Principal 

This week is National Science Week, which is Australia’s annual celebration of the contribution of science in the advancement and ongoing well-being of Australians. There have been a number of science activities organised for students at both the Junior and Senior Schools this week. In keeping with the aims of the week, the Senior School assembly yesterday was an academic assembly, with a focus on science.

At the assembly, I spoke about the key tenets and the importance of scientific thinking for all of us. The example I used to illustrate my points was the recent shootings at the Centres for Disease Control (CDC) in the US. The gunman claimed to be motivated by his belief that COVID vaccines had caused his depression and mental illness. Thankfully, no one was injured in the shooting, but over 180 shots were fired at the CDC headquarters. While likely complicated by the shooter’s own mental illness, the stated motivations for the shooting are strikingly similar to critiques of vaccines that we heard through the COVID crisis and those increasingly espoused by the new US Health Secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr. 

I spoke with students about the importance of understanding how the scientific process works and applying this thinking to controversial topics. The evidence for the effectiveness and great benefit to humanity of appropriately-tested vaccines is vast. It has been assembled through decades of testing, disproving hypotheses, and incremental improvement. To reject this position because of untested and unproveable belief that scientists and the government are in giant conspiracy with one another is not a sign of healthy scepticism and independent thought, but rather an irrational and un-scientific approach to evidence. 

Scientific thinking guards us against comfortable but unthinking belief in what our guts tell us, which is almost always a dangerous tendency to follow. Science Week is a great reason to extol the virtues of scientific thinking and to celebrate the great advances it has brought to humanity. Happy Science Week.