Blog | We are politicizing science and scientificizing politics

The image you see above refers to the period when cholera was widespread in Naples. A group of people, probably no more educated than today, but relying on a medicine that, at the time, was not the same as today in terms of scientific and technological progress, are clamoring for a vaccine. It was 1973

Below you will find an image of these days. The article begins immediately after.

The green certification, the mathematical symbol of the equal, a swastika referring to the Nazi regime. Today's society is forced to confront this in order to move forward. They all fail: scientists and politicians, because it seems that the latter think they can replace the former and give judgments and opinions that only the former should utter. The latter, on the other hand, have lost that sense of authority that is needed, however, to be able to impose themselves on politics. There is an exchange of roles that harms the people.

Moreover, I am not even referring to the hot and difficult period we are going through. For some time, in fact, the infiltration of politics in the scientific field has brought some, perhaps even more, problems. We no longer follow the sense of science but the consensus of politics. Since the beginning of the pandemic, when people were asked to open and close from one day to another, as if a politician without scientific data had the faculty and power to make decisions. The CTS, today, is a body that is not sufficiently respected and which, unfortunately, is not properly listened to. Also because then, especially today, everyone says it about him and everyone thinks he is right. We need a downsizing.

The state, dear friends, does not want our harm. It seems useless even to explain it. Yet to a science that tells me to wear a mask, the leader of the first party in Italy responds by taking selfies in a crowd bath, without the mask.

The decidedly critical part then comes with the vaccine, when it becomes a political factor (and it is not even so wrong, when it comes to setting an example). Yet we have seen a slow media degradation (Mediaset networks in the first place) where more or less established scientists had their say, where a good percentage of the population gets vaccinated not because science says so, but because their leader did it.

We will arrive (if we have not already done so) to a short circuit of (serious) contradictions because what is happening today is caused by the great confusion that reigns supreme: science is an exact matter, or almost. Politics NO. And if it is true that one cannot do without the other, it is also true that one cannot (nor must) replace the other.

Today, September 1st, the new regulations for the use of green certification will start and masses of no vax and neo-fascist organizations are already preparing everything for an assault on the stations to protest (illegally, given the attempted interruption of public service). Death threats to Minister Di Maio are also unsustainable. We have reached the decidedly risky point of mixing science and politics, of talking about "health dictatorship", when in reality the situation that has arisen has little to do with dictatorships. And those who speak out of turn, saying that Italy is a democratic country that forces you to get a vaccine (false!) Is just a person who makes ranting his workhorse. The message of the political vaccination campaign fails dramatically here: 19 months after the start of the pandemic, there are those who still explain why not getting the vaccine, whether or not doing it is right or wrong, rather than explaining why it should be done. Those who should be our representatives (excluding the executive) do not take the responsibility of defending the vaccine for the trend in the polls at all costs. Because politics matters more than medicine. Because politics is an inexact science, while medicine is an exact science.

And it is unthinkable to continue with the classic "I don't vaccinate myself because ...". Not all of us have the skills to talk about vaccines but we allow ourselves to do it from the sofa at home, from the office chair or from the trolley station on the street. Getting vaccinated is right and essential. What we can all debate is whether a law is correct or not. Not whether a vaccine is safe or not.

We leave the affirmations to those who have the skills and become bearers of an objective and undoubtedly right message. What science says is right and not debatable. What politics says, however, must not be sacred.