Science & Tech Quote by John Anderson

He opens by denying what everyone suspects: evasion. The phrase "I'm not being evasive but" is the classic political feint, a verbal sidestep that signals caution while begging not to be judged for it. Anderson then stacks disclaimers like sandbags: not a scientist, not directly involved, not inside the consultation. It reads as an attempted insulation layer between himself and whatever contentious decision is brewing.

Yet the pivot is telling: "however the science must be sound". This is the rhetoric of procedural legitimacy, not discovery. He’s not arguing the science; he’s invoking it as a standard that must be met by others. That matters because it shifts the battleground from the messy substance of a policy debate to the safer terrain of process: agreement, consultation quality, confidence. Those are governance buzzwords, but here they do real work. "Must be agreed" quietly implies the science is not merely empirical but negotiated, a social product that needs buy-in. That’s less about truth than about authority.

The subtext is defensive anticipation of backlash. By foregrounding "confidence in the process", Anderson acknowledges that the real crisis isn’t data scarcity; it’s trust scarcity. He’s speaking into a climate where expertise is both demanded and doubted, where consultation can look like cover, and where any whiff of corner-cutting becomes the story.

As a writer, Anderson’s intent feels less like leadership than positioning: don’t pin the technical details on me, but don’t accuse me of ignoring them either. It’s a tightrope between accountability and plausible deniability, held up by the promise that procedure will stand in for certainty.