ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces the idea of scientific injustice: when policies guided by science distribute burdens and benefits unequally in ways that are both foreseeable and avoidable. Focusing on the rapid global spread of lockdowns in early 2020, the authors argue that these measures disproportionately harmed low-resource settings and vulnerable populations while delivering benefits unevenly. They examine how the global application of a “one size fits all” strategy ignored contextual differences, from economic resilience to healthcare capacity, and show how both the burdens (such as economic hardship and disruption to essential services) and benefits (in reduced transmission or mortality) were distributed along predictable lines of inequality. The chapter also considers whether scientific orthodoxy necessarily produces injustice, concluding that it does.
