Faced with the irruption of science in our daily lives, due to the Covid-19 epidemic, a "legitimate ignorance" has appeared in society, a door open to all rumors.
Author of "What does Science say?", The physicist and scientific popularizer Raphaël Chevrier deciphers the definition and the place of science in our daily life, Friday on Europe 1.
INTERVIEW
With the Covid-19 epidemic, the relationship of public opinion to science has changed.
"Science has imposed itself in our lives, a little overnight, with this crisis. We have learned to analyze curves, data. It's positive but it does not happen overnight," explains Friday on Europe 1 Raphaël Chevrier, physicist and scientific popularizer.
At the beginning of April, he published
Qu'en dit la Science ?, at
Buchet-Chastel editions.
A book in which he tries to help answer the scientific questions that are increasingly appearing in public debate.
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A "legitimate ignorance"
Since the beginning of this health crisis, the data, the statistical curves, the studies and the speeches of scientists have punctuated the daily life of the whole world.
An irruption of science into everyday life which has sometimes resulted in errors.
"I have friends who have adopted a form of scientific approach in their language, I found that very positive. Obviously, we made some mistakes, we did not necessarily clearly distinguish the subtleties of science," says Raphaël. Chevrier, who clearly defines the term: "Science is a way of questioning the world and nature around us, so that the answers can be verified by ourselves or by others."
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He also evokes in his work the concept of "legitimate ignorance".
"When I speak of legitimacy, it is not serious not to know, on the contrary. What is serious is to want to believe, not to endure the unknown. And in this crisis, precisely, we could not bear not knowing everything about this virus, "laments the physicist.
A criticism that applies to the whole of society, elected officials and scientists included.
It is this "legitimate ignorance" which is the door open to false information.
He relates in particular a significant event according to him, when the former Nobel Prize winner Luc Montagnier affirmed, without contradictions, on a television set that the Covid-19 had been manufactured in the laboratory from the DNA of HIV.
A sequence that has toured social networks.
"There are no miracle solutions, I think we have to make an effort of research to find out what is the liability of people who make this kind of hypothesis. In this case, Luc Montagnier is used to controversy ", he comments.
"I think researchers need to be clear in their delineation between knowledge, their hypotheses and their own analyzes."
Differentiate between politics and science
In his book, Raphaël Chevrier is interested in PMA, 5G or vaccines.
Hot topics that are subject to all controversy and misinformation.
But his experience also allows him to analyze the news and the health crisis at play.
"We must make the difference between what concerns science and political decision. And Emmanuel Macron could not manage this crisis only from scientists, he makes political decisions. And this is all the more important. to understand that during the coronavirus, we were thinking on the basis of models that were by nature imperfect, partial and potentially evolving data ", explains the physicist.
"Even if we had scientific data and perfectly known scientific information, depending on the political objectives that you set for yourself, you are going to make decisions diametrically opposed to each other, but you are going to be consistent with basic scientific data. . "
"There has been a tendency to use scientific data in a somewhat variable way to justify choices to confine or not", he laments, pointing to the lack of scientists elected and involved in politics or the lack of training of leaders.