Are evidence-based policies and pro-science governmental agendas dependent on happiness?

 There are a lot of problems in the world—from the effects of climate change, emerging zoonotic diseases, strife and war, and more. But we also need to recognize that humanity has never had it so good. Today, most of us expect access to food, medicine, and education. We expect to live to old age, and we expect our children to outlive us—expectations that only emerged in the last century. For most of human history, people expected famine, and half of all children to die before the age of five.

We are not very good at comparing our lives with those of past generations, but we are very good at comparing ourselves to wealthier people or to dreams of lavish living. Happier countries are those where people trust one another, feel fortunate, and genuinely want others to succeed. My sense (with many assumptions and caveats) is that happier societies tend to be governed by more rational, less ideological governments—ones that place greater value on science and evidence-based policymaking.

In the U.S., it seems fair to say that the Republican Party has grown more hostile to science, favoring ideology over evidence on issues like climate change and vaccines. This is a broad generalization, but evidence suggests that Democratic administrations more often support and consult science. I say this, not as partisan advocacy—I am generally anti-party politics*. My goal here is to explore how happiness connects to political outcomes.

Measuring happiness and politics

Happiness is not easy to measure. Here, I use a happiness ranking of US states based on 30 different metrics, including life expectancy, commute times, economic well-being, and leisure. I then turned this ranking into an index where happier states had higher scores**, and compared that to each state’s political leaning.

To determine political control, I looked at six elected offices: the 2024 presidential vote, governor, state senate, state house, both U.S. Senate seats, and the U.S. House delegation. If one party held five or six of these, I classified the state as either Republican or Democratic. If neither party held at least five, I classified it as “mixed.”

The results were clear. States that voted more often for Democrats were happier on average (slope = 0.867, F1,48 = 7.57, p = 0.008). When grouped by party control, Republican-led states were less happy (F2,47 = 3.11, p = 0.05). These findings suggest that happier states tend to elect a government more inclined to value evidence and science.

Correlation, not causation

This is not likely a causal relationship. Instead, in places with lower literacy, weaker schools, fewer economic opportunities, and less job satisfaction, people are more drawn to simple and emotional political narratives. These often take the form of an “us versus them” story, where the “us” are righteous and the “them” are blamed for hardship and unfair control of the political system. This may explain why Republican voters tend to be less trustful of democracy.

It is important to highlight the caveat that these indices do not actually measure “happiness”, which is a complex thing to quantify. These indices are composites built from socio-economic indicators, but there is strong evidence that these conditions shape how people feel about their place in society, their sense of fairness, and whether they believe they are receiving the rewards they deserve.

Why happiness matters for evidence-based policy

If we want governments to ground decisions in evidence rather than ideology, we need to ensure that voters are happy. That requires investment in education, which drives innovation and economic growth, along with infrastructure, health care, and a high quality of life.

Raising the standard of living in places like Alabama and Mississippi should be a priority, regardless of political outcomes. People there deserve the same world-class education and health care as those in New York or California. But as a side effect, happier citizens are also more likely to support rational leaders who value science—and that leads to better outcomes for everyone.

 

*Political parties by their very nature, in both their objectives and methods, will try to subvert democracy and bias it in their favour. I want to see a world without parties – see first footnote in https://evol-eco.blogspot.com/2020/12/politics-and-biodiversity-crisis-call.html#edn1.

**absolute(max.happiness rank-state.happiness rank) + 1

Are we winning the science communication war?

Since the time that I was a young graduate student, there have been constant calls for ecologists to communicate more with the public and policy makers (Norton 1998, Ludwig et al. 2001). The impetus for these calls is easy to understand –we are facing serious threats to the maintenance of biodiversity and ecosystem health, and ecologists have the knowledge and facts that are needed to shape public policy. To some, it is unconscionable that ecologists have not done more advocacy, while others see a need to better educate ecologists in communication strategies. While the reluctance for some ecologists to engage in public communication could be due to a lack of skills that training could overcome, the majority likely has had a deeper unease. Like all academics, ecologists have many demands on their time, but are evaluated by research output. Adding another priority to their already long list of priorities can seem overwhelming. More fundamentally, many ecologists are in the business of expanding our understanding of the world. They see themselves as objective scientists adding to global knowledge. To these ‘objectivists’, getting involved in policy debates, or becoming advocates, undermines their objectivity.

Regardless of these concerns, a number of ecologists have decided that public communication is an important part of their responsibilities. Ecologists now routinely sit on the boards of different organizations, give public lectures, write books and articles for the public, work more on applied problems, and testify before governmental committees. Part of this shift comes from organizations, such as the Nature Conservancy, which have become large, sophisticated entities with communication departments. But, the working academic ecologist likely talks with more journalists and public groups than in the past.

The question remains: has this increased emphasis on communication yielded any changes in public perception or policy decisions. As someone who has spent time in elementary school classrooms teaching kids about pollinators and conservation, the level of environmental awareness in both the educators and children surprises me. More telling are surprising calls for policy shifts from governmental organizations. Here in Canada, morale has been low because of a federal government that has not prioritized science or conservation. However signals from international bodies and the US seem to be promising for the ability of science to positively influence science.

Two such policy calls are extremely telling. Firstly, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which includes the governments of Mexico, Canada, and the USA, which normally deals with economic initiatives and disagreements, announced that they will form a committee to explore measures to protect monarch butterflies. They will consider instituting toxin-free zones, where the spraying of chemicals will be prohibited, as well as the construction of a milkweed corridor from Canada to Mexico. NAFTA made this announcement because of declining monarch numbers and calls from scientists for a coordinated strategy.

The second example is the call from 11 US senators to combat the spread of Asian carp. Asian carp have invaded a number of major rivers in the US, and have their spread has been of major concern to scientists. The 11 senators have taken this scientific concern seriously, requesting federal money and that the Army Corps of Engineers devise a way to stop the Asian carp spread.

There seems to be promising anecdotal evidence that issues of scientific concern are influencing policy decisions. This signals a potential shift; maybe scientists are winning the public perception and policy war. But the war is by no means over. There are still major issues (e.g., climate change) that require more substantial policy action. Scientists, especially those who are effective and engaged, need to continue to communicate with public and policy audiences. Every scientifically informed policy decision should be seen as a signal of the willingness of audiences to listening to scientists and that communicating science can work.

References

Ludwig D., Mangel M. & Haddad B. (2001). ECOLOGY, CONSERVATION, AND PUBLIC POLICY. Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics, 32, 481-517.

Norton, B. G. 1998. IMPROVING ECOLOGICAL COMMUNICATION: THE ROLE OF ECOLOGISTS IN ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY FORMATION. Ecological Applications 8:350–364

Protecting biodiversity one task at a time: have your say

The fact that the Earth is in the midst of a biodiversity crisis has been repeatedly acknowledged by world governments. The greatest pronouncement was is 2002 with the '2010 Biodiversity Target' where many of the largest economies signed a pledge to halt biodiversity loss by 2010. Yet it is now 2010 and species are continuing to go extinct and habitats are continuing to be destroyed or degraded. But it shouldn't be a surprise that non-binding governmental proclamations fail to produce substantial results. Yet the reality is that we need to do something, inaction only worsens the legacy of biological deficit for future generations.

Maybe the best way forward is not more international governmental summits, but rather focusing on small scale, achievable short term goal. Guillaume Chapron started the Biodiversity 100 campaign, hosted by the Guardian (see story here), which seeks out public and professional input into the 100 immediate and achievable projects or ideas that will help protect biodiversity. The idea is to be able to go to governments and international agencies with this list and get them to make specific pledges to carry out these tasks.

There is till time to participate! If you have an idea of an action to protect biodiversity, fill out the web form. There are already a plethora of great suggestions, from protecting specific habitats to stemming population growth. This list is important because it includes the voices of the international public citizenry and that of scientists. More than that though, there will be a concrete list of tasks (ranging from very local to very global) that citizen groups can use to sustain pressure on governments.