Stewardship and Objective Science: Governing with Trusted Facts
Building Policy on Truth, Not Political Convenience
In government, there are few things more disastrous than bad data. When leaders base decisions on false, incomplete, or manipulated information, policy misses the mark, people are misled, and the country veers off course. What I mean by ‘bad’ isn’t that it is inconvenient for a particular party or ideology. I mean objectively inaccurate, wrong. Data that is objectively wrong produces wrong outcomes, no matter what the intentions behind it.
We’ve seen this play out before. Economic forecasts that mask systemic risks lead to financial collapse. Environmental reports watered down by political pressure allow long-term damage to ecosystems and infrastructure. Public health numbers obscured by an administration for the sake of appearances delay life-saving interventions. Scientists are fired for presenting unflattering facts that suggest policy failures. At the core of each failure is the same flaw: the politicization of science, the suppression of inconvenient facts, and the willingness to treat truth as a matter of opinion.
A society that allows its factual foundation to erode is building on sand. Stewardship, serving the people faithfully, demands something better.
The Danger of Politicized Facts
When scientific findings are filtered through partisan or corporate interests, the public loses its ability to trust. Once trust is gone, even legitimate truths are dismissed as driven by an agenda. To govern well, we need independent research institutions protected from partisan interference, open data systems that allow citizens and journalists to verify information for themselves, and broad public literacy in how to interpret and apply that data.
The goal is not to create a single “official truth,” which is the trap of authoritarian regimes. Rather, the goal is to make facts available, verifiable, and trustworthy. A free society depends on debate, but that debate must begin from a shared baseline of reality. Stewardship insists that we preserve that baseline.
Privacy and Responsibility
Of course, this raises a fair concern: how do we balance the need for comprehensive data with the right to individual privacy? Stewardship answers this with respect for the veil of identity. Data should be amalgamated, anonymized, and protected from abuse. Policymakers need to know what is happening across the population, but the private lives of citizens must be protected from wanton violation and display.
Handled properly, data serves as a mirror for society without exposing any individual’s reflection. This is not only an ethical imperative, but a practical one. People will not trust systems that treat them as subjects of surveillance. They will, however, support systems that treat them as contributors to a collective good, protected by a strong ethic of privacy.
Shared Reality as a Public Utility
At its heart, stewardship views facts as a public utility. Just as we depend on clean water and reliable power, we depend on trusted information. Without it, society cannot coordinate, citizens cannot hold leaders accountable, and democracy itself becomes theater rather than reality.
This is why stewardship fights to preserve objective science and independent data. Facts are often uncomfortable, but society cannot govern itself responsibly or effectively if it cannot face the truth.
A steward knows that no amount of rhetoric can make a falsehood real. And so, stewardship demands that we build and protect institutions and systems that keep us grounded in reality, even when that reality is inconvenient.
Our nation can only thrive if we share the same map of the terrain ahead. Without it, we are not navigating together but wandering blindly. Facts do not belong to parties or factions. They belong to the people. And stewardship has a duty to protect them.