We Have to Talk About Doubt

What is the role of reasonable doubt in advancing science? And how should we contrast scientific doubt with the cavilling doubt of conspiracy theories which play little part in advancing understanding? Over the last year we have seen the scientific method of doubt put to work in the development of entirely new kinds of vaccine and yet another kind of doubt limiting people’s willingness to get vaccinated. Scientific doubt working to reveal the frightening extent of anthropogenic climate change and conspiratorial doubt, like a demonic twin, undermining it.

RNA vaccines were developed as an alternative to the standard method of vaccination using attenuated or inactivated microorganisms. RNA researchers doubted that existing techniques could achieve as accurate and safe an immunization as RNA-sequence vaccines. The obvious non-infectious nature of RNA, combined with its short half-life, made the idea appealing, but early failures resulting from