The Economist published an interesting report last month on fracking in Germany. According to the magazine, despite the favorable opinion of the country's geoscience experts, this industry – whose production could replace a significant part of Russian gas – has become practically irrelevant. It has been sunk by environmental criticism, but also by propaganda against Russian-influenced media.
As is known, Germany also abandoned nuclear power after the Fukushima accident. Another source of energy that would be useful today as an alternative to Russian gas. These two episodes are an example of how scientific knowledge, once key in decision-making, has become the object of partisan manipulation in political combat. We have clearly experienced it with the covid, with the anti-vaccines and the histrionic positions of Trump and Bolsonaro. In the energy field, the question is more subtle, but basically it is the same: do we believe the experts?
Confidence in science is an important legacy of the Enlightenment and one of the foundations of political liberalism, of open societies. It means believing in the free competition of ideas, in their empirical contrast and in rigorous debate so that the scientific method nurtures the progress of our societies. Economists are not surprised that experts are called into question in economics. The social sciences evaluate human actions in which it is difficult to determine stable cause-effect relationships. The economy always has a political dimension, with very diverse interests at stake, and not only what is said and done is important. People also judge the intentions of others and we do not always react the same way.
Economics rarely and modestly reaches clear conclusions. To give an example, although President Erdogan is obstinate in affirming that the low interest rate policy is not the cause of inflation in Turkey, economic science, duly contrasted, does not agree with him.
It is somewhat more difficult to understand that the loss of credit of experts is also happening in the field of natural sciences. In part it is explained because for most people emotions dominate reason, as the social psychologist Jonathan Haidt has recently masterfully examined. The reason justifies our behavior a posteriori, but our opinions reflect our feelings more than a cold analysis of reality. In addition, scientific evidence is complex and, in many cases, has a component of uncertainty, of risk, that it is very difficult for people to evaluate.
Germany, under the presidency of a person with a scientific career such as Chancellor Merkel, made a momentous decision on nuclear energy, shortly after the Fukushima disaster. Did reason or emotion dominate? What did the experts say?
Jordi Gual is a professor at IESE
https://jordigualsole.com/
