"Science is the international language, so when we are able to convince countries that good decision-making for human health and animal health is based upon science, that's a real success story for us"
About this Quote
“Science is the international language” is diplomat-speak with a lab coat on: a claim to neutrality that quietly advances power. Mike Johanns, speaking as a politician steeped in agriculture and public policy, frames science as a kind of universal Esperanto - the one vocabulary that can cross borders without triggering the usual alarms about sovereignty, trade advantage, or cultural difference. It’s an elegant move because it recasts persuasion as translation. If everyone simply “speaks” science, the argument implies, then disagreements aren’t clashes of interest; they’re misunderstandings waiting to be corrected.
The subtext is that “good decision-making” is being defined in advance. In the realms Johanns is invoking - human health and animal health - science is never just data. It’s standards, inspection regimes, risk thresholds, and regulatory choices that can open markets or shut them. “Convince countries” signals the real arena: international negotiations where outbreaks, food safety, and livestock disease become leverage points. Calling science “international” lets policy advocates present their preferred rules as inevitable, not political.
It also folds “One Health” logic (the entanglement of human, animal, and environmental health) into a success narrative that flatters the institution doing the convincing. The “success story for us” is telling: the victory isn’t merely healthier populations, but alignment - other nations accepting a shared framework that often tracks Western regulatory models. The quote works because it sells consensus as virtue while laundering geopolitical and economic stakes through the clean, authoritative aesthetic of science.
The subtext is that “good decision-making” is being defined in advance. In the realms Johanns is invoking - human health and animal health - science is never just data. It’s standards, inspection regimes, risk thresholds, and regulatory choices that can open markets or shut them. “Convince countries” signals the real arena: international negotiations where outbreaks, food safety, and livestock disease become leverage points. Calling science “international” lets policy advocates present their preferred rules as inevitable, not political.
It also folds “One Health” logic (the entanglement of human, animal, and environmental health) into a success narrative that flatters the institution doing the convincing. The “success story for us” is telling: the victory isn’t merely healthier populations, but alignment - other nations accepting a shared framework that often tracks Western regulatory models. The quote works because it sells consensus as virtue while laundering geopolitical and economic stakes through the clean, authoritative aesthetic of science.
Quote Details
| Topic | Science |
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