The Weekly Reflektion 23/2025
The world of politics and the world of science are different and consequently have different rules of engagement when there are disagreements. In Europe, the scientific method was born in the natural philosophy development in the 14th and 15th centuries and is embodied in Francis Bacon’s inductive reasoning. Disagreements are resolved by evidence and objective reasoning. Political rules have existed since the start of civilisation. One of the methods used to present different points of view is the consideration that truth is fluid and that deviations from the truth are acceptable as long as it serves the greater cause. Willi Munzenberg a German activist and publisher who fought against the rise of Nazi socialism, believed that truth was not an absolute, but a tool to be shaped for political ends. Disagreements are often resolved by competing narratives that are emotionally compelling and may not bear any resemblance to the truth.
What happens when the political and scientific worlds collide?
Angela Merkel received a PhD in Quantum chemistry from the Central Institute for Physical Chemistry of the Academy of Sciences in Berlin, in 1986. Merkel was also Chancellor of Germany from November 2005 to December 2021. In the main she managed to cope with the dilemmas of possessing a scientific background and working in a political world. One area where her political instincts overrode her scientific approach was in the debate about the future of nuclear power in Germany.
Anti-nuclear sentiment in Germany emerged in 1970s and 1980s and became a major social cause. The Chernobyl disaster in 1986 strengthened the cause and polarized the nation. In 2000 the Social Democratic Party (SDP) and the Green Party, with Gerhard Schroder as chancellor, passed legislation to shut down nuclear power stations by 2022. In 2010, this decision was reversed when Angela Merkel was chancellor. Her government extended the lifetime of nuclear reactors by on average 12 years, arguing that this time was required to bridge the gap to a renewable future. This was regarded by many as a concession to the nuclear industry, although it was a realization that Germany could not achieve its CO2 emission targets without nuclear power. Arguably an assessment in accordance with the scientific method. The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster in Japan in March 2011, had a profound impact on German public opinion on nuclear power. In her autobiography,Merkel describes the process that eventually led to reversing the nuclear lifetime extension process. Merkel appointed an Ethics Commission for a Safe Energy Supply to assess the risks of nuclear power, outline the possibilities of generating electricity via renewable sources, and thereby pave the way for social consensus. ‘Social consensus’ might not be established through the scientific method and will be influenced by compelling narratives. A defining moment in Merkel’s change of view was a statement in the introduction to the report from the Ethics Commission, ‘The central problem is not what can be imagined, but what cannot.’ This is the ultimate fear projection for any new or existing technology and is synonymous with the ‘Black Swan’ concept developed by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. We are required to design for the worst credible events, and we need to use our experience, our competence and our imagination to determine such events. We cannot, however, design for what we do not know.
The commission highlighted the consequences of a ‘poisonous social climate’ in a debate in Germany about nuclear power post Fukushima. The commission also maintained that CO2 emission targets could still be achieved even with the phasing out of nuclear power. For a politician it’s not really a choice. A scientist on the other hand would be critical to the change in the assessment of attaining the CO2 emissions reduction in Germany, which incidentally are unlikely to be achieved.