"[W]e are increasingly sorting individual approaches based on our ideological tribes. This creates new blind spots and greater risks of overconfidence and intellectual hubris.”
“In times of actual crisis, it can be easy to let awe and wonder fall by the wayside. Even in times of prosperity and plenty, our politicians and would-be planners are adept at finding urgency and necessity where neither truly exists.” - Acton
It’s a thoughtful piece and makes some good points, but … oddly idealistic.
Given the unique public-health risks of COVID-19, a prompt “central command” response was probably necessary. But at what point do we pause and reconsider or readjust the focus of our scientific energy? At what point do we give awe and wonder their due?
This seems like a weird question to be asking right now when we still have 1,700 a day dying of the disease, we’re still quite possibly more than a year away from a vaccine, and we face the possibility of a second wave this fall (if not sooner).
I’m sure there’s still plenty of awe and wonder going on in physics, botany, zoology, and lots of other fields. We properly have other priorities for health sciences right now.
Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.
Perhaps despite the exploding numbers of people in the early days, we ought to have had some awe and wonder at what was going on—exponential growth. Perhaps if we’d had more of that, we’d have more meditation on what was really going on, and less judgment of those trying to keep models apace of ever changing information.
Or maybe “dream on.”
Aspiring to be a stick in the mud.
Discussion