We Must Trust the Science, Especially When It Pleads the Fifth

We must trust the science, especially when it pleads the Fifth. That is the entire point of trusting the science.

Trusting the science is not an exercise in verification. It is not a process of examining primary data, weighing competing hypotheses, or subjecting claims to adversarial scrutiny.

Those are the activities of people who have not yet accepted their place. Trusting the science means accepting something we cannot know and cannot verify, because we are stupid and Fauci is smart.

I say this as someone who holds dual doctorates in gender studies. My credentials are real. They are framed. They hang on a wall. And yet, compared to Goddoctor Fauci, I remain an ignoramus.

My years of specialized training only equip me to recognize the vast gulf between my own limited faculties and the superior intellect that once directed the national response. When that intellect, or the institutional apparatus surrounding it, receives a preemptive pardon and then declines to answer questions, the correct response is not suspicion. The correct response is deeper trust.

After all, if the science were something ordinary people could evaluate, it would not require experts. If it were something that could survive cross-examination without damage, it would not need legal insulation.

The fact that it has been shielded and has chosen silence is not a flaw in the system. It is confirmation that the system is functioning as designed: the smart protect the truth from the stupid.

Therefore, continue to trust the science. Trust it more when it refuses to speak. Trust it most when those who embodied it have been placed beyond ordinary accountability. Anything less is a failure to recognize one’s own intellectual inferiority.

I, for one, know my place.

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