled. Open-mindedness is integral to the scientific method: all ideas are welcome, as long as the authors of those ideas are transparent about their methods and masters. Scientists evaluate competing claims on the basis of evidence and methodologies, not preconceived notions about the trustworthiness of sources, or personal loyalties.
The following methods are not part of the science of thoughtful investigation: denial of bias; exclusion of evidence that does not support one’s preferred theory; opacity about methodologies; taking credit for good outcomes and denying blame for the bad ones; practicing outside the scope of one’s training and expertise; and using psychological tactics to create the appearance of trustworthiness. Cardinal sins in science are to advance one’s own selfish interests by launching personal attacks on the authors and messengers of theories other than one’s own, or to try to discredit others based on group affiliation. Differences of opinion are settled through respectful collegial debate, not by suppressing the publication of unfavored information, and not with threats to punish those who do not practice according to one’s own preferred theories.
How to Read Science
You can distance your unconscious mind from the parts of today’s science messaging that mislead or frighten rather than inform, by setting aside information that is not presented in accordance with the scientific method. This prescription might be captured more elegantly with some words from John O’Donohue: “Stay clear of those vexed in spirit.” If you remain perplexed by the question of how to move about safely in the world, while respecting your neighbors, then your own physician who knows and cares about you personally is your best guide.
And while we need good medical science now more than ever, it is time to give our minds a break from perfecting our protocols for social distancing. The world we know now compels us to find new sources of meaning and purpose, and new ways to build community.
