> If the plan is to create policies based on "the science", then people will lie about what the science is in order to get their policies into play.

Or, in my opinion, more frequently - sincerely adhere to, but not actually understand the science and still push those policies anyway.

I've been more concerned with people who claim that some viewpoint is based on "science" while they actually don't even have a surface level understanding of it and whether it's been twisted to support a particular viewpoint. For the sufficiently hardheaded and ignorant, "science" is another form of religion and one-word conversation stopper.

More of a comment, no suggested solution.

Except what are policies supposed to be based on? Replacing "science" with "data" is effectively the same thing. So policies are supposed to be pushed without evoking evidence of their effectiveness? Referencing where such policies have worked elsewhere is referencing experiments

Policies are supposed to be (and inevitably are) designed based on a balance between empirical analysis of their likely effects and a more holistic analysis of what people want. The holistic factors determine what kinds of empirical evidence are relevant and how much of it is required. If someone tells you they've designed a policy based purely on "science" or "data", they've baked in some implicit value judgments, and you've gotta understand what they are to properly evaluate the policy.