Hoe het coronavirus de wetenschap blijvend verdeelde. Publieke immunisering, consensusclaims en ontrading van het wetenschappelijk debat

Policy and mainstream media in recent years ignored the reality of uncertainty within science. There is not always a consensus around one explanation or one scientific understanding, especially when there is great uncertainty. The covid-critical scientists who participated in the critical Tegenwind (Headwind) documentaries have occasionally been written about, but rarely did it come to an interview or debate. Except for the Groene Amsterdammer, no careful attention was paid to Mattias Desmet's work, only to possible errors in the work and associations with the right. The "dealing with dissenting views" was understood by the mainstream media to mean that attacks on the person were allowed, but that a reaction or interview with the person was to be avoided. Oddly enough, there is open talk in the literature by certain mainstream scientists (who support the pandemic policies of most European countries, apart from Sweden) of useful strategies to demonize critical scientists and push them away from the debate. This contribution examines these strategies. They are respectively about imputation by association with industry and the right; about invoking consensus and placing these scientists outside this consensus; and about public immunization. The result is a divided science. In the scientific literature, however, there have been and still are warnings against needless dualization: it does not help the public cause, it is contrary to the nature of scientific practice, and it excludes insights that make phenomena such as vaccination doubt and the success of conspiracy theories difficult to understand. In this contribution, we examine the fate of critical scientists, outside Belgium (group around the Great Barrington Declaration) and within Belgium (Winter Manifesto, Tegenwind). Although the recent figures on the Swedish pandemic policy, which is closest to the program of the Great Barrington Declaration, are extremely favorable, not only in terms of health, but also in many other areas, the Great Barrington Declaration was rejected from the outset by a group of scientists who would eventually create a climate that made discussion impossible. The enemy image created in America about critical scientists as anti-science and scientists with right-wing agendas, also took hold in European countries. After a discussion of three proposed strategies to keep critical scientists out of the discussion, we conclude with a reflection on the result, a divided science. It is not to be expected that this division will dissipate. The anti-scientific tone in talking about science and scientists is set.