The Founders believed knowledge could bind us together. It still can.

A heat wave is gripping the nation, a private crew from Houston is headed to the International Space Station, and California is seeing a rise in measles cases. These headlines may seem unrelated, but together they remind us of how often complex public policy debates boil down to one familiar phrase: “Trust the science.”

That impulse—to turn to knowledge and reasoned inquiry—has been with us since the country’s founding. John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and Benjamin Franklin often spoke of...