What Happened to The Science™?

Nobody knows. Scientists are baffled.

***Since lots of my new subscribers are here thanks to a shout-out on Coffee & Covid, I thought this (gently upcycled) post was fitting. Thank you ALL sincerely for your patience while I soak up precious and irreplaceable family time; I’ll be back before you can say GimmeSomeFreshJennasSideSnarkAlready. Promise.

Yesterday, the inimitable Jeff Childers wrote about some strange, backward-spinning tornadoes that have left scientists absolutely baffled. It seems these particular scholars, whose very job it is to try to understand and explain mysterious phenomena, are simply throwing in the towel on this one.

Scientist Bob: “Tornadoes form when warm, wet air meets cool, dry air. Due to the Coriolis effect, tornadoes typically rotate clockwise in the Southern Hemisphere and counterclockwise in the Northern Hemisphere.”

Scientist Brenda: “What happens when they go in the opposite directions?”

Scientist Bob: “Great question. No idea. You want Chipotle or Panera for lunch?”

It’s baffling.

As a certified word nerd, it’s interesting to me that scientists are always baffled. They’re never perplexed (curious), confounded (annoyed), bewildered (disoriented), or mystified (fascinated). Baffled implies a sense of confusion and frustration over something that is inexplicable, unsolvable, or counterintuitive. “Wife baffled by husband’s inability to put dirty socks into the hamper.” “Cat owner baffled by Paw Revere’s obsession with cardboard boxes.” The word itself—as opposed to its closest cousins—all but suggests defeat.

It is what it is. C’est la vie.

(Also, isn’t baffle one of the oddest words ever? Like, if I were taxed with coming up with a new term for frustratingly unsolvable, I’d throw out something like obfuscafuzzled or mystiquizzical, and not a string of letters that looks like it means baby waffle. But I digress.)

And HERE’S WHY YOU SHOULD BE WORRIED.

Drawing—deeply here—on my dusty tenth grade biology background, the first three steps of the scientific method are 1) observe, 2) question, and 3) hypothesize. Baffle happens somewhere between steps two and three.

Step one: Wow, something is weird!

Step two: I wonder why that is?

Step two-and-a-half: I guess we’ll never know.

In scientific circles, being baffled is the new black. Consider recent conundrums such as the worldwide spike in excess deaths, skyrocketing global cancer rates, or why countries with the lowest Covid vaccination rates fared the best during the pandemic. In the tertiary case, even though the most likely hypothesis is right there in the question, perplexed academics will credit everything from leprechaun blessings to unicorn horn powder before tossing out the possibility that the hallowed jabs maybe—just maybe—did the exact opposite of what we were promised they would do.

What ever could it be?

Seasoned scientists are familiar with Occam’s Razor, the philosophical principle that suggests the simplest explanations are most often the correct ones. In other words, if it walks like a biological woman duck and talks like a biological woman duck, it’s probably a biological woman duck. Or as my medically-trained sister likes to say [whenever I consult Dr. Internet about some random symptom I’m experiencing and announce that I might in fact have contracted Blue Rubber Bleb Nevus Syndrome or something equally ominous and obscure], “When you hear hoofbeats, you think horses… not zebras.”

Thus, if people who consume inadequate calcium have more brittle bones and higher incidences of fractures, it wouldn’t be off the wall to hypothesize—after all, we’re just spitballing here!—that calcium deficiency might negatively impact bone strength. It’s a starting point, and surely one that makes more sense than suggesting that people who drink milk are more likely to live on farms where there are fewer staircases to fall down and possibly break their bones.

(Do you see how absurd this can get, and how quickly?)

Similarly, if unvaccinated folks fare better across the board than their inoculated neighbors, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist (or a virologist, epidemiologist, or vaccinologist) to at least wonder if those pokes might not be the miracle elixirs they’ve been made out to be. I mean, it could be a possibility, one of hundreds even… couldn’t it?

Except it’s not, because we’ve been told we must Trust the Science™. And by its very nature, questioning is antithetical to trust. When you board an airplane, you trust that the pilot is qualified and sober and not suicidal. You don’t march into the cockpit and quiz him about these things; your confidence is implicit when you buy that ticket. When you agree to pledge your undying devotion and fidelity to another person, you don’t grill them daily about their faithfulness (unless you have serious issues or have been given good reason to be suspicious); you trust they’ll adhere to the legally binding terms of your marital contract. When your doctor recommends a certain medication, you [used to] believe that it will a) help alleviate your symptoms and b) not kill or maim you. After all, there are people and agencies whose purpose is to ensure both of those things are true… aren’t there?

It appears, there aren’t. Or at least, not many we can trust.

Where’s the lie?

It wasn’t always this way. Remember the “Tylenol scare” of 1982, when 7 people died after popping pills that had been intentionally laced with cyanide? In what would later be considered one of the most successful PR/damage-control campaigns of all time, J&J immediately stepped forward and announced a recall of every capsule in America, working closely with police, FBI, and the FDA to investigate the crimes. The result? The public trusted in these groups’ collective desire and ability to protect them, and within a year Tylenol was once again the category bestseller. It had nothing to do with “trusting the science,” and everything to do with “trusting the establishment.”

Can you imagine what would have happened if headlines had roared, “Scientists baffled by mysterious Tylenol deaths” and then left it at that?

Subliminal messaging much?

Nearly a year ago, CDC director Dr. Mandy Cohen embarked on a nationwide “trust tour” in the wake of plummeting vaccine uptake and growing distrust in the agency. To say that tour was a colossal flop would be like saying Robert de Nero wouldn’t make the best VP pick for Trump. A recent poll found that the influence of politics on healthcare and medicine is the fastest growing fear when it comes to public faith in our institutions. I wonder why that could be?

If I were a scientist, I’d probably call the whole thing baffling.

***MARCH 2025 UPDATE: I feel as if with RFK Jr. in the White House, we may be a few inches (yards? miles?) closer to regaining that critical trust in those bodies we expect to protect us. Am I nuts? I know you’ll tell me in the comments. ;)

Quick do-good, feel-good activity of the day: You may recall I have an amazing anthology out in the world. One of my contributors is the brave, ballsy, outspoken Brit Galvin (a.k.a. the “magnet girl”), who has become an unwitting vaccine injury advocate in the wake of her own nightmare Covid jab experience. The Meta Police have shut down her account several times and continue to remove her followers, and she’s trying to crawl her way back. Click here and give her a follow and some love. She’s a warm, kind, seriously tough chick who brings nothing but positivity to the internet. We need more of her. TYIA.

You can read Brit’s story and order the book right here.