Science Needs to Win Back Americans’ Trust

Jay Bhattacharya at NIH is a good start

Letters to The WSJ. 

"Dr. Bhattacharya’s suggestions are excellent, but I would go further. My favorite quote from Richard Feynman, “Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts,” is a great place to start. We need to break the Fauci-esque conception that experts (aka elites) decide the merit of scientific hypotheses. As Dr. Anthony Fauci said of his critics in 2021: “They’re really criticizing science because I represent science.”

Peer review, in its current form, promotes ideas that conform to existing scientific fashions, and often dismisses bold, new concepts. I’d rather see an online marketplace of ideas, even crackpot ideas, on which anyone can comment. Journals could morph into forums. We need to move from “settled science,” which demands conformity, to an openness that relies on continuing debate and physical proof. Settled science is an oxymoron.

James Jaskie, Ph.D.

Scottsdale, Ariz.

As a professor of pediatric eye surgery at a university medical center and principal investigator of NIH grants for 15 years, I can testify to the damage inflicted by the Covid science cancel-culture that Dr. Bhattacharya bravely resisted. The eyesight of dozens of children I treat was damaged permanently by the irrational lockdowns.

Parents were frightened to appear at our children’s hospital, despite the need for imperative surgeries and follow-up monitoring. A colleague across town at another children’s hospital was fired for refusal—on religious grounds—to be vaccinated. I inherited his complex patients and did what I could, disadvantaged by the discontinuity of care.

When I was overheard endorsing the Barrington Declaration and criticizing lockdowns, university leadership informed me I was suspect. When I told children in my office to remove their masks, essential for a thorough neuro-ophthalmologic examination, I was interrogated by HR.

When an informant reported that I delivered a lecture at the University of California, San Francisco, not wearing a mask, I was told I was an unfit leader. I still witness in each clinic the developmental damage wrought by children’s masking, school closures and social isolation: delayed speech skills, learning disabilities and emotional immaturity. The NIH declared the Great Barrington Declaration iniquity; will Americans forgive that prideful sin?

R. Lawrence Tychsen, M.D."