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We must beware of “unscientific impulses” that go against government decisions, he warned. Giuseppe Conte following the failure of the demonstration in Rome of the deniers of the pandemic. The Prime Minister spoke during the EuroScience Open Forum (ESOF) 2020 at the Porto Vecchio Convention Center in Trieste.
During his articulated speech, Conte also spoke of Investigation, listing the “four fundamental objectives”.
Conte at ESOF: disillusionment provokes unscientific impulses
The emergency has made public opinion more attentive and more sensitive to relations between science and politics, Conte said, “a good thing in such a complex democratic society.” The risk is to constantly question “the objective character of scientific research”, which is at the center of the political dialectic.
“The result is a sense of loss of public opinion. Thus, such a vision of science ends up generating disappointment and, in the worst case, blatant unscientific impulses, which are reflected against government decisions for the management of the pandemic”Conte explained.
The effect of this disillusionment, or lack of faith in scientific theses (and therefore ultimately ongoing), is to undermine provisions aimed at containing the pandemic, either the requirement of a mask or vaccine.
Both scientific and humanistic knowledge can help “demystify those unscientific and irrational instants and impulses that arise in times of crisis”.
The pandemic, Conte continued, is getting humanity under test, imposing new priorities and change. During the confinement, for example, “we rediscovered the role of connectivity, but we also asked ourselves to what extent this connectivity affects the quality of relationships with the other.”
“We are in a period in which the language of science seems essential to face some common problems. Certainly the fight against the pandemic we face, but also the climate emergencyConte added.
Conte and the four research objectives
The prime minister then established the four fundamental research objectives: “Promote complex multidisciplinary integrated research; strengthen basic research; promote “mission-oriented” research; bring research closer to training”.
In relation to the latter, Conte highlighted the ever closer relationship between research and training, since “the labor market demands constantly updated skills, always adapted to the challenges”. “Our researchers must be encouraged more and more”, Conte reiterated, to “deal with the productive fabric and with society.”
