More coronavirus and politics.
What about all the past epidemics in human history?
4
I get what you are saying, but wasn't it a scientist that bio-engineered the Corona Virus?
8
Ridding ourselves of trump and pence will do far more than just praying. Our country is led by the two most unscientific men that exist. One doesn’t believe in evolution, and the other believes he is god. Vote Blue, no matter who.
45
We are being led by a man who has no interest in science (or even facts). His latest federal budget proposal slashed funding for CDC and HHS. His administration has a history of muzzling scientists in the EPA, the Forest Service, and HHS. He ran for President on killing the Affordable Care Act. He is last man to be trusted to manage this potential crisis!!
36
Thank you for your insight. Our inability to understand and get behind science in regard to corona virus and to understand that is is a serious threat shows here in the NYT's response columns. As a nurse who has worked in public health and infectious disease I too am praying.
13
The power of myth and religion and the way they overlap and are revered is the reason science is not heeded. We learned many years, ago that surgical tools must be sterilized but if in any way that precept indicated the control of religion might look bad, we would still be making incisions with regular kitchen knives from a handy drawer. The solution to this is far away in another galaxy as the multidudes focus on texting, internet games, and seek the cutest emoj to include in banter rather than dealing with critical thinking by reading a book, thesis, or attending a lecture. As intriguing as fantasy is, Disney and the like have become the real religions of the masses, thus hiding science and reality behind a curtain as the Almighty Wizard was, in Oz. Wishing upon a star is more important than facts.
11
1) Human destroy environment.
2) Wild animals died or move closer to human.
3) Virus lost the wild animals host mutate and jump to human.
We will see more and more of this type of pandemic.
We need to take care of the environment.
10
Coronavirus is what you get when nature takes its course.
The spread of coronavirus is what you get when Homo Sapiens gained the mobility of ships, trains, automobiles and planes.
The failure to halt the spread of coronavirus is what you get when ignorant people gain power and willfully ignore the first two realities.
Let's give credit where credit is due.
Dan Kravitz
7
Tell you what - you pray and I'll make a wish on a furcula, and we'll see which one controls the virus.
Religion is mythology, wishing on chicken bones is superstition, and both are prayers.
Voters put Trump in office. We should be begging them to vote Trump out of office so that science can develop a vaccine sooner rather than later.
So far it's God - 0, Trump - 1
10
This column is misleading. We've all had coronaviruses. We've had them all along. Sometimes they cause ill health. This time is no different. Covid-19 is simply a strain that is more virulent than some of those to which we've exposed recently. However, it's virulence relative to the SARS or MERS viruses is still not established. While even lip-service paeans to scientists and science is better than none, one would expect that real-estate on the Times would be devoted to more substantive articles.
4
The spread of the COVID-19 is partly a scientific and medical problem and largely a political problem.
The media, in its incessant criticism of this administration, is missing the point that they have largely made good scientific and medical decisions and, for the most part, made good political decisions.
Since the media has the agenda that Trump is committed to a War on Science, all reporting and opinion-writing must be form-fit to that agenda.
Hence, the slow spread of the disease in the U.S., mainly confined to a few sites and cases that are fairly quickly identified and isolated, is feverishly flogged as a rolling disaster. The organization of a capable team is criticized.
The assignment of Mike Pence to lead this team is panned, as Pence is accused of being unable to lead a group because he does not adhere to certain gender beliefs or because he has strong religious beliefs.
Maybe that is partially why Mr. Manjoo laces his tirade here with enjoinders to pray for science and scientists.
The constant barrage of criticism. The persistent descriptions of our leadership as incompetent and unfeeling. These hamper the efforts to fight the coronavirus.
We need not criticize the President for saying the team of scientists are working hard on a vaccine, and then wishing they could go faster. Actually, we all wish they could go faster.
And Vice President Pence and the rest of us should work hard and seek divine guidance to help in a bipartisan fight against this virus.
3
This epidemic shows that we are not so far removed from 17th century plagues though we know more about it and its causes. But stupidity trumps even the best of our science or perhaps it is our short memories and arrogance. Our know it all president represents the worst of this trend, that we do not confront head on climate change or dangerous viruses.
4
The Trump administration hates science and scientist. The administration has driven off many of the scientist. The result is that when the virus hits, all we get is junk from the administration.
4
The quintessence of this essay could be seen and heard in Trump's press conference last week: Trump, Pence, and Azar bloviating while Anthony Fauci stood silent and ignored.
Really, really encouraging to this chemist, and his biologist wife.
3
I'm a secularist but thoroughly enjoy, sometimes, looking @ the world through the lens of the Old Testament. The Big Flood and those animals piling into Noah's Ark in pairs comes to mind in these days of Covid-19. Though God allegedly promised never to flood, it sure seems like he might be thinking of cleaning house again. I'm keeping tuned in, fascinated.
1
The least we can do is pray? Really??? At the end of an article extolling science? Irony? If so worth thinking about a Shel Silverstein poem I happened to being reading to a child today 'The Little Blue Engine' (at base a meditation on "I think I can") the last stanza of which, says:
He was almost there, when - CRASH! SMASH! BASH!
He slid down and smashed into engine hash
On the rocks below ... which goes to show
If the track is tough and the hill is rough
THINKING you can just ain't enough.
Praying has exactly the same problem!
5
2+2≠5, no matter what Trump and his Republican Senators say.
6
The threat of “populism”. Ignorance, superstition, and religion on one side...education, science and reason on the other...then equal weight given to the opinions of both. Trump’s America!
5
'Pray for reason, rigor and expertise.
Well, using the author own words, 'Pray for reason, rigor and expertise', don't hold your breath. Yes, Trump's handlers may have replaced Trump as the coronavirus's front and forward spokesperson with soft speaking Vice President Pence, as the song goes,
"This ain't no party. This ain't no disco.
This ain't no foolingf around."
They had to.
The manner in which Trump portrayed the White House's official response to this infectious disease making landfall here in the United States was absurd and embarrassing.
Bad enough was Trump's look of astonishment and confusion, 'ahhhh, really?', when, in the midst of the coronavirus being explained by medical professionals, he was informed, on the world stage mind you, that 10,000 citizens here die annually simply from strains of the flu.
But his purile understanding really comes as not much of a surprise. He doesn't read, do the kind of research one would expect at times like these.
So, if this is a 'when push comes to shove moment', well, this must be shove and come this November he must be shoved out of office by the electorate.
How many times have you heard pundits ask, if this is how he acts during a mid-range instance of concern, say like how he reacted to the grossly violent White Nationalist demonstration in Charlotsville, what will he do when a real crisis hits?
Well, he just showed us, and falling flat on his face during the onset of a burgeoning pandemic no less.
3
Nature really doesn't care what you believe, and inconvenient truths will always win out over denial. Wouldn't you rather be on the side of science instead of superstition and denial?
5
mad king donnie says the press is the enemy of the people
mad king donnie denies climate change which is/will kill untold numbers
mad king donnie cuts the budgets of scientists, cuts health care for the neediest, does nothing to improve universal healthcare, and does nothing to bring down medical costs
mad king donnie tells us corona virus will go away in a month as if by a miracle
well .... I prefer to fund, support, and listen to Scientists and rational Media who try to solve the nations problems not exacerbate them
time for mad king donnie to go rule over the golden kingdom of mar-a-lago
6
Every time when there is a shooting or massacre occurred in this country, many politicians, church leaders and presidenst jumped in to offer " Thought and Prayers ".
With this pending pandemic, I have not seen such a language being used or may be repeated in mass media.
May be this is a good start for science.
3
Praying won't help. Funding them will.
6
Stop Stop Stop. Coronavirus is what you get from China due to the way they farm and sell meats in the open markets.
I suggest you read "Flu" by the NYT's best science writer to learn more.
8
Thank God for scientists! ;-)
3
This is affirming and reassuring for anyone in doubt:
Australian Financial Review on Saturday 29 February 2020: Professor Nigel McMillan, the Director of Infectious Diseases and immunology at Menzies Health Institute Queensland, Griffith University states: “COVID-19 will eventually become just another virus which, for 95 to 99 per cent of the population, will mean no more than a mild cold”.
Professor Peter Collignon, professor of microbiology at ANU estimates "the real death rate will settle at around 0.3%". These deaths are almost entirely those with existing health conditions (99.1%) (known as co-morbidities) and in the elderly age groups.
The death rate is likely to be even lower than 0.3% due to the vast majority of those infected being asymptomatic and, therefore, not counted in the statistics (since they were never tested). And, due to these skewed statistics, we will never know the actual death rate.
It is time to ignore the fear-mongering, media hysteria and toilet-paper hoarding.
Consider common-sense.
The best defence against coronavirus is a healthy immune system.
Eat well, sleep well, minimise stress and apply sensible hygiene practices.
And, reality check...........most of us will be getting a dose of it within the next 1 - 3 years regardless. And, because of healthy immune systems, you may not even notice it (known as being asymptomatic) or it will be mild symptoms only; manageable with some simple, common-sense self-care.
Farhad Manjoo's prayers will soon be answered. The Christ will return to the world soon and believe it or not, he will endorse and encourage actions based scientific facts and investigations. People like Pence will surprised to find out that he will support the very things that conservatives discourage (like needle exchanges)
1
Is there anything left on earth that isn't greeted with finger pointing? Is absolutely everything someone else's fault? Does every action have to be political?
This article is a slap in the face to the hard working nurses and doctors who are doing there best to help sick people.
And if there is a "bad guy" it's the media who have done little more than fan the flames of panic and hysteria.
3
Great piece, Farhad, thank you so much. Our population has been dumbed down by the dumber. Remember Dumb and Dumber? Intellectuals are shunned and worse. Knowledge is suspect. Professors used to be admired when I was growing up, but now its billionaires. There are only a few places the public can find truth, enrichment and knowledge. NPR and the NYT are two of them.
4
So, if we increase funding for science, we will have vaccines ready on the shelf to combat viruses that do not even exist yet? Yeah, sure.
Re: Trump as ‘anti-science’ and playing at ‘Doctor General’ in letting the ‘experts’ have a say in the virus:
The Republic appears to be lucky the boasting doctor does not do what he does from the Oval Office. And that’s practicing his daily ‘vivisections’.
Why do we need scientists when we've got Donald Trump? The stable Genius who knows more about everything than anybody else will protect us all from this Chinese Hoax. Just relax and let Donald handle it.
5
So the day after a gigantic defeat of your candidate and ideology you write an article about the coronavirus. Nice one.
As far as vaccines go, this column is absurd. Many doctors and scientists question our bloated vaccine schedule which begins on the first day of life with a Hep B vaccine, a disease for which babies have an extremely low risk and which is transmitted through IV drug use and sex. Do you even know that a 1986 law excused drug makers from liability for childhood vaccines? That since then—gold rush!—the schedule has tripled and chronic disease in kids has risen from 12 percent to 54 percent? Do you know that vaccine manufacturers frequently do their own safety studies and some last only four days? Arnold Seymour Relman, former editor in
chief of The New England Journal of Medicine: “The medical profession is being bought by the pharmaceutical industry, not only in terms of the practice of medicine, but also in terms of teaching and research. The academic institutions of this country are allowing themselves to be the paid agents of the pharmaceutical industry. I think it’s disgraceful.”
Snobbishly dismissing legitimate concerns about our vaccine schedule and ignoring the fact that US kids rank at the very bottom in many health stats for developed nations is the epitome of hack reporting.
Everyone reading - writing....I hope you got your flu shot in the fall. Did everyone in your family? Up to date on all vaccines? Just wondering how many will really get this new flu shot when available. Just asking - not looking for negative comments. Be well.
Coronavirus is what you get with trump!
3
Beautifully said.
2
Good one!
1
Donald Trump and MIke Pence...Tell the TRUTH.
Obama is NOT the one to blame here.
"The top White House official responsible for leading the U.S. response in the event of a deadly pandemic has left the administration, and the global health security team he oversaw has been disbanded under a reorganization by national security adviser John Bolton." Washington Post and others.
May 10, 2018
5
We needed this column. Well done.
4
Is global warming good or bad for virus propagation?
It’s amusing to read comments by MAGA leaning readers who insist China is at fault, but have not a whisper for how willfully incompetent this administration has been, primarily because they actively dismantled our ability to respond to a pandemic because it was an “Obama thing”.
3
Current chance of getting sick with Covid-19 in US is 00.00000043. So much for media hysteria.
1
No, it's what you get when you eat wild animals.
No one is ignoring science. Get off your anti-Republican hobby-horse; it has nothing to do with this.
1
Amazing how when the Corona virus had just broke out during the failed impeachment of Donald Trump, the news media ignored it.
1
Exactly!
Please explain this to the +1 billion Chinese who practice "Jinbu."
"There is, in particular, the aspect of Chinese eating culture known as “jinbu,” (進補) meaning, roughly, to fill the void. Some of its practices are folklorish or esoteric, but even among Chinese people who don’t follow them, the concept is pervasive."
"It is better to cure a disease with food than medicine, so starts the holistic theory. Illnesses result when the body is depleted of blood and energy — though not the kind of blood and energy studied in biology and physics, but a mystic version."
"Bats, which are thought to be the original source of both the current coronavirus and the SARS virus, are said to be good for restoring eyesight — especially the animals’ granular feces, called “sands of nocturnal shine” (夜明砂). Gallbladders and bile harvested from live bears are good for treating jaundice; tiger bone is for erections."
Here's the full piece from the NYT:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/20/opinion/sunday/coronavirus-china-cause.html
3
Pray?
You're kidding.
1
more than a bit hyperbolic Mr. Manjoo.
1
Be it fascists, populists, or strongmen - the first victims are almost always the intellectuals . . .
2
Manjoo's essay prostitutes science by making it just a weapon to attack Trump. The virus erupted outside of North America and the response of the CDC has been informative and appropriate.
Science is not under attack in this country. Vast sums are allocated to it on the private and governmental levels -- or, are we to believe that MIT, Cal-tech, the CDC, Jet Propulsion Lab, etc. etc., are merely rare flukes?
Science IS undermined when it is politicized. Lysenko did so under Stalin and Manjoo wants to do it under the NYT banner.
Disgusting.
1
You can ignore science at your own risk, but unfortunately it puts others at risk, too. I'm an RN currently employed at a small non-profit homeless shelter. Last fall, several of my co-workers asked me how they could avoid getting sick over the winter. My answer- Flu shots! The replies I got were-"oh I don't believe in putting that into my body" and "I use elderberry, that's really good, right" and my favorite "I take emu oil, I'm not going to get sick".
In the last 3 weeks, all of these people have gotten the flu. I alone have not. It also hit our residents. To make matters worse, they are all covered by insurance (even our current group of residents are on Medicaid) and I am not, owing to my husband's death last fall. I did pick up enough extra hours covering for all the sick calls to pay for my flu shot. (Probably several times over).
Looking into the future, I wonder, when a Covid-19 vaccine becomes available, how many people will refuse to get one? One of the above mentioned co-workers says that her daughter believes Covid-19 is a plot by the pharmacy companies to force more vaccines on us just so they can make money.
That MAGA hat is not an acceptable substitute for a vaccine.
14
In the second world war, the US spent the first several months losing badly, but learning important lessons that were converted into later success. We are now in that period of learning important lessons. We must learn these important lessons, or die. The plague is upon us. It is spreading, and it is all around us. We must give each other the courage, community spirit, and good humor necessary to meet the challenges of this very existential threat. For this is just the first wave. It's the next wave, in the Autumn, for which we must be prepared fully.
4
In America we've gone back to preferring tarot cards, gut feelings, and hyperbole to reasoned discourse about anything. Trump exemplifies that. I do find it funny in a very sad way that he's supposed to be such a germophobe. If he is he has a strange way of handling it when it comes to America.
We are the country that produced two workable vaccines for polio. We immunized as many people as we could against this. Of course this was back when we had presidents who understood the value of science and of protecting the country. We are also the country that won the race to the moon. I guess the race we're winning now is to become a replica of the empires that have fallen with the attendant ignorance, superstition, and other afflictions that accompany this state.
11
It is deeper than that.
Authority and expertise are not understood or acknowledged, generally. Scientific experience is just a subset.
What Susan Rice has to say about Taliban detente is just about "the same as" what Devon Nunes' aide has to say.
What an statistician with extensive knowledge of the ever-changing limitations of random digit dialing has to say about sampling error - brush it aside , poll result is needed for tonight's headline.
And on and on. I don't have a solution, but I have most definitely watched it balloon over my lifetime.
So many boomer notions have come back to bite us. "Don't trust anyone in authority." "Never trust anyone over 30." I blush that I ever listened to such hogwash, let alone at some level believed it once.
Most of us went on to get excellent educations and do useful productive things, and came to understand what an expert actually is.
But somehow the shallow indifference to authoritative expertise has taken root. I don't know how or if the 60's are responsible. Perhaps it was inevitable.
4
For members of the GOP a belief is science is like a belief in education or mathematics and all of them have a liberal bias. A Newsweek poll in 2019 showed that only 27 percent of republicans think that climate change is a major threat to the United States. In 2015, a new Public Policy Polling survey found 49 percent of Republicans don’t even believe in evolution. During a Feb. 28, 2020, campaign rally in South Carolina President Trump also referred to the new coronavirus as a "hoax." These are just a few instances which show that one political party remains unconvinced of the importance of science.
8
Who supports packing in the humanity? Abundant fresh air, clean water, open space ... fewer humans on this planet. This is what I hope for my child's future.
2
The scientists who profited from global warming allied with the oil companies, etc., profited from a long-term danger, and things like research on the cold were not glamorous enough and was cut off by both parties.
American culture is anti-intellectual, what a novel idea. Look at right-wing politics and what the Entertainment-Industrial Complex produces and our sub-standard education system. We may be nation a founded on ideas rather than "Blood and Soil", but much of the wealth was produced by "strong backs and weak minds".
3
We need more sharp lessons. I am sorry it has come to this. I can still recall, from childhood, the mid-1960s. We trusted Science (with a capital S) then, for good and ill.
Now...an era of magical thinking or simply denial. It will not end well for our so-called civilization.
2
Today we had our special session on how to gown and ungown for coronavirus rooms. It takes a full 5 minutes to properly take protective equipment off and there are multiple steps at which you can infect yourself if you do something even slightly incorrect. I anticipate many healthcare workers will get sick and a fair number will die in the US if we have widespread transmission. We also are running out of protective equipment and people are starting to steal masks from hospitals. I do not see how this could possibly end well.
7
I'm having a hard time understanding why such an exaltation of science. We are listening to scientists and doctors, but we're at a point where all they can suggest is to wash your hands and stay home. An outbreak like this is beyond their training, understanding and resources.
3
yes scientists are good because they study and advise based on facts. The CDC has been gutted so the tests were botched and until they can study the virus more, we will have to wait for more suggestions on what to do.
5
Science asks for preparation not reaction.
As it is, we seem to want to listen only when it’s convenient, or a last resort.
Too late?
3
This is the best opinion I've read in the Times since before the political season started. Thank you for speaking the truth.
10
The Pence press briefing just wrapped up. It is unnerving and a distraction that each press briefing on Corona virus begins and continues with accolades to President Trump. It has been mentioned a few too many times the great job Trump is doing in regards to the outbreak. It was a good call to stop all travel to China early on, that has been established. The fact that Trump and his cronies have recited rants calling the virus a "Democratic hoax" is not something any President with any intelligence would have done. It is obscene to make statements of that nature during a humanitarian emergency. Press briefings are necessary to inform the public. I want to know about testing which has been nonexistent and what is being done to ramp up our capabilities. I don't want to hear "Yes man" reverent pats on the back to Trump. Just the facts. Trump is the President of the United States not a communist nation where acknowledgements of unwarranted honors and merits are bestowed to strongmen out of obedient subservience. Trump is the President. He was elected and has a job to do. How well that job has been performed will be evident at the results of the upcoming election.
11
Science illiteracy can only be combated if our efforts start in K to 12 education. Having tended the scientific vineyards for more than forty (40) years, I am continually appalled at the basic errors made by media persons and politicians -- who claim to be educated people.
Even a perceived science illiterate (like President Trump) recognizes that he needs to listen to what Dr. Fauci et al. are telling him. Dr. Carson has his ear, so we do have a phalanx of excellent science scholars to lead us through this crisis.
3
Yes, support science and research infrastructure in the long term and fund it properly. That goes for a wide array of issues, not jut disease prevention. But a lot of containing the coronavirus has to do with the response of ordinary citizens, even when the government lets them down. Look at Hong Kong: it's so far (cross fingers) managed to contain the virus remarkably well given its proximity to the epicenter and the fact its government is not elected by the people and a puppet of the regime that covered up the virus in China. HK people experienced SARS in 2002 and 2003, which left deep psychological scars. So they knew this was serious and had to be addressed with appropriate measures. When the government failed to take these--for political reasons, HK people acted on their own, initiating public education and mask-procurement drives and protesting government inaction. The city's hospital workers even went on strike, pushing the government to adopt more adequate measures. The result is a high level of awareness that contrasts with the response in, say, Europe and the US. So when the system fails us, we need to take actions ourselves. HK people have been heroic so far, and are an example to all. Wash hands frequently, avoid social gatherings and physical touch with strangers. Take responsibility for society, not just yourself. It's not rocket science, it's basic science and basic social responsibility.
3
A few thoughts on this very needed article.
It's not just the under funding and valuing of sciences, but that many of the limited number of good scientists we manage to produce all go into either private industry or universities where they pursue research that have the potential for high market value. And of course, a vast number of post-doctoral researchers are from other countries who often go back.
I was disheartened when I hear the President describing how as a business man, he hates the thought of having people not utilized maximally and therefore will use the staffing model of ramping up or down as needed, as if public health readiness is some sort of a catering situation. We need a strong core of experts and support staff ALWAYS at the ready.
Even if we quickly assemble a SWAT team pulling from private industry and academia (which I hope has been done) this requires strong and extremely competent project manager coordinating the effort. Test kits, TSA staff training, sealing the borders, a website for health professionals, identification of physical spaces for quarantines, etc. etc., should already be in place at this point, yet we're still incapable of even testing someone suspected of being sick. But it's a mistake to think this all falls on Trump. He takes his share of the blame but our incompetence was long time in the making.
Many of our most crucial institutions such as the CDC, CIA, FBI, etc. have been shown to be frighteningly incapable.
6
Your suggestion that we pray is way too Pence-ian. The answer to an administration that prohibited the CDC from using the terms "science-based" and "evidence-based," among others, then dismantled the government's entire pandemic response infrastructure, is to VOTE THEM OUT.
13
I don't pray, but if I did I would pray for healthcare workers as well as scientists. They are on the front lines, and frighteningly large numbers of them are frequently felled by the very epidemic they are fighting. We need them as much as we need their counterparts in the laboratories.
3
Farhad says : the least we can do is pray.
Just where will that get anyone? Give evidence of where that have EVER gotten anyone.
Way past time to douse the whole 'snake oil sales" of religion and it's focus on Imagining forces that just aren't there.
Get real folks; Life is about NATURE; praying has nothing to do with it. THAT is our spirituality, our deep connectedness, and it is HERE, for us to cherish, protect , be stewards of, and be realistic about. THEN we can get somewhere to SEE our planet in it's entirely, and where our efforts should go. Certainly not on mumbling some hopeful, childish wishes to , who knows who, out of a hope of someone ELSE solving our real problems.
Rather , the least we can do is understand NATURE, and that WE are nature, and that ALL of nature is interconnected, for the joint purpose of SURVIVAL.
4
@richjacq7 The point is that although we are able to understand nature/science it is difficult to do so because our ability to study science has many barriers. So the only thing left is prayer...The statement is not meant to be an answer to the tremendous risk we face.
2
The author talks about "we". There is no "we". There are many
different groups, who either through privilege, hard work or most likely luck are not equal at risk. There are many more people who can't or choose not to escape the path of this pandemic. If science deniers ignore the recommendations of scientists who study infectious diseases and how they spread, they put themselves on the wrong side of the equation. I think Darwin wrote something about this.
2
It is simply stunning that we haven't learned much from the 2002 SARS outbreak, and the MERS outbreak later that established the coronavirus playbook.
It is the fault of the Chinese Communist government that wet markets were allowed to reopen after SARS, selling live wild animals such as the civet that was unequivocally identified as the source of the SARS virus. The superstition that consumption of fresh meat from these poor animals has health benefits should have been stamped out there and then. But it continued and expanded to other species such as the pangolin that also carries coronaviruses.
A totalitarian government that can intern millions of its citizens and censors web postings in milliseconds, but beholden to old and unscientific superstitions. This was the original sin.
5
I think half the people in this country believe this virus is not a threat to public health, that it’s all media hype. They point to all the past viruses that faded quickly and view this one as a chicken little event. They are taking their cues from our leaders who are science deniers. Time will tell.
10
The reason that people are ignorant about science is simply that science is difficult and hard to learn. That doesn't mean that science is stalling. On the contrary, there are more scientists today than ever and they are making tremendous advances every year and in all areas from medicine to computers and the technologies underlying them. Engineering is also advancing. There is a select few of our citizens who study the difficult subjects of science and a select few of them who through hard work, patience and smarts are advancing the borders of their subjects all the time. It would be nice though, if our political leaders weren't working against science as some are now.
2
@lester ostroy Science is not difficult to understand. And if perhaps a person cannot understand science it is possible to understand that our government, for many years, has reduced funding for science to the point where we have not been able to keep up with viral disease prevention and treatment.
4
To which god?
1
As we are right now, the death rate for closed cases is about 6%, and the death rate for all confirmed cases is 3.5% worldwide. However, it seems South Korea is doing a much better job, keeping the death rate for all confirmed cases at 0.6%. I wonder what they are doing differently, what makes them so good that despite having more than 5,600 cases, there are only 35 deaths. Would it be useful to learn more about the engineering process they have put in place to be able to apply at home and in other countries?.
5
This column addresses the most fundamental and important issue facing every creature, every plant, every living thing on this earth: whether it matters whether human beings care about the established bedrock truths about our planet and everything on it and the methods by which those truths are known. The realization that a phenomenon such as the coronavirus may offer us is that caring about that truth is the primary, and probably the ONLY, thing that matters to our survival as a species.
To suggest that human understanding can honor any conflict between principled scientific truth and honest respect and reverence for the need for deep connections and meanings (i.e., spiritual and religious beliefs) that human beings since their emergence have sought and still seek is to despair of and to abandon human wisdom and a future for the human species. Either the two must steadily continue to reconcile and work in tandem, or their divergence will ultimately destroy us and our home. This is what the coronavirus, among other phenomena, is telling us. Will we listen? Do we have the capacity to understand such a message?
3
I see a frightening likelihood that great success at fighting coronavirus will be twisted by some as scientists crying wolf, because it wasn't that bad.
1
There is a difference between science and scientism. Unfortunately, most people don't know the difference.
1
@CV Danes Well, fill us in.
1
@CV Danes "Scientism" is a ridiculous fiction promoted by people who don't like certain ideas that are fact-based. I include you, CV Danes, among them.
2
It will take time, a year at a minimum in my opinion, probably longer, for scientists to really understand how Covid-19 will play out. Will it become a"perennial" seasonal disease like the flu?
Will it be with us throughout the year? What will the actual mortality rate be? To put the number of deaths over the number of total known cases is perhaps yielding a higher mortality rate then what will be calculated after the data is collected over a much longer time line (which will hopefully factor in the development of a preventative vaccine with high efficacy as well as interventions to reduce the death rate death). As more is learned about this virus I would anticipate a commensurate reduction in the fear factor.
How about using your platform to assail the country and practices that brought this crisis to our doorstep? "Global environmental heedlessness" says nothing.
China's traditional practice of slaughtering mass numbers of wildlife, many of which are on the brink of extinction, has been immoral and inhumane all on its own. And now, these greedy and nefarious practices, mainly in the name of "traditional medicine," i.e., snake oil, have resulted in a global public health and economic emergency. China -- and China alone -- caused this crisis.
Certain political leaders may well in fact be burying their heads in the sand, but to emphasize the response over advocating meaningful and sustainable measures to *prevent* the next pandemic -- with real consequences if not heeded -- is just more noise.
7
"If it’s true that a lot of Americans don’t know a lot about science, it’s because across American society, science is actively undermined, underfunded, ignored and suppressed."
No, actually it runs deeper than that. Anti-Intellectualism is a permanent part of American culture unique to the evolution of thought mostly through the 19th Century. Read, for example, Richard Hofstadter's Pulitzer Prize winning book, "Anti-Intellectualism in American Life."
Middle American self sufficiency is a dominant attitude. People who brought themselves up by imagined bootstraps do not take kindly to the intellectual collegiate elite who pronounce global warming when actually it gets very cold in winter and the rising seas when it is obvious, in Kansas, that they are not.
5
Who out there doesn't believe that Pence will save us. * * * Let us pray.
1
As I understand it, the last time Western culture systemically turned its back on empiricism and the accumulated knowledge of the past, we were saved by the great Islamic states, some of which chose to provide safe havens and incubators for scholars, to preserve classical knowledge, and to make huge steps forward in astronomy, mathematics, and medicine, among other areas. Perhaps as a Plan B we should be encouraging Islamic states to take up the mantle of scholarship once again, as a safe place for scientific endeavor to shelter and prosper as it becomes increasingly unwelcome in the West. It would not be an easy change, but then it must not have been easy for them the first time, either.
4
"As the coronavirus spreads, it is exposing the fraying seams of our overextended world. "
Oh, come now. The hyperbole of a gifted writer, but not even close to true that it is our "overextended world" has left us vulnerable in the way people never were before.
Ever heard of the Black Death in the late 1300s? The Roman plague in 165 and again in 251? The Plague of Justinian in 541? The Athenian plague in 431 B.C.
49
@Mike T. With the advances in science, biotechnology, social media platforms, transportation, delivery systems, etc., we should be better prepared ... and educated/informed as a society (as a species) in the year 2020 is what the author is stating.
99
@Mike T.:
"Ever heard of the Black Death in the late 1300s? The Roman plague in 165 and again in 251? The Plague of Justinian in 541? The Athenian plague in 431 B.C."
Dude, the events you referred to were before the times of. . . 1.) modern science; 2.) an interconnected global economy; 3.) most importantly, a fix re # 1 and 2.
Further, climate change as it relates to the melting of Arctic permafrost may provide us with more to come. . .
48
@Mike T. the Black Death is believed to have travelled from East to west via the Silk Roads kept open by the Mongols across a Eurasian continent that may never have been so well-connected. I know less about the other plagues, but the Romans and Athenians were hardly isolationists either. That the Coronavirus is not without precedent doesn't really disprove the author's argument.
26
I think the author is correct that we should pray for science, but incorrect to imply that all scientists are reliable to honestly convey what the science is.
Scientists are people. They have social and political philosophies like everyone else does, and they can sometimes be bought off. Sometimes they misrepresent their personal philosophies as science or even sometimes are paid to deceive us. Examples abound.
There is the medical doctor who was paid by the airlines to tell the public that the air in airliners poses no additional threat of this China virus despite that airliners recirculate much of the air during flight. He also specifically tells people NOT to wear masks.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-02-06/want-to-avoid-virus-forget-face-masks-top-airline-doctor-says
There is the medical doctor who is the current US Surgeon General who implores the public not to wear masks. He made the preposterous claim that masks will not protect the public but in the same sentence says they do protect medical workers.
There is the WHO who refused to declare an international emergency regarding this China virus. The WHO admitted that they refused because declaring an emergency might cause some economic harm to China.
2
A breath of logic and reason! I really like that you compared Chinese and American societies. I have been thinking that even the Chinese are speaking up to their dictators. And good job alluding to climate change. Same problem. And as to Pence, he was our governor here. Along some roads here, there were lots of signs that said "Pence must go!" Thank you!
3
There is a certain arrogance to believe that a virus that is demonstrating an ability to pass easily between people in countries all over the world for some reason won't come here. Or "it won't be so bad" or "it's almost all gone." Or whatever other incoherent message Trump had for America. We had a problem with test kits. It was arrogant not to reach out to WHO who was supplying the world for effective test kits. The CDC guidelines restricted testing because of a lack of test kits. Surveillance of Corona virus within the community did not exist. Doctors were only allowed to request a test if a patient had traveled from China. So very sick people like the one who presented in Vacaville did not get tested. This is the most asinine approach to a world pandemic ever seen. To this day we have no news about high risk areas like Hawaii with a world travel industry and multiple flights all over Asia not because there are no cases but because they have no test kits!
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@jeansch
It takes time to manufacture test kits in large numbers. They are specific to this particular virus's DNA and cannot be stockpiled in advance of a new disease.
5
@Jonathan Katz Actually the virus has been studied this week and found to be strikingly the same. Your assumption is false. Testing has not been a problem all over the world. Only here.
15
@jeansch It is a problem everywhere. China is still struggling to develop and adequate test. But they are ahead of us having tried several tests through these last months.
2
Pray that Mike Pence will realize how utterly incompetent and inappropriate he is to be the "coronavirus czar", and resign in favor of someone who has expertise, and actually understands and accepts the value of the scientific method.
3
And now the republicans have started to refer to public schools as "government schools."
That reference is insidious, and likely to be very effective propaganda for trump's base - public schools cast as evil socialism.
Expect another huge leap in scientific illiteracy as we see further funding cuts to education and more of this republican nonsense.
8
Republicans really hate science because it may stand in the way of making a buck.
The entire continent of Australia became a ring of fire because of drought. Yet the conservatives insisted it was liberal arsonists because they were afraid the coal industry would take a hit. Money does you no good in a fire, folks. For one thing, it burns.
Just like interest cuts don’t keep pandemics away.
At some point, we’re going to have to choose between the sociopathic rich and the rest of us.
1
AMEN.
The first two paragraphs are just so beautiful. Thank you.
2
I wish you would have put some evidence of mistakes related to your argument that Corona virus is what you get when you ignore science. Site some specifics on how lack of funding created issues with Corna virus. I likely agree with your analysis, but you need supporting evidence for your agreement.
It's been fascinating, as well, of course, as sobering, to catch glimpses of how other societies are handling the emergency we're also dealing with. America First? What a joke, right out in the open for the whole to see.
In China, patients are transported by healthcare workers fully outfitted in gear meant to keep them safe from the virus. Here we're told we have 30 million N95 masks, but we need 300 million, so in the meantime -- hang in there! Hope you don't get sick!
Korea has drive-thru testing with quick results; we sent out useless tests, then quietly stopped posting tallies on CDC.gov. Italy and Japan thoughtfully considered the question of closing their schools, and you just have the feeling they want to keep their precious children safe, not make sure their stock markets are protected above all.
The US is not prepared, and we're all on pins and needles waiting to see if Anthony Fauci gets fired for repeatedly correcting the president when he lies about our miserable state of un-readiness. The vaccine won't be ready in 3 months, as trump keeps lying to our faces.
We each need to figure out how to narrow down our IRL contacts with other humans, and stock up our homes for the informal quarantines we know will be necessary. But we won't hear that from trump. Even when the lying incompetents comprising this administration hold a press conference, they won't allow audio or visual recording.
9
Just returned from the Philippines where signs were everywhere, my temperature was checked at hotels, restaurants and the airport , of course. I was interviewed about where I was coming from, etc.
I arrived at LAX and I could have come from Italy for all they knew - not a question, check, warning....
You really don't have to understand much science to predict the future here....
15
“American society, science is actively undermined, underfunded, ignored and suppressed.” Yes, but it’s even worse than that. Americans are aggressively hostile to science. For example, Gallup has been tracking young earthism for over three decades and throughout that period has found that 40% to 45% of Americans believe the earth is 6,000 years old. This is willful ignorance, and these views are proudly held by the people, as it happens, who are the most active practitioners of prayer in the population. So, even if we pray all day, they’re going to outpray us.
11
If we're reduced to prayer, it's too late.
We're doomed.
10
@Ellis6
Gosh, you and so many others took the author's reference to prayer completely literally, missing the *irony* - and part of the point he's making. Yet I trust from your reply that you still got most of his thinking.
The point of this article is incredibly important, but the author doesn't go far enough. It is the sentiment or underlying belief system and habits behind religion and all other fantasy thinking that undermines our ability to respond to the COVID-19 outbreak properly, in addition to the climate crisis and many other issues. It is way past time for the leaders of human society and all people to embrace reason and rationality and completely and finally recognize that religion is all a myth created thousands of years ago, before science even existed, to explain the world around us. It is as though we have not advanced culturally from the times of Galileo, who challenged the religious orthodoxy with science and was dismissed and punished for talking about his scientific discoveries. Criticizing religion and mythological thinking cannot be taboo any longer. Religion and religious belief is the most persistent form of "fake news" in the world. The COVID-19 outbreak is just another symptom of this type of belief system most evident in religion. It amazes me how many otherwise intelligent people still profess to believe in religion and super-natural beings, prayer, and divine intervention. It is all just a made-up story. Human civilization needs to admit this now. The alternative is the continuing endangering of humanity and our communities, and the eventual decline of the conditions of our planet and our societies. We must all be willing to live in reality as it is in fact.
10
@Deep Integrity
"Religion... is the most persistent form of "fake news" in the world." Worthy of a bumper sticker, with a bit of editing. Eg, Religion: The Original Fake News.
But, religion arguably evolved for a purpose, and it still serves a personal purpose for myriad people. We aren't going to succeed in getting all people to drop religion 'cold turkey.' They need alternatives and time to evolve in their thinking - and I mean on a generational scale. But we can persuade one by one even if it feels - and in most ways IS - too slow.
4
I cannot agree more strongly. Santa Claus is a myth as are the religions of the world. Religions make people feel better in their minds, believe things that are false, and provide leaders who will stroke egos and con the congregations into obedience and tithing - all of which gives them hope - but beyond that, religion is truly worthless. And a vast majority of followers are oblivious to actually following the rules of their deities risking the one thing they dream of - a wonderful afterlife.
5
Science is a method - really a system of rules, for learning what is true, how things work, and what will likely happen in the future. It exists because the human brain evolved, building on accidents of nature, how to do these tasks, but far less competently (pre-scientifically), and that capacity, despite being primitive, was remarkably evolutionarily successful. We developed science, and figured out that the brain could do these things much more competently, if it utilized the system of learning we call science. However, Science is a method carried out by people, and a society only functions well if people trust one another, and are trustworthy - i.e. most people are truthful most of the time. Science, like everything else we do, can be corrupted, if we are untrustworthy towards our fellow human beings. Do not pray for science, pray for a society in which we are truthful with one another the great majority of the time, whether communicating about science, or anything else.
4
I don't understand. Didn't Galileo repent his heresy, and publicly recognize in front of the pope that the sun does, indeed, revolve around the earth, not the other way around? With Trump at the helm, how far have we moved since those times.
5
I find it alarming how many people don't read nor do they understand who to believe and apply that to real world circumstances.
Yes. Science is your go-to for information on a virus - it's origins, how it's transmitted and how to protect yourself.
Also, in application to the real world. We are only as strong as our weakest link, which are those among us who do not have paid sick days and health care. The workers that prep, stock and serve our food.
Add an incompetent, racist, conspiracy believing president and you have a toxic stew.
7
The assault on science is part of an overarching assault on truth and facts, led mostly by Republicans and others on the "right." I doubt Mike Pence really believes that "smoking doesn't kill," but it benefits Pence politically if he lies to everyone about it. It is easier to control people with lies; an informed public is the Republican Party's worst nightmare. Science is all about discovering the truth, and the truth is what is most threatened in the US today.
12
Weeeellllll.......
Coronavirus is what you get when the Chinese government does something shady in the lab.
Just read the report about the way they were going to squash any mention of the outbreak.
If it smells like a a...... well you get the picture
God helps those who help themselves. Cease buying any Chinese products. Stop doing business with any country that trades in wildlife for consumption, tradition, or medicinal purposes.
The Wall Street Journal yesterday reported that while Samsung moved its smartphone production to Vietnam; Apple has remained in China for three reasons:
1. iPhones are screwed together with tiny screws; all other smartphones are glued.
2. China will supply hundreds of thousands of workers to screw the iPhones together (because Apple will not build a robot to do that).
3. China would likely ban all sales of iPhones in China if Apple moved production elsewhere.
Keep China's economy humming, and the world's wildlife will suffer, and another contagion will follow closely behind the coronavirus.
3
Yep, science, as in population biology. You know how nature keeps species populations in check through predator/prey population fluctuations. There are no predators to keep the human population within sustainable numbers, so the job falls to viruses and diseases. Environmental scientists have known this for ages. As long as there are too many people, pandemics will continue and likely worsen.
It's fascinating how coronavirus has sent modern conventional wisdom into a tailspin and contributing issues defy partisan boundaries.......
---immigration, not domestic births, is what keeps US population from decreasing.
---the NYTimes continually assails single-family residential zoning as selfish NIMBY's who should give way to urbanized multi-family living. But density encourages virus transmission. To avoid infection, you'd be better off moving to one of the country's dying small towns or rural areas.
---globalism encourages virus transmission.
I'm not defending Trump and the GOP. Just that my contrarian mind gets frustrated with partisan blind-spots.
70
@gw Which is why allowing birth control, encouraging education and entrepreneurship (and home-ownership), and instilling a great respect for the true scarcity of pristine natural resources is what is needed for generations to come. All those things lead to lower birth rates, which curtails the natural de-valuing tendency a constant increasingly supply begets on human labor.
That said, contextually, cities are more efficient b/c there are less transportation and logistical costs involved in getting resources to centralized locations than over widely dispersed networks.
So, the solution is two-fold -- allow those who want space to move out to the country and home-stead, far from regulation - but also far from support. And let those in the cities put up with the density, but in return for getting what those out in the country lack.
13
@gw "You know how nature keeps species populations in check through predator/prey population fluctuations. There are no predators to keep the human population within sustainable numbers, so the job falls to viruses and diseases. "
This is true, but name one other species that has found a way to voluntarily control its own numbers. Birthrates in most industrialised countries have fallen to below the level of replacement after an initial explosion. We have to a large extent overcome what appeared to be natural constraints on our mortality and within a couple of generations we have begun to control our birthrates. This does not mean that biology no longer applies to us, but it does mean that one cannot expect to apply very simplistic natural "laws" to us to accurately predict outcomes.
7
@TomR The black death left entire rural areas completely deserted during the middle ages. People in rural areas still send their kids to schools, go to Churches ect.
Low density isn't a panacea unless you plan to live in a bunker eating canned beans and avoiding human contact.
10
Pray that Mike Pence will realize how utterly incompetent and inappropriate he is to be the "coronavirus czar", and resign in favor of someone who has expertise, and actually understands and accepts the value of the scientific method.
3
If it is true the virus came from an endangered pangolin, for folk medicine, this is also an issue that calls for more scientific information. People need to understand that rhino horns, pangolin scales, etc. are not useful for anything.
2
I agree with supporting the scientific community. However Mr. Manjoo forgets about the role of professional journalism in a healthcare crisis such as this coronavirus pandemic. Media-driven panic over coronavirus is a bigger problem than the virus The media must understand the facts and not spread panic. News organizations trying to responsibly report on the growing health crisis are confronted with the task of conveying its seriousness without provoking panic, keeping up with a torrent of information while much remains a mystery and continually advising readers and viewers how to stay safe. Public health professionals trying to provide the nation with facts about the spread of coronavirus are battling a wave of misinformation.This pandemic will go away just as others have. It is not the end of the world as we know it.
1
@Just 4 Play "This pandemic will go away just as others have. It is not the end of the world as we know it." Yeah, once the few million die (see 1918 influenza pandemic) who must be sacrificed, the (so far) 2%. But if it's you, my friend, it's 100%. It could be the end of the world as YOU know it. Be respectful of the earth's attempt to rid itself of its perceived vermin.
But let’s start at the beginning. The last three worldwide epidemics began in China. When you look at the world map where cases are beginning to multiply, they are all countries that have economic interests with China, including the United States.
China is a major world force. Its economic rise—the creation of an educated, wealthy, highly skilled middle-class would convert even Mao.
But China needs an FDA to regulate the foods that China eats, how food is processed and preserved along with ways to detect and stop bad market practices.
China needs to be brought before the WHO—not to chastise, criticize or embargo but given simple health instructions on how to move responsibly in a global economy.
2
An additional clarification is that science is not technology, technology is very much an implementation following from scientific insight and discovery.
Many people in industries that are based on scientific understanding, believe they are doing science, whereas they are just applying the results.
And many scientists who consider themselves to be practicing science, are actually practicing technology, and do not understand what practicing science looks like.
Innocence, scientists are like high priests, and need a lot of room and resources and the support of their culture, so that they can practice, and offer the fruits of their work. These people need to surrender and retreat from ordinary kinds of knowing, and need to open up to possibilities that most people are terrified to imagine.
The idea of praying for science and scientists, makes a lot of sense to me.
I cry for wanting humanity to return to its place in nature, where ideas about nature become secondary. Where control and manipulation and regulation of nature are impossible.
Thank you for this column.
@Marc ....Applied research is every bit as difficult and challenging as basic research. Both are essential. To claim that one is more important or less of a science than the other is false. I have been on both sides of that fence.
Scientists share a lot of the blame for losing their respect and reputation. From tobacco to climate change, there's no shortage of scientists with all their credentials who will line up and give interviews and provide testimony to say that smoking doesn't damage human health and that climate change is a hoax. No less than a Princeton physicist denied climate change on the pages of NY Times and the floor of U.S. Congress. Perhaps a bit less dramatic but just as pernicious is the finding over and over again that funders of scientific studies heavily bias the study's findings. Whether it's the health effects of eating meat or the environmental damage of GMOs or the efficacy of a new medication, the whole of science is for sale to the highest bidder. If every knowledge claim can have credentialed scientists in good standing on BOTH sides, then what good is science? It seems that the Catholic Church exercises more quality control over who can hold mass than the scientific community does on who can testify in front of Congress.
Precisely because scientists are all we have left in so many important areas of life, scientists themselves must organize and implement some basic quality control over what they do and how they do it. Passive acceptance of misrepresentations, lies, and corruption by scientists themselves has brought us to this day where it has become a political virtue to ignore and defy scientific facts.
3
@UC Graduate I get it. You want to be sure that scientists, unanimously, give exactly the answers that you want. And if they don't then they're corporate shills according to you. You might consider a more open-minded approach to knowledge.
As the 1920’s were called the Roaring Twenties it’s possible the 2020’s may be called the Pandemic Twenties. Especially with the dire consequences the author discusses here.
The sheer number of people could propel the transmission of a gamut of viruses. Our propensity to travel and work globally makes it even harder to contain a virus. Add to that the deliberate ignorance of politicians and at least half of the electorate.
We’re in for it - if not this virus then the next one.
2
This is what happens when one doesn’t learn the lessons of SARS and continues to bring exotic animals into the food chain without any precautions to prevent animal to human disease spread
2
This much seems clear: the world’s population has surpassed our ability to hide all of our garbage, responsibly manage our planet’s health, prevent us feeding on infected animals, manage migration due to climate-fuelled wars, eat all the fish in the ocean, or spread diseases through international travel.
Fail.
And yet we worry about keeping every single human being alive. As if death is a demonic force, even for the elderly or sick.
We are part of nature, we are animals. We live, we die. Nature has it’s beautiful, very scientific, ways of correcting imbalances. We have been operating with hubris to imagine this daywouldn’t come.
Let’s try to be thoughtful, develop basic goodness, and be prepared to make sacrifices. One way or another sacrifices are likely coming.
5
This article starts somewhere far down the line from the truth. How/why do you have a coronavirus? You create it by allowing people to shop/work in filthy disgusting conditions where 21st century citizens of an Asian country still superstitiously believe that they should eat animals that are better left to the barbarians of the 5th or 6th century. China should take its oppressive stance against the Uighurs, release them, and use that aggression (not to incarcerate) to close the markets, teach its citizens what foods are safe to eat and how to prepare them. How else do you stop the spread of Coronvirus? How about closing the shrines in Iran, where it appears the disciples of the faithful have been kissing and even licking the shrines, themselves. Shrines should not be petrie dishes. What about educating those cult members in S Korea that if they want to worship a man who insists he is God, that they worship him in rows 6-8 feet apart from one another. Stop these behaviors, and you have a good chance of slowing the spread of mutating viruses in the future.
4
@boji3 From an ethical perspective, ALL animal consumption is "barbaric." Instead of belittling other cultures, think about the generalized human indulgences leadings to our own (and other) species destruction.
4
It’s North Korea that worships their leader, for crying out loud.
How in the world can you blame the US for this mess? China gave us SARS yet still refused to close the wild animal “wet markets” that gave us the Corona virus. This pandemic lies solely at the feet of Chinese authorities and those who voted to allow China into the WTO. In fact, China should be made to pay damages to those outside its borders affected by Corona.
72
@Conservative Democrat
Yes, China started this whole mess due to their bizarre belief that a pangolin scale is good for your willy, or the countless other nonsense that leads to the existence of these animal markets
However we are responsible for our own part in this, which is that the US government did not protect its own citizenry through proper funding for research and preparedness. It's not China's fault we can't test enough patinets, or that people lack health insurance and don't seek medical help. That's all on us.
What it really comes down to is that all across the world, logical and thoughtful people are at the mercy of a kook minority that doesn't believe in science
117
@Conservative Democrat
Epidemics can pop up anywhere, so thinking that if China got rid of live animal markets there would be no disease is too easy. According to John M. Barry's book "The Great Influenza", the 1918 flu probably began on a pig farm in Kansas. Was America supposed to pay damages to the world for that? 50-100 million people died but it was no one's fault. Viruses emerge, mutate, subside and return; we have no control over nature, other than to develop vaccines. Better to work with other countries to have an organized and unified response to disease than to blame any one country.
54
@Conservative Democrat
He's NOT blaming the US. He's blaming those who ignore science - which the Chinese are arguably doing in the very practices you describe.
But ignorance of science is an international problem that has far too much active support in the US from the 'religious right' (that is actually neither), mostly profit-driven, abetted by narrow-mindedness.
41
As a scientist and microbiology professor, I appreciate the sentiment of this article. 'Praise the Lord but pass the ammunition' is another response; support for science, first responders and health care workers.
The Chinese have blood on their hands. It has been clear since the SARS outbreak in 2003 what to do to stop the spread of newly emerging coronaviruses: stop the slaughter and spread of wild animals in public markets, etc. Instead the Chinese sat on their hands. Result: nine dead already in my state. More to come. At least they are responding better the second time around.
187
As a believer in nature and God, I found this piece intriguing, like most of your pieces, Farhad. Interested readers might want to check out the article in Scientific American from April, "When Lab Experiments Carry Theological Implications." As a self-taught scientist who has worked with DARPA, the nation's premiere science agency, I recognize that science is hard at the start. I didn't take a single science class in college because of this, despite my interest in the subject. But once you start, it's like riding a bike––and just as thrilling. There was a paper in 2013 or 2014 about how doing math actually hurts the brain at first. Rewiring all those neural connections can be hard, but once you get going it's like anything else. The more you practice, the easier it gets. And science is especially rewarding because it is based on physical laws that apply equally to everyone. If you're looking for something in this life that can be verified as true, science is your best bet. Faith is important for me too. While I do not conform to most religious ideas, I have my own personal beliefs that I've incorporated into my understanding of physical reality and they mesh well. I can't say that's the path for everyone, but I've learned to live with both doubt and faith. And they don't contradict each other in my heart or head. It is in fact possible to believe and research. At the peak of science and faith, the two may be indistinguishable.
3
@David What a wonderful, articulate response.
I knew someone had to blame Donald Trump on this one, whereas it was mostly the secretive Chinese who got the entire world into this mess in the first place. If they hadn't kept it a big secret, medications and vaccines would've gotten a jump start on it.
2
@Tamar
Yes: we blame Trump because he fired scientists, de-funded the CDC and lies on a daily basis.
It takes 2 years to develop a vaccine and the virus is not going away in April as trump says.
We have no functioning govt which is what all the republicans wanted, except when they need govt. Which is now.
20
And what about the cruise ships?
1
If science is now subject to tribal political appraise then we are getting back to the times of black death in the medieval ages. What illustration "showed" is that the human kind was able to shred light into darkness, truth into lie and mark up the path of destiny as a human kind. Carl Sagan said it... Science is the only light in darkness, against political superstition and corporate and personal interests. May the light of science guide us in our fight again ignorance, selfishness and fear!
2
Thank you, Manjoo, I needed that. Perhaps it's the term 'scientist' that sets off the ignorant, not so ignorant, and just plain malicious.
But it has been seized upon by the right, principally by the GOP, as a cudgel to deal with whom they deem trouble makers.
It endangers all of us
2
Maybe science is God? Maybe we should couch the conversation like that?
So we would not have the virus if not for Trump ?
Such a great leap of logic is appalling whilst “science” is in your headline
Politicizing a global pandemic? I’m saddened.
2
I understand what you're getting at with regard to underfunding of important health agencies and research institutes. However, from a historical and sociological perspective, this kind of blanket veneration of capital S Science drives me crazy. Which scientists should we pray for? The ones who created nuclear weapons? Those who figure out new and innovative ways to extract fossil fuels, produce more plastic, synthesize new pesticides, and create blockbuster drugs for big pharma? The scientists who worked for Hitler and Stalin? You get the point. Science is only as good as the moral and ethical norms of scientists and the societies in which they live and work. So let's pray for a decent society in which science is harnessed for the good of people and the planet.
2
i say, look at the bright side. less people, not more, cannot be a bad thing at this point in history.
meanwhile, the pendulum swings. i think it's fair to be suspicious of science, but that's no matter. if people want to try a life without science and facts, let them try it. go for it. run the world on opinion and conjecture.
what can go wrong? like i said. less people, not more, cannot be a bad thing at this point in history.
1
@drollere
agreed, as long as I am not one of them.
I always wonder if people who venture this nihilistic argument are willing to be the ones sacrificed for the greater good...
Didn’t think so.
Thank you, Farhad Manjoo!
I hope people who claim their faith will add in what I call spirituality, and following their leader, whether it's Jesus (the Gospels) or some other figure who recommends love, honesty, and compassion.
Jesus was not fond of hypocrisy, exclusion, blaming victims, or acquiring the world's material goods by predation. He was not for violence. He stood for the less fortunate.
I read the first paragraphs with great pleasure.
In addition to the above, I suggest my fellow atheists also lose their intolerance. Most of the world's people need faith, so directing that faith towards the world's great religious texts about stewardship is a better way.
3
Of all people, scientists are responsible for not anticipating and dealing with the humanities. They left that difficult task up to others, didn't they? That wasn't their responsibility. Just the science. Just the facts. So human of them.
1
Perfect. Thank you, Mr. Manjoo.
Medicare for all is the only way we survive this. Easier to just vote for Bernie.
2
I am an okay boomer who remembers when the American public supported science. During the polio crisis of the fifties, everyone got behind the massive vaccination program, of which I was one of the recipients. When the Soviets launched Sputnik in 1957, the whole country rallied around the scientists and engineers who eventually took us to the moon. It greatly saddens me that our society has become so ignorant and fallen so low.
8
It’s not so much that science is ignored as it is about being drowned out by a cacophony of drivel and a deluge of propaganda.
8
All this hand waving of disaster will play nicely into the Trump re-election unless it gets way worse than it is. You don't restructure society over the current outbreak's downside, especially one created in the most centrally planned, most surveilled, socialist nation around.
Thank you, Farhad, for saying out loud all in one place what we need to hear, to say and to act in response to.
1
And what you get when you allow rampant animal abuse and consumption. Human decimation of other species for its own gluttony is untenable, and this is one of many reasons.
That trump has stated the concern for the virus is a hoax perpetrated by the Democrats to weaken his presidency is criminal. When he presents a pandemic as fake news and politicizes it so the markets don't respond negatively, his base will believe him. How many of them (and us) will die because they didn't have access to the scientific information we all need to protect ourselves. Once again, trump has put business interests and his need to make money above the American people.
4
I never saw science and religion as innately incompatible. Any God worth praying to would want us to discover and understand creation, and that is what the scientific method is for. Nowhere in the Bible I grew up with does it say, "Be thou a heedless dunderpate..."
Conversely any temple of science worth attending would be based on the general improvement of the human and planet condition.
It turns out, however, that both science and religion require us to something many folks just don't like to do: think. That is, sometimes, the rub.
1
Looks like Trump is going to be the scapegoat of the outbreak of US coronavirus. The US government is still the saint, just blame an individual person.
He uses coronavirus as an excuse to rant about science... yet the suggestion of the title was not substantiated by the content of the article, which makes the whole article appear like a childish ramble, as much as I agree with its primary message, as I would with any claim for the importance of upholding scientific method and unbiased research. I've not seen any proof that coronavirus was caused by "lack of science", as the article claims, and stating such is as much anit-science misinformation as any other "woo" spreading out there.
Trump gutted the CDC. It’s down 80 percent. He especially killed the team Obama created to deal with pandemics. And now the CDC sent out a test kit that didn’t work because they had no personnel. That sounds like your mango messiah screwed up to me.
I am assured by Mike Pence's office that the news from here on out will be good news about COVID-19 in the USA.
His office has taken control of messaging and prohibited scientists and agency heads from speaking to the media without advance "message coordination" - our prayers are answered and (only) good news is on the way to us.
There will be a referendum in November where science, fact and reality itself will be one choice. The other choice will offer a chance to vote for anger, resentment, and the stubborn assertion that 'we are number one' no matter what we do.
Should I be worried???
167
@Scott Newton
If the newspapers in a country are all full of good news, the jails in that country are all full of good people.
17
@Scott Newton What could possibly go wrong?
6
@Scott Newton
"There will be a referendum in November where science, fact and reality itself will be one choice. "
Unfortunately the other choice is the science-less desperate clutch to religion.
Thoughts and prayers are futile against the US gun statistics and will be equally futile against Covid-19.
As stated in the article, whilst the Vice President believes "the best way to curb an H.I.V. outbreak is through prayer", there is little reason for hope, other than some sort of Darwinian natural selection of anti-vaxxers in the fullness of time.
26
Actually it's more accurate to say "global pandemics are what you get when you have Open Borders!". The kind of anarchy of greed motivated 1% rigged flooding of people and goods across our borders that the majority in supposed democracies 'never asked for' puts the majority of our population at lethal risk in many ways. Viruses and bacteria have been 'emerging' moving from one species to another for 100's of millions of years and the discontinuous populations of both humans and other species (like fire breaks) naturally prevented diseases from destroying most existing species, or ravaging whole continents of humans as occurred during the black plague that was similarly imported from China in 1350. We need to recreate meaningful borders, stop mass immigration, do rigorous inspections of all imports and enact 'made in America' economic policies. Any one of the millions of shipping containers that are uninspected and arrive in our major port cities every day could contain a bat or rat infected with Ebola, or a terrorist nuclear bomb. But our 1%, who usually can contrive to escape the damages of decades reckless globalization are making too much money to even require that 100% of the shipping containers are checked for nuclear devices. This in a world where Iran, Pakistan ... who actually have terrorists on the payroll are either close to having nukes or already have them.
Thank you, Farhad. I am a scientist who is concerned about willfull ignorance, disguised as anti-Big Government. Our electorate is no longer willing to support the rightful functions of government, whether at the local or national level - namely, those things that citizens cannot do for themselves. Protecting global climate and insuring that people are adequately protected from communicable diseases are examples. We are so concerned about taxes that we have crippled government where people most need it. And we have stolen from Big Tobacco’s playbook, using Engineered Controversy to mask real science. Time to take back the night.
11
No, this is what we get when we forget that Nature is in charge. Since the Industrial Revolution started all we have done on multiple occasions is kick the can down the road despite past epidemics like the 1918 Spanish Flu. Nature always wants to thin the herd, make the strong survive. We have falsely tried to make more appear strong when they really aren't. And in the end we simply provided a larger population for the bugs to thrive on.
1
I agree with most of this article, but sorry prayer is not gonna do the trick. Action is required. Action by mortal men and women, not gods or their advocates. Scientists, physicians, epidemiologists, nurses, public health officials. And please the politicians should step aside.
4
Odd that you're calling for prayer, although I take it as a metaphor. Prayer is to science as hope is to planning.
What we need are sane politics. We need the wrest control of the government from dunces like Trump and Pence and at least return influence to the technocrats they've demonized.
Prayer ain't gonna do that. Voting is.
11
It seems to me we are arguing "Darwinism". Whether you believe in science, are an antivaxer, or eat bat soup, they all contribute to your ability to survive.
I have a science background as well, and where we are today appear to be the signs of an overstressed eco system. Overpopulated, polluted, climate is changing, less food sources available.
Even if science were to find a cure for COV-19, what is the result? More stress on the eco-system. Another way that nature had to bring balance back defeated.
With every innovation, disease defeated, mortality rate increasing improvement, we further stress the system and risk a new disease.
Let's be clear, the COV-19 virus spread quickly due to a high concentration of people coupled with innovation tied to globalized trade and travel.
In the past there would be a study about a small village that had part of its population wiped out from what they ate.
That is no longer a reality. Science can help, but it can also prolong the problem.
There is only so many of one organism an eco-system can support.
1
Coronavirus is what you get when you have 8 billion people, planet-wide factory farming and high-speed travel. Barring any major anti-viral breakthroughs in medicine we are going to be exposed to pandemics for many decades to come for basic structural reasons. Like mass shootings in the US, we know more are waiting for us in the future.
We have, collectively, chosen our densely populated modern world, which in many ways represents the triumph of science and technology, and which is very different from the world in which we evolved. Pandemics are part of this package. Improving the scientific literacy of the average person is not going to change this.
3
In WWII, the US government was caught without the scientific expertise to conduct the war. Not to be left unprepared in case of another national emergency, the National Science Foundation was created. The NSF would fund anything the scientists thought was important, with the proviso that their knowledge could be used to help the country in times of crisis. Scientists became sort of like firemen. Firemen spend most of their time practicing fighting fires, maintaining their equipment, etc., only called upon rarely. But they're supported full time by the citizenry for those rare emergencies.
8
Pray all you want.....but ACT as if your life depends upon your actions!
3
To be clear, praying is not acting.
One political party has proudly, vociferously ignored science, and its not the Democrats. The only problem is that a large voting block has been duped into thinking, the science isn’t there, on a whole range of issues, when the opposite is true. How will humanity end? With a whimper.
10
You mean that it is not a vast left wing socialist conspiracy developed by the Chinese specifically to attack Trump?
Yes, there are people out there promoting such nonsense.
Someone made the "observation" that it is attacking only socialists. Talk about a smart bug that determines one's philosophy before it infects you.
4
As my grandmother, who was a devote Catholic and public health nurse, always said, “God gave you a brain, He expects you to use it!”
14
Prayer isn’t the solution. Voting for change is.
6
Vote no on coronavirus 2020.
1
For those who think universal health care is the answer, they need to look at the long waits for anything but emergency care in countries like the UK with its National Health Service. (Just Google "NHS wait times.") If care is already rationed - which it is in any country trying to contain costs - there is no extra margin in the health care system for treating covid19. The alternative is skimping care for other patients which, as the NYT has well documented, is happening in China.
@J Waddell
You realise that healthcare is rationed in the US too right? Just ask the many people without cover or that cannot afford to use their insurance because of the significant contribution that they will still be required to make towards any treatment costs.
The US appears to have the most expensive system in the world, seems to exist primarily to generate profits for insurance companies and healthcare providers. It certainly doesn’t appear to benefit the majority of citizens that may actually need care!
An epidemic might actually bring home the absurdity of the current system in the US, help people understand that they have been brainwashed into paying ridiculously high premiums for a poor service that they can’t afford to use.
6
@J Waddell, do you think our current system is better? There are millions of people with limited or no access to medical care. That access is limited because of cost, availability or restrictions that are in place because for profit insurance and corporations who own hospitals restrict care and availability to maintain profitability, not health.
I know this because I’ve worked in healthcare for more than thirty years, as well as having had to use it. People in this country wait for pre-approval for surgery, cancer treatment, diagnostic testing and medications every single day. If you don’t want to wait, your option is to roll the dice and pay out of pocket if your insurance company doesn’t pre-approve it.
If you can afford it, good for you. The majority of us cannot. We wait for the approval of a private corporation to decide if the cost of our care/treatment/medication is worth the investment. It is a system run with profit in mind, not effectiveness of treatment.
Unless you have Medicare or Medicaid, you wait. Do not fool yourself into thinking care is not rationed in this country.
3
Indeed, science, and, more generally, truth, is a moral imperative.
Humanity has become a singularity, a nonlinear phenomenon: it has taken over the biosphere, and acts as a virus against anything alive. Climate change caused by humanity is exponentiating: it is growing ever faster at an increasing speed proportional to itself, as the direct impact of humanity is amplified by the natural effects it unleashes.
Coronavirus is an effect of that exponentiation of humanity. If humanity’s nefarious impact is increasing, we need to exponentiate science too, to learn to compensate. That means much more financing, but also much more orientation of young people towards truth and knowledge, rather than towards the latest celebrity or sport figure.
Science is not a new phenomenon: humanity evolved from it, and is its biological vector. It required quite a bit of knowledge for humans to survive in the wild, 200,000 years ago, without the fangs, claws, enormous strength, or the trees to take refuge in, of our fellow chimpanzees. Humans became truth machines.
Civilizations are characterized by their moods. Their attitude relative to science, and, more generally truth, is what determines their survival. Civilization, using world resources at several times the sustainable rate is more drastic a problem than just one virus.
General increasing stupidification obvious in school test scores is caused by those who own the media, and have interest to keep humanity silly and unaware.
3
Thanks for this column; as a retired psychiatrist, I'm all too familiar with the anti-science, anti-humanities attitudes and
beliefs in our culture--two observations about the current
Coronavirus pandemic: My wife, a senior RN working in a
local internal medicine/primary care clinic, took yesterday's
excellent NYT article (about what we all can do practically to protect ourselves and reduce exposure to the virus) to work
(I printed it out) because IT HAD BETTER INFORMATION FOR BOTH PRACTITIONERS AND POTENTIAL PATIENTS THAN THE STATE-OF-THE-ART CLINIC WAS PUTTING OUT.
Secondly, reading today's article about VP Pence's announcement that "tests can now be done on all Americans"
(as long as they are ordered by a physician) begs several questions--What if there aren't remotely enough test kits in most parts of the country to use on the thousands who need to be tested? What if you're not a citizen, but traveling on a visa or are undocumented, or have no insurance or medical care available, or no money to pay for it? This is not just restricting public health care to the privileged (a standard GOP position) it is promulgating spread of the virus.
10
We nurses also know that those who are watching the bottom line in clinics and other health care settings provide inadequate funding for important supplies and equipment. I noticed in the NYT articles there have been a few photographs showing health care workers who are moving sick patient onto ambulances who are wearing unprotective protective gear.
And there it is; an utter failure by this administration to corral this virus before it gets out of control.
It was one thing when we inexorably discovered over the past 3 years that federal agencies could no longer be trusted to provide truthful information about the economy, pollution, climate, immigration, or depredations on our lands and waters. With the disarming of the nation's health security capabilities and the muzzling of those who try to speak the truth about Coronavirus, the dangers that this anti-science, hate-filled, kleptocratic administration poses are becoming clear to all Americans.
14
Science is not perfect. Scientists are not perfect. Experiments are not perfect. Experimental results are not perfect. Nonetheless, good science that is the result of a well-thought out hypothesis tested with comprehensive and relevant experimentation by scientists who have a passion for the curious, passion for doing the right thing without an eye to fame and fortune, and passion to interpret and communicate their findings accurately, honestly, and understandably to a broad audience is the best chance we have in understanding the challenges to our health, environment, and evolving technology. “Good” science showcases the good and bad if it is to be accepted as unbiased and reflective of what is really happening. “Good science and scientists” need to be able to own up to the mistakes and misinterpretations of past work and conclusions and make improvements in understanding the outcomes-sort of, “if I knew then what I know now”.
As a scientist, I fully understand that we may not get it right the first time, maybe not even subsequent times. What is important is that we keep trying to get it “right” or, at the very least, more “right”. I think that it is imperative that scientists do a better job of communicating science in language that all can comprehend and apply to our lives-and even more imperative for non-scientists who have to further communicate science. Obviously the Trump administration is an abysmal failure at the latter.
5
If we support science, then we don’t support praying as an effective intervention in anything.
5
congrats! you get it!
2
@Julia Croft. Trusting scientific research and praying are only mutually exclusive to people with VERY narrow worldviews.
The problem with science is it tells the truth, one that often runs afoul of people's beliefs. Religion promotes "truth" and when that truth is found to be bogus, thanks to science, religion strikes back and calls science 'challenging long held beliefs' and "evil" (the fact we have people like Pence who believe the earth is 6000 years old and fixed in how it was made is proof of that one, along with the fact that Catholic Church did not drop the earth centered solar sytem/universe until 1922). The very science that makes modern technology possible across a spectrum of things, becomes inconvenient or an 'obstacle' when it points out what that technology is doing to our world. The very science that created roundup and the ability to make plants resistant to it is suddenly wrong when it says growing plants in roundup is making people sick. The religious ranters who use the internet to rail against gays or evolution, an internet built by science, deny the science that says their bible is wrong. The pathetic part is that along with the term intellectual and educated, as a country we are reverting back to the notion that somehow ignorance is bliss, 'common sense ' and 'folk wisdom' means something, and worse, that science somehow is another belief system, not truth.
5
@music observer: All the promised rewards of adhering to beliefs that defy facts and reason don't pay off until after death.
"If it doesn’t kill us it should at least shake us out of the delusion that we can keep ignoring the science and scientists who are warning about the long-term dangers to our way of life." Problem is: if it DOESN'T kill us, we'll sashay past discernment and reimmerse ourselves in stupidity and venality (e.g., the continued violent consumption of animals, caught in the vicious circle of disease-generating cruelty and cruel research in the cause of disease prevention).
I work in drug development. The author lambasts the lack of response from governments whom he accuses of being “anti-science” and then he asks us to “pray” for scientists? Praying is by definition a rejection of empiricism and rational thought. Thankfully just about every scientist I know is “anti-religion” which frankly is how we have innovated about 40 years onto everyone’s lifespan during the past century.
6
Pray for more respect for science in CHINA. Pray that they'll get over thinking bat head soup increases your resistance to flu in winter. Pray they'll realize there's no clinical evidence that pangolin scales, rhino horns, and the beaks of the helmeted hornbill make men more virile. China is devastating endangered species and creating world-wide epidemics with regularity. They've done this at least since 1918 (when China launched the "Spanish" flu that killed c. 50 million people). Recent promises to regulate endangered animal parts have significant loopholes (for "phrarmaceutical" companies and other traditional Chinese medicine products. It's going to take a lot of international pressure to make gains for "science" here.
3
Farhad. Thank you.
Millions of people are on medication, prescribed by the physicians to address various ailments. People who are on medication cannot miss a day's intake of their medication. Because, it is the drugs that keep everyone away from the respective ailments.
As I read this Opinion, what comes to your mind is - what happens if the pharmaceutical companies do not do their research to source for drugs. Drugs that apply to the most simplest issue, like a headache, toothache to the flu, or other health concerns. The flu which we are now seeing surround us all in different forms.
We have all to be thankful to science and pharmaceutical companies for their continued dedication and devotion, in their work to research and development. Their work to find the cure and solution to varying types of health problems. The success to science must be a public and private partnership project. The government of the day, can always provide the assistance and encouragement to science. Continued Research and Development, the Education is the key. Because, the beneficiary are the people.
If it is coronavirus today, what will it be tomorrow? It could be something different. How prepared are we? We need all the government institutions, such as the CDC, NIH to take up the challenge, to work in partnership with the wealth of knowledge in the private sector, to prepare for today and the future. It's importance cannot be ignored. Elected leaders must understand this.
Yep. You can live in civilized societies based on objective reality ( mostly) based on science, logic, education, and reasoning. Or you can live in the Dark Ages.
1
Contempt for expertise has proven a powerful political tool for populists; nothing better than trashing "the elite". And this is in a country whose economy and standard of living are based on American scientific leadership. This schizophrenic world view in which people take life in our technologically based society for granted while scientific experts are seen as contemptible and duplicitous, focused on self interest is absolutely insane. How do we reduce the internal contempt in the society for those elements that make our lives possible today, and are critical for allowing a livable world for our grandchildren.
4
Better yet, do something about China’s abysmal hygiene, public health and dietary issues. Doing something will have a better, quicker payback than praying.
Your words are like water in the desert, Farhad, thank you. I always read your columns because what you have to say and your writing is a marvel. May there be many more of you out there — many more of us.
1
@Cate ,I agree with you and would add that I reveled in Manjoo’s powerful presentation of a topic of much importance!
Not to know is bad; not to wish to know is worse. – African Proverb
2
Thank you, Farhad Manjoo, for this article. I shared it on Facebook.
I don't understand the author's appeal to prayer to help now unless it is an attempt at irony. Too many of the people who reject and mistrust science are deluded by religion and have been trained to believe things that cannot be proven and are not true. The people who believe religious lies then refuse to believe scientific findings. No one's prayer will change that. What might change people would be a rejection of religions' influences in our daily lives. Prayer at public events such as inaugurations is an offense to those who reject religion that promotes magical thinking that prayer will solve our problems.
I fail to appreciate the author's point and don't find it cute or humorous.
5
Scientists are being muzzled as we speak. Trump's COVID-19 task force had a press conference Tuesday where no cameras were allowed. Trump wants to suppress the actual scientific information from reaching the American people.
Republicans keep denigrating science at their own peril.
18
He probably wants to suppress the news that CDC had a contaminated lab, and a few hundred early test kits released by CDC are compromised!
1
@Jacquie
And they will take everyone else with them.
1
@Jacq And yet their supporters keep drinking the Kool-aid.
Well said, Mr. Manjoo. Bizarrely, far too many people are proud of their ignorance on science, choosing instead to listen to con men and greed mongers.
9
I'll give you some credit, Mr. Manjoo. You tried to avoid calling the purveyors of this anti-science nonsense their name as long as possible. But in fact, they are Republicans. They are all infected with some kind of anti-science (when it suits them) disease. Of course they fly in airplanes (aerospace science), they use the Internet (computer science), they work in buildings (built on scientific principles), they even see doctors (medical science) but have no problem attacking science and scientists for their own political gain.
So, Mr. Manjoo, next time, please just call these small minded fools out by their name: Republicans.
14
this editorial is ludicrous, written by someone without a clue about science. the spread of the coronavirus has nothing to do with so called science deniers, as the left winged would like to think. Of course, this nonsense editorial will get echoed.
1
Trump (coughing) phony science, hoax viru-
And he drops dead.
1
Dream on; Republicans have the best science & doctors in the world can fetch up
I thought there was some ground breaking news in this....non science by politicans met with science jingoism by the author
1
Silly political bias.
1
I am thinking--sorry!--of a COMMENT I contributed to this newspaper about a year ago. Dealing with gun violence.
The question was: how to deal with it?
An answer proposed by the NRA (and others) was: ARM everyone. Pastors--baby-sitters--rabbis--imams--priests--kindergarten teachers--college professors--
--turn the entire United States in the Okay Corral. And shoot it out.
I asked (sorry!)--are these people CRAZY? Are they WICKED? Are they PERVERSE.
A reply came back.
"No. You've just been hoodwinked by the liberal media."
Thanks, fella.
No argument. No facts. No reasoning. No logic. Just--
--the "liberal media."
I think, Mr. Manjoo, we are seeing this attitude in spades. Millions of voters, millions of citizens--
--eyes tightly shut--
--hands over ears--
--minds closed.
This--an epidemic of MINDLESSNESS--is in some ways more deadly than the coronavirus. And yes indeed--
--maybe we'd better just pray.
What else we can do I don't know.
3
Why pray for all those scientists? Why waste your prayers on them?
Just pray for healing. That's what those right wing "Christians" do.
(Tongue in cheek)
2
“Pray for them”......??? The author seems to be off the page, this sounds like Trump or better yet Pence. We should organize support for science and the scientists. Likely the author just mid-spoke....we hope.
Says the man using the word "Pray".
If you want data on COVID 19, no sensationalism see the worldometer web site.
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/coronavirus-cases/
Don't say the word "pray", that's what caused this mess in the first place
2
Easy Manjoo. Take it easy. One of first things a scientist leans is that “no solution to a problem ever arose from hysteria”—Feeman Dyson.
2
Silly, crowd-pleasing headlines like this is what you get when you ignore the origins - Wuhan, China - of Coronavirus just to bash Trump.
2
Manjoo has gone from saying the virus would be easily contained to telling everyone to pray, because otherwise we're all going to die. I don't think he should be writing about this subject.
This is another overwrought screed that won't change anything. People have always ignored threats that are not imminent.
1
Wait:
"Scientists are all we have left. Pray for them."
"Pray" for "scientists?"
You mean like the "scientist" Richard Dawkins, THIS "Richard Dawkins:"
“YOUTUBE: Richard Dawkins Destroys The 10 Commandments. 'The odious – disgusting, doctrine of the redemption (as 'evolutionary scientist' Richard Dawkins displays the Son of Man being slowly tourtured to death on a giant screen behind him) of sins by Jesus, is roughly like this – God, the Creator of the universe, the divisor of the laws of physics – of quantum mechanics, of relativity, this genius God, couldn't think of a better way to forgive our sins that to come down to earth and have himself HIDIOUSLY TOURTURED, and EXECUTED so that he could forgive HIMSELF...AS THE CROWD EXPLODES IN LAUGHTER...”
Feature, not bug. Our corporate overlords learned long ago that they need to keep everyone stupid so they can control and sell useless and broken things to them. It has worked brilliantly for the corporate overlords.
Pay attention to useless leaders and vote them out. Trump is only a useful idiot for his corporate pals. Everything else is all whitewash/lies and ignorance - it works remarkably well on a mindless electorate.
2
Farhad Manjoo, please stop the politicization of the coronavirus. No finger pointing at you towards India? No mention of Modi?
2
Science is a liar sometimes - Ronald MacDonald
Galileo disproved the theories of Aristotle (the greatest scientist of his time) and make him look rather stupid. Because science is a liar, sometimes.
2
For the liberal media/NYT a chance, regardless of how absurd, is never missed to spin a story, ANY story, into an anti-Trump diatribe. We long ago figured this out--so ridiculously boring.
1
Ignoring science is ignorance of science and Trump is surtely ignorant.
Please stop praying en start acting. Come on, it's 2020.
Amen!
1
What the heck is this guy talking about?
"... And pray not just for science, but for scientists, too, as well as their colleagues in the application of science …"
Pray to who or what?
Yahweh, Yeshua, Allah, Ganesh, Zeus Thor, Isis, Zoroaster, Mithras, Buhda, …….. this is going to takes days to complete this list ….
Oh Lord, please suspend the laws of nature for my convenience, Amen.
Can we please ditch the religious woowoo?
Farmed Manjoo, thou hast said it. Amen.
1
No...Corona virus is what you get when liberal elites celebrate foreign cultures that eat things like bat soup and hen encourage such people to travel to the United States for work and study.
Spot on Farhad !!
And pray for Trump?
Maybe if you're that old-time Catholic Pelosi, but wonder about Protestant evangelicals.
That old-time Protestant religion has God using a variety of evil instruments--Cyrus, Pharaoh--indirectly to bring about Providential ends, and is ever mindful of Amos 3:6: "shall there be evil in a city, and the LORD hath not done it?”
They'll support Trump all the while consigning him to hell.
As with most things humans screw up, it comes down to fear and greed.
Some people don't understand science and so they are afraid of it, and they turn to supersition and easy-to-understand but wrong explanations.
Some people understand science but want to obscure it, so they can make more money.
It used to be that the citizens and their government valued education against fear and slippery tactics of greedy people. When we lost an educated populace, fear and greed just got bigger and bigger.
1
Good Op-Ed! Tells it like it is.
So if Americans want good healthcare and want to keep their family and friends safe from the novel corona virus and gun violence, they should vote Trump and all the Republican Congressmen who enable him, and deny science out of office in November!
****A Connecticut physician
2
I keep trying to find that point where everything started going to hell in terms of “abandoning reason”...
I don’t think by any means this was ever a nation of objective thinkers, but at least at some point it seemed like we were heading in the right direction...
Maybe it was social media which gave every idiot a voice and evil propagandist the ultimate weapon...
Maybe it was when cable TV abandoned educational channels and turned them all into Bigfoot and UFO conspiracy shows... or reality TV making celebrities out of human trash?
The quiet erosion of consumer rights was mostly met with apathy...
Our nation suffered a disastrous financial crisis and the perpetrators just skated away, while the public shrugged their shoulders...
Greedy politicians changed campaign finance laws to the point where bribery is practically legal...
Snake oil salesmen created the “nutritional supplement” industry which routinely portrays science and real medical treatments as a scam, while big pharmaceutical companies routinely create scandals that enforce that perception.
From every vector there is someone whispering in the ears of the general public to believe in their miracle cure, their simple ten step plan for success.
Ultimately it doesn’t actually matter where it took a turn, but this is where we stand now...
We stand on the edge of darkness and chaos... we either take the blinders off and start acting and thinking responsibly or we fall into the abyss.
2
Not only that, we continue making mistakes because we don;t want to listen. In press conferences we listen to what our smart politicians have to say, but come the time scientist speak and cameras turn to analyze what the politicians said. This I think is partly because we don't want to listen to the truth, we just want to be right, and if whatever we are listening doesn't help in that regard then we just don't listen.
1
Yes, it’s certainly true that most Americans lack a fundamental understanding of science because in this society, science is actively undermined, underfunded, ignored and suppressed. I’m a former teacher with a background in environmental science, and I have observed how the decline in scientific literacy over the decades, along with cultural practices and societal factors, has led to the decline of the planet and the dismal mess we are now in. The loss of wildlife habitat and biodiversity and mass extinctions, the cutting down of the forests which are the lungs of the planet, the warming of the oceans, the depletion of fresh water supplies and natural resources, the changing climate… this is all thanks to ignoring the laws of nature and disrespecting the interconnectedness of life on earth. It’s why we have increasing potential for global pandemics, which scientists have been warning us about if people we’re actually listening to them, why pollinating insects and birds are declining at an alarming rate, why controllable fires are ravaging entire continents and altering the biosphere, why glaciers and ice sheets are disappearing. The reality is that the massive scale of the mess we have gotten ourselves into does not bode well for the future.
2
Unfortunately complications and deaths from the coronavirus in the US may trend along economic and class lines. Those who are younger, better educated and/or financially stable will heed the warnings, limit their exposures and improve their chances. Others, older and/or living paycheck to paycheck, will risk exposure to themselves and their families. I fear what is coming for my fellow Americans.
SMEs, or Subject Matter Experts, are what is needed and who should guide policy, whether it is for climate change or pandemic disease response. Politicians wield disinformation and that's as true in China as it has been here (but of course to a lesser degree in the US, Dr. Falci can still be interviewed and give his professional opinion). No one would ask a carpenter to set their broken leg, but the opinions of Hannity or Steve Bannon on climate change is believed by tens of millions without any question of "when is the last time they took a science class?" Partly, this is due to a HUGE gap in education--it is easier to just believe some processes are 'magic' than to figure out how things actually work. And comforting, I guess, to know that everything is really just fine and the same leader who said that also agrees with your stances on social issues so you're just like him. Only a lot poorer and MUCH more vulnerable.
2
As a scientist, this article is flattering and humbling. And I thank you for your eloquence.
Science, to me, is truth. I find enormous comfort in its solidity and inspiration in the astounding beauty of the patterns of life I study. It's my love, and my calling, and the reason for the countless stupid personal financial decisions I've made.
But it's a mistake to put scientists themselves on a pedestal. As humans, we're as tempered with flaws as anyone else. Academic science is hierarchical, political, and ego-driven. Outside of academia, under a fully capitalist system, scientific endeavors are as ruthlessly directed towards the goal of profits as any other segment of our economy.
Instead of prayers, then, can I, as a scientist, request your skepticism? Don't reward us with your faith, but with your questions, with your hunger to learn more. Learn to ask questions of us, and with us, so that we can use the exquisite tools we've developed to examine the natural world in the ways that are the most important. Learn to read the data, not to worship the mouth spouting it. This is how we move forward, together.
In times of crisis, like coronavirus and climate change, the understandable instinct is towards blind trust in authority. But to paraphrase Carl Sagan, there is no authority in science, only experts. So don't be obedient to scientists; be engaged in science. Don't be intimidated by the terminology or math; demand for it to be explained. Let's move forward, together.
9
What do I like about being a scientist? We don't make get to make the rules- we have to figure out what the rules are.
Wash your hands frequently and thoroughly, avoid touching your face, listen to scientists, not politicians.
3
Our leaders denounce scientists who report inconvenient truths. In democracies you can vote them out. Death, illness and major economic swings may finally be the last straw that hits home for many Americans supporting this admin. but I doubt it.
2
Let us pray for science?? Isn’t that an oxymoron of sorts?
2
Don't bother praying to something that does not exist. The top best scientists in the world are atheists and so are alot of other non scientist intellectuals. The stupidities of religion have over many centuries interfered with the progress of science and actually blocked progress. Look at religiosity blocking the use of fetal stem cells from aborted fetuses. Cures galore blocked by the stupidities of religion. "The Wellsprings of Life" by Isaac Asimov (if it is still in print) will help you comprehend that no god started life on earth or created the universe. It is pure dumbness to assert that.
6
He’s being ironic Pete
@Peter Amen!
1
The drumbeat progressive narrative of pinning every possible societal problem on Donald Trump is exactly what will result in him being re-elected.
1
Trump's CDC was, apparently, told not to roll out a test for the virus, or, is incapable of doing so....one way or another....there is no testing.
There is, essentially, zero testing throughout the USA.
What better way to have Fox News be able to claim that Trump PREVENTED the Coronavirus in the USA?
IF nobody tests positive for the virus, THEN, there has been no virus .... correct? All those dead people, just normal flow of the flu.
Most folks in the US will get exposed or get the virus, like most folks everywhere.
But, nobody will know because? There is no testing.
Certainly here in Rochester NY there is no testing at all. Zero.
MANY of the students at the University of Rochester are sick. About 20% of students are from China and were home for the holidays.
But, nobody knows if it is Coronavirus. No testing.
4
Science, sure, which brought us nuclear weapons, nuclear waste, the countless tons of plastic clogging our oceans, the carbon dioxide causing global warming, the dioxins in our drinking water. Gosh, yes, let's pray for science . . . to go away.
I would rather have Bernie’s healthcare than Obamacare in the case of an pandemic.
@meera oh yeah? Tell that to our biotech and pharma industries who will develop a vaccine which they will only do because they have a significant profit motive. Cmon progressives - you know that in socialized medicine you remove key incentives for innovation. Think two steps ahead please.
"This is what happens when you gut the United States’ pandemic-response infrastructure" -
I don't get it, are you implying when Obama had the ebola crisis we weren't paying attention to science and we were gutting CDC, etc?
I think you should have said "this is what happens every N years, like 5, 10, 20, etc.".
But good for you you got in your daily Trump bash.
Americans are for the most part, an ignorant bunch. Science and math get short shrift in our schools. We dumb down the academic material and the testing to accommodate the low achievers. Don't crush their little spirits. The lowest common denominator effect prevents the type of knowledge and leadership you seek. When students can't pass a test that students in other countries pass, we simply make the test easier. When Al Gore implored us many years ago to take global warming seriously, we laughed at him and made jokes. Now it's almost too late. Overpopulation causes famine and disease, but everyone thinks having babies is their right, whether they can feed them or not. Perhaps now nature is culling the herd. "We don't need no education."
1
“Pray” for science? Is this where we are now? Time to be TERRIFIED.
If you really felt that way you would have studied science instead of an easy subject like journalism. Doing is much harder than criticizing.
I agree and have expressed the very same sentiments about10 years ago ( https://www.aldf.com/wp-content/themes/ALDF/pdf/FASEB_Article_by_Baker_3.pdf ). Such ignorance is compounded by the dissemination of vast amounts of false information through the social media, as well as the incompetent job that the main-line media does to enlighten the public ( https://www.aldf.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/Media-Responsibility-in-Reporting-on-Lyme-Disease-9.15.18.pdf ).
We had similar problems in determining the truth in the Bible when the printing press was invented. The only solution is to learn to think critically, and to seek information from reliable sources. Perhaps our public school system needs to focus on that issue?
According to the World Health Organization, the coronavirus-19 virus is far more lethal than the seasonal flu, which kills tens of thousands of Americans each year, but does not spread as easily. The coronavirus will kill a higher percent of Americans it infects, but will infect a smaller percent of Americans than seasonal flu. The seasonal flu will probably kill more Americans this year than coronavirus-19.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2020/03/04/coronavirus-live-updates-washington-outbreak-amazon-schools-vaccine-facebook/
Prayers aren't for scientists
Prayers are for the weak .
Manjoo is not a scientist and I find the following. "Manjoo was born in South Africa in 1978 to a family with ancestral roots in India. A cisgender man, Manjoo prefers to be referred to with singular they pronouns" That is fine, but should someone who prefers to be called "they" and who is not a scientist, be the right one to speak in the name of science?
1
@Ludwig You haven't told us why not.
2
Thanks for the column. It points out the great hypocrisy of Trump and the Republicans: the same scientists, epidemiologists, and doctors that will create the eventual inoculation against Covid-19 and all the other viral threats are the same group that are sounding the alarm against global climate change.
Republicans attack the scientists and doctors as sham, yet must rely on them to save us from pandemics. You can't have it both ways.The scientific method and research is a necessity for humanity to survive, notwithstanding the greed and stupidity of Republican liars.
You miss the point totally in your righteous hatred of Trump (aka beelzebub, Lord of the flies, the dark Lord).
The disease came from China, whose massive civil service has one mandate - to protect the Communist Leadership. Yet Biden says that China is not a problem, and Bloomberg says that China is not a dictatorship, and Sanders said no country has done more for the middle class. They hid the disease for months, and arrested doctors that spoke up.
The next hot spot is Iran, which took the hundreds of billions that the US released to massacre huge portions of Syria instead of helping their citizens.
Get control of your emotions and start looking at the global problem outside of the prism of your petty local politics.
What I don’t understand is we Americans who claim to have the best Constitutional laws, a populace more progressive than any other country is being held hostage by handful of White House good-for-nothings! And all we can do is vent and froth! How very interesting!
What's the deal with this suggestion that we "prayć. Totally useless, if not silly. If you're religious and believe in a god then you must believe that god created the coronavirus, right?
How come god only gets the credit when things go right but never the blame when things go wrong?
3
Great article Mr. Manjoo, thank you for bringing to light some very important facts of how mainstream America and the world look at science. It shows how our society usually works. Yesterday, I'm an anti vaccine proponent, but today I need a cure for this new disease I have contracted and what's taking so long...then tomorrow I can go back to being a vaccine hater. When it comes down to it...Science doesn't care what you think...it pursues the Joe Friday ideal of nothing but the facts ma'am.
It'll all be OK. As soon as Pence finds the witches who cursed the world, and burns them at the stake, coronavirus will magically disappear.
2
“Prayer” is your opening paragraph? Pandering to the base, who finds comfort in the absurdity of believing in divine intervention, works for the current commander in chief (hello...Pence in charge of response to the outbreak!) but I have to say you lost me in your first sentence! It’s tongue in cheek, but “thoughts and prayers” has become poison to my ears, and infuriates me. Instead of “praying” for solutions, how about “demanding” appropriate actions be taken and for our elected officials to stop politicizing our health and well being!
Farhad, I hope your prayers are answered--it may be our only hope.
Nothing short of divine intervention seems capable of convincing Americans that, no, it is not a good idea to elect as President a paranoid, malignant, willfully ignorant autocrat with utter disdain for truth of any kind, let alone science.
Maybe it takes the hand of God (or a Biblical plague) to remind us that, no, a preachy, misogynistic homophobe, himself with the medical acumen of a bowl of cold Cream of Wheat, does not a good Pandemic Czar make; that a pharmaceutical lobbyist has no business running HHS, nor a coal lobbyist EPA. I could of course go on.
Yes, we all should be asking for God's help--Lord knows we cannot seem to help ourselves.
1
Our response to good science is as if we cut out our prefrontal cortex and expect the rest of the brain to do the work needed to keep us strong and safe.
This is a silly, odd article. Again, using coronavirus to criticise your op-Ed enemies does not help. It’s my daily life now as front line doctor outside the US, so grow up and help not make this just another opinion piece. This is a serious problem, so really try to be constructive rather than be the health equivalent of Gawker.
Prayer is non-scientific.
Avoid crowds. Churches, bars, restaurants, theaters, campaign rallies ... . That will slow the spread until a vaccine can be deployed. This virus primarily attacks the elderly. Give 'em a break.
2
And to that, I say “ Amen!!!”
Couldn’t have said it better.
Why should we pray? The NY Times constantly berates Christians, especially Catholics and is Pro-Abortion and yet in times of serious trouble, there is an OpEd on the need to pray for science? Of what benefit is prayer if there is no God? After all, scientists (and politicians) today "know everything" and if not, it is only a matter of time until they figure it out. Are you admitting there is are things beyond your control, that you have become desperate, that you are afraid of dying? "Yes, Virginia, there is a God and you would be wise to pray for his mercy which is endless."
TV and Newspapers contributed to the decline in respect and understanding for science. On the one hand, you have Murdock and FOX who simply lie about anything inconsistent with their political views but you also have the mindless both-siderism of the NY Times and other supposedly "serious" newspapers where for thirty years every article about global warming had to have its quotes form climate change deniers. If their are two sides to everything then nothing is actually true or false. We still see every article on vaccines with its quotes from anti-vaxers.
When you read a music review in the Times the odds are the reviewer at least has an ear and understands music but read a science article and you are likely hearing from someone who went into writing because math or science was too hard. You would never know from news articles that global warming is primarily an accounting problem - energy is conserved and what comes in from the sun has to go somewhere. For the ten thousand years of human civilization the amount of energy that came in from the sun was the same as the amount that leaked back into space . Now we are blocking more of that return to space with carbon dioxide and the earth as to warm.
In the vaccine articles we never see a clear discussion as to what vaccines actually do - how they work. What is it about the way animals fight off disease that makes exposing us to fragments or broken copies of the disease help us fight off attack?
1
While I vehemently oppose cutting benefits for those in need, in this day and age, only stone-cold-idiots would cut the CDC and related federal agency’s budgets.
We are in the age of viral pandemics and are on the verge of antibiotic-resistant infection epidemics. We need robust federal and state systems in place, and ready to spin up when these happen. And it is “when” and it is “these happen.” Its not a question of “if” or a singular “what.”
While I live in a place with good medical infrastructure, I have close friends who are at ground zero in a state that doesn’t have this and it’s a nightmare. She struggles to get good medical care on a normal day. Covid-19 is demonstrating daily that they are woefully unprepared for disasters. They have nothing to “spin up.”
Communities all across the country better be scrambling right now to make sure EMS, Law Enforcement and ER’s all have the appropriate equipment, and lots of it. They better be doing mock trainings for donning this equipment and they should practice using it in the field, over and over.
They also better be hiring people, doctors and other medical staff and building or making available facilities that can function as quarantine beds with the appropriate medical equipment for those with respiratory distress.
And even if Covid-19 burns out, all of the above will NOT be time and resources wasted. Because the next one is just around the corner....
.
1
I was waiting to read that somehow Trump is to blame for the virus
Yeah, so the liberals parade out Greta Thunberg as their climate expert. Manjoe's piece was written as a negative critique of conservatives, but the liberals have their share of charlatans.
The irony of praying for science...
2
The Bible is not a Science book.
Deliberate ignorance is the very definition of stupidity.
Remember evangelicals, that God didn't give us the gift of Reasoned Thought as a cruel joke.
Can you spell Genome? The DNA analysis is complete. There are three types of life on this planet.
And Trees, Plants, Reptiles, Mammals, Fish and Humans are all related, (identical fundamental DNA structures). We are related to the Trees.
The other two life types are Bacteria and Volcanic Vent creatures; each type with identical fundamental DNA structures.
One last comment...anyone who claims to be 'born again', is exaggerating at best, and at worst, lying.
We want Science back.
“Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.” - Albert Einstein
1
Many local health departments don’t have correct ,current guidelines on their local website links ,at this time.
I am a retired nurse ,who certified as an epidemiologist ,when I worked .
We have never had this occur before.
Last time I saw such confused panic and responses inadequate ,was during Reagan’s term in office ,with our HIV debacle in the early 1980’s. Innocent men and families were ignored in their most horrible knowledge that their government was rejecting their humanity and citizens were reacting as if those infected were “Lepers. “
Covid 19 is still being studied. Vaccines being explored currently were used for Ebola and HIV..... the virus Covid 19 must be reigned in but scientists don’t have enough data yet to draw conclusions.
Trumpworld should shut up and sit down. Give the CDC funding and Congress help your states!!!!!! With funds!!!!!!! Now!!!!!
1
Fierce. Fierce. Fierce. Thank you.
The US scientific community had a full month lead time to adequately sound the alarm about the virus afflicting Asia...but they failed to adequately voice their concerns. It was the CDC who belately sent out flawed test kits to adeqaultely test for the virus. Had the US scientific community been more vocal, and come out earlier with their warnings about the virus we would have been far better served as a country. Instead many in the scientific community simply sat on their hands --and now like Farhad Manjoo-- choose to politically weaponize the issue.
Sure, I'll pray for the scientists. But, from where I sit it certainly appears that stupidity and willful ignorance and whiny victimhood (how can that be associated with anything "great?") are winning.
Great article! Immigrant families have been destroyed by the incarceration of infants, toddlers and children in American concentration camps, orchestrated to stoke the incumbent's orange sycophants. As tragic as this dumpster fire/train wreck is to watch, I can't help but see the irony: the germs that Orange Top feared would cross our border came on a cruise ship (one of the most polluting industries in the world) rather from tiny tots seeking asylum.
- A Scientist
Manjoo might best help science by encouraging readers to abandon superstition and accept that deities do not exist and that divine intervention is not a thing (if it were, there'd be no need for science).
Did Trump cut the CDC budget?
no. Many Americans now believe this though. The facts?
Snopes and AP says it is untrue Trump cut CDC budget...AP fact checkers also say same thing
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-cut-cdc-budget/
https://thehill.com/homenews/media/485025-ap-fact-checkers-find-biden-bloomberg-paint-distorted-picture-on-trump-cdc
https://apnews.com/d36d6c4de29f4d04beda3db00cb46104
1
Your thoughts could be taken more seriously if you didn’t use them as a gratuitous swipe against the President. Government incompetence was widespread before Trump and will live on when Trump is gone. This virus, like HIV, is the enemy. Implicitly Blaming Trump for spreading it is like implicitly blaming gay men for spreading AIDS. Focus on the science; avoid name-calling politics.
The Trump virus has reached the 3% lethality level. Congratulations folks - we officially have a pandemic...
1
I have a better idea.
Stop praying - no one is listening and it does not work. Never has, never will.
Furthermore, quit believing the nonsensical, mystical, fairy tail, mumbo-jumbo, Stone Age religious ideologies that proscribe praying to deities manufactured by humans in their own likeness.
Application of the scientific method will find a vaccine for Covid-19.
Religion never will.
1
I never pray. The notion that we are goldfish in a bowl watched over by a divinity is utterly ludicrous. Praying reinforces stupidity, passivity, and helplessness.
2
Mostly nonsense.
Science is not being undermined. Scientists (I'm one) think it is underfunded, but we're as selfish as anyone else, so be skeptical. A great deal of academic science, including in my field (physics and astronomy), is self-indulgent navel-staring, with no application to the real world, much less anything that would benefit humanity.
The CDC is doing its job. China's version of a CDC should have shut its wildlife markets long ago, and separated the raising of pigs from that of ducks, but that's not the fault of American politics.
And calm the hysteria about climate change, about which Mr. Manjoo (and the rest of the NYT columnists) are not qualified to write. It's a real phenomenon. It's not an urgent problem, and we are likely able to live with it quite well.
1
Humanity is going to get their just dessert sooner than I thought. Too bad their clinging to destructive ways is going to destroy all around them.
Per your paragraph 5, what if science were the modern manifestation of God?
Clearly responsible journalism is in greater danger than is science, Chicken Little.
Science, itself, is apolitical. It's what happens afterwards that is the problem. ($$$ and politics) Heaven forfend!
1
Human beings aren't sensible. We're running up against the limits of our intelligence/emotionalism because we've managed to create situations that are so different from what we evolved to survive in. If we're going to make it, it's only going to be because it'll be good enough to swing wildly back and forth between exaggerated responses.
Speaking as an MPH/MD the White House needs to take program/response control early e.g. putting MD/scientists in charge (over-ruling State Dept desired to mix infected people on a plane with uninfected ones), legislating paid sick leave, immediately banning mass events (next week's 100,000 Comic-con in Seattle), paying for all uninsured corona health care, etc. This may cut economic activity but it will increase security and has potential to stem the epidemic (and help markets). The thing about epidemics (as we saw with lab tests) is if the moves are not done early, they may have vanishing little impact. The initial incubation period is relatively silent, but not a time for complacency. Epidemics overwhelm the philosophy of minimalist government and alternative facts.
In addition, it is culturally time to call the anti-VAX movement to account for what it is: a collection of confused, selfish individualists.
3
I was agreeing with you all the way to the end. But then I was stumped by your last sentence. Unless that was tongue in cheek.
I would rather have read: If YOU won't support them and YOU won't listen to them, the least YOU can do is pray.
Because I'm not part of that "we", and I think prayer in the case of science denial is indeed the only recourse of the uninformed.
1
I replaced the words "science" and "scientist" with "naturalism" and "naturalist." The outcome is enlightening:
"But this novel coronavirus illustrates the problem more acutely. If it doesn’t kill us it should at least shake us out of the delusion that we can keep ignoring the naturalism and naturalists who are warning about the long-term dangers to our way of life. Religious texts say that societies face destruction when they forget God. The coronavirus, like the accelerating climate-related disaster, shows what we face when we decide to blind ourselves to naturalism."
When a vaccine was first available for polio it was given to every kid in school (yes, in the classroom). No complaints were heard and the disease essentially was wiped out in the USA. I recall no anti science movement and no celebrities denouncing it as ungodly. This seemed true even in the south where fundamentalist religion ruled everything.
In todays world it would take years for the legal challenges to work their way to the supreme court and the antivaxers would essentially make sure that polio remained a threat.
5
Pandemics have been around since man gathered in cities to live and work. Long before the CDC, Trump, and global warming.
The fact is we are much better prepared, especially in the United States where a vaccine is already in human trials. The Ebola vaccine was approved by the FDA in December, a much more contagious decease in just 5 years. Corona will go much faster.
Have faith, and stop spreading the hysteria
Throughout history religions have advocated prayer and ritual, and for the approximately 2,200 religions that exist today and the thousands more that mankind has tried and discarded, prayer has been a central tenet of most.
People have been praying to gods, stars, mountains, totems, trees, animals, statues, etc., for as long as they have been fearful and withoutanswers.
Evidently, it does not matter what people believe or pray to, or long ago the "marketplace" would have proven which prayers, or superstitious rites actually work and we would all be using them.
3
This country would have universal healthcare to confront this scourge were it not for the Republicans and their whining about socialism. They effectively consider the bottom line to be more important than lives.
2
This is what happens when livestock markets are cesspools of manure and hygiene is not even a thought. Swine flu, SARS, and Ebola. China has exported at least two of these diseases globally, and how ironic, the pharmaceutical chain has been cut because they export the ingredients for life saving drugs manufactured in China and abroad. We gave away the keys to so many industries. We can’t manufacture life saving drugs, here, from start to finish? We can go beyond our solar system, plan for Mars, but can’t make a pill. Ignorance and greed is costly. This time in lives.
5
If you believe the polls more Americans believe in guardian angels than evolution. We’ve made opinions and cultural beliefs as important as facts and numbers- wouldn’t want to offend anyone by calling them out on their holy book for example. I remember back in the Reagan era that “Jesus was coming back” (as he always seems to be) so there was no need for long term planning. On the left every culture and crazy belief has to be respected and honored. Can’t have an even slightly controversial speaker at a university now. People need their “safe space”. Some how facts have become debatable and subject to political pressure. Our schools don’t teach critical thinking skills, not to mention basic science. Why should they? The internet will confirm just about anything you “know” to be true. I’ve seen letters to this paper say things like “what would a Christian nation do” as though we are one. Or readers say the US is not over populated because there is still standing room, as though that is in anyway related to the issue. Until we are ready to see numbers and facts for what they are, measures of reality, not partisan cliches, we will continue to think and react with our lizard brains and the world and our civilization will suffer.
5
The Republican Party is far more anti-science than the Democratic Party, on issues ranging from global warming to disease control. We can only hope that Independents and persuadable Republicans vote for Democrats in November.
7
The world needs to come together to force China to shut down its wildlife markets. Enough is enough.
1
Farhad, Great Article, thanks. Stepping back from the one sided war of Science vs. Religion, the real battle is for truth, honesty, and reality. In the lab of American Society and Culture, the real motive for those who dispute Science and facts is simply to damage and tarnish realities of data and reality that are an inconvenience to their distorted world view. These simple minds argued against befriending a known food competitor - the dog, sailing a ship that far would result in falling off the earth, and laughs at the idea that water way over there could bring disease over here. When as other readers have stated, that in failing to study and respect science, little or no support is shown for thinking skills, argumentation, and discussion, and threats and disrespect are launched to those tasked to report and share information are made, society breaks down. The results are diseases such as Covid-19, Middle East Peace Treaties thst are neither, and an agreement with the Taliban, but NOT the People or Government of Afghanistan amounts to success. Those are the costs of allowing manipulation and erosion of the real world by those who are not of this world.
2
Voting for politicians that value science will be far more effective.
10
Trump’s GOP have waged a succession war on science and we will all suffer the consequences of their willful ignorance. The Fox media audience have been groomed to believe that scientists operate with the unethical mindset of many politicians and that scientists are making fortunes doing sponsored research. While Big Pharma have cashed in on publicly disseminated NIH-sponsored research only a handful of academic scientists have made fortunes in intellectual property and the few that I know plowed much of their money back into their labs. It’s sad that the skilled media folk who propel the GOP don’t put their talent to work renewing public support for science, scientists and teachers.
6
The way to get science that’s important to us is by having mayor news stations do a segment like they do with weather. We now can see what global warming is all about on a more global stage and we need to do the same with our food industry, our environment, water, air born viruses. Ignorance isn’t the same as ignoring one you really need to work at and this is on us. Great article
3
When you cut the budget of the NIH you cut funding for the training and matriculation of graduate students in science and medically related research. When you cut NIH funding you are cutting off your future. Thanks Trump. Thanks Senate Republicans. Just pray, and maybe covid-19 will disappear.
2
Bravo! Fine article. Republicans have
poisoned the well as far as science is concerned to keep the government from raising taxes and spending money and to promote hostility to the coastal elites. We will all be drinking from the well very soon.
4
The Trump administration disrespect for basic facts harms our country and being unprepared for this viral outbreak is key evidence we need to right this ship of state fast.
7
Ultimately, we have Covid19 because of the atrocious hygienic conditions in China's food markets, which allow animal viruses to jump to humans. The WHO should help China to stop being a breeding ground for new pathogens.
3
We chose a leader who never studied science, who has contempt for intellectuals, who does not read, who is not curious, who was a lousy student, who thinks facts are malleable. From this fountainhead flow education policy, environmental policy, research policy, and public health policy. What do you expect?
11
Good Science is simply Truth. Truth saves us. If a child is hungry and diseased, saving that family systemically within our Democracy keeps diseases at bay and keeps us all smiling as kids replace is who are kind, smart, productive and raising good families of their own.
Nothing wrong with preferring truth. In science, only the double blind research gets at that.
We even have to let go of the snake oil salespeople in politics. We gotta do this to save ourselves. Pay our school teachers more who teach Truth.
Reading is based on truth. All good music is based on the truth of sound.
Clean water is based on Truth that pollution kills.
Good reporting tries for truth, no matter how unpleasant. The self-reflection of Democrats is not pointless navel gazing...it’s a search for Truth.
And guess what. To solve the Corona Virus pandemic....we can’t have a pretend saline vaccine. That will take over a year....because it’s Science, not Snake Oil.
1
America has a long history of distrust of science and intellectuals. Much of this derives from the evangelical movement, which exalts "God's word" over mere human knowledge. Richard Hofstadter's classic " Anti-intellectualism in American Life" goes into this in great detail.
We have a practicing physician here, an evangelical anti-vaxxer who doesn't believe in herd immunity, who last month was appointed to the board of our county health department! She was recently given space in our local paper to promote her views. I don't pray, but I will be writing a letter to the editor joining one other retired physician who is speaking out against her misguided views and the appalling ignorance in this town.
1
I agree with everything Farhad Manjoo argues here, except that I would place much more blame on capitalism and the corporatization of science. When such huge profits are to be made with fake science, what's anyone's incentive for pushing the truth? And please don't just blame anti-vaxxers and their ilk. Real scientists contributed to the opioid crisis, the promotion of hormone replacement therapy, the overuse of antibiotics, and hundreds of other horrors that were backed by science before they were denounced. I'm no longer convinced when a scientist reassuringly proclaims that "hundreds of studies have shown" xyz, or that "no evidence exists." So many claims just seem to be driven by corporations. Witness a recent NYT op-ed, written by a scientist, that dismisses as a hoax the notion that sugar causes hyperactivity. He cites what he says is a rigorous scientific study, but it turns out that the study was sponsored by the soda and other sugar-dependent industries. Tell me, Mr. Manjoo, which scientists should the average citizen believe, and why?
2
For sure, the chaos is circling...aided and abetted by the greedy, scared, and ignorant, and accelerated and amplified by the vicious and powerful who lie, distort, and hide the truth to the single end of preserving their own power.
As Rome burns.
The same conspiracy mongers who rail against the "fake science" of global warming, will scathingly attack the moral decadence of the poor and uneducated when waves of displaced refugees flee their country's destroyed eco-systems and overwhelm their would be refuges.
The good news -- times are ripening for heros to emerge.
1
Neither physics nor a virus care whether you believe in them. Covid-19 is a lot faster than global warming, but global warming is more deadly. Neither one is responsive to propaganda.
4
You blame the U.S. but the greater problems are occurring outside the U.S. Is the whole world anti-science?
Look at it this way: we still lead the world at something.
It is too late. We are looking at millions dead here in the U.S., primarily among the 80 plus crowd.
1
Your 'article of faith' in hoping that we, the people, shall wake up and pay attention to what science is telling us, is well taken. In fact, a 'call to arms' (intellectual, that is, based on the truth, and reality as is), so to let go of our prejudices...based on ignorance. We must educate ourselves on the facts (i.e. the coronavirus crisis) and shake our confirmation biases once and for all. What is unconscionable is Trump's deep ignorance, given it is by choice, hence, malevolous. If Trump were confined to the fringes of society (where he belong) is one thing; but as president, he is doing irreparable harm to this nation...and to the world. One more reason he must be ousted asap...and before his constant lies become the gospel truth.
This is done extremely well!
It ain’t just science that is ignored. The humanities are even more ignored. What is actually taught in schools? Who censors their textbooks? Who advances ignorance? They aren’t unknown. They aren’t rigorously opposed.
How come sound bites and commercials and Goop are the furthest reaches of the modern mind in America??
Who learns the lessons taught by Hannah Arendt or, to back up a few centuries, Machiavelli?
3
This is the essay I wish I had written. Thank you.
1
This article and articles like it should be in the NEWS section, and not treated as simply an opinion, which makes it easier for detractors to dismiss it.
2
Well said!!
Sadly it appears the Republican party doesn't believe in science and facts.
2
You can ignore science.
But science is not going to ignore you.
6
The NYT could help educate non-scientists by refocusing its "Science-light-mostly-health" section, mislabelled Science Times, to give more sense of discovery through accumulated evidence and verification. I rarely see an in-depth article in this section. In yesterday's article on damselflies, for example, most of the page is taken up by huge photos without labels. Where is the bead that the fly is trying to capture? The center photo below is said to be "traces of neural activity" but any neuroscientist looking at these images knows this hand-waving label either cannot be correct or needs far more explaining. And why is there a photo of the male and the female? Sexual behavior is not the point of the article. The photos seem chosen for grabbing attention and confine the text to about one fifth of the page. So it leaves one wondering how neural activity can be recorded in flying insects, how seeing with only one eye allows more accuracy than with two, etc. We get long articles in the Times on other subjects but rarely on scientific subjects. No wonder people reject science if our premier newspaper can't explain it or even get it correct.
2
@Ann Stuart
There's always room for improvement, but remember that the NY Times is one of the few (last?) major US newspapers to still even *have* a science section!! Thank goodness for at least that!!
1
I agree completely.
But there is one point that needs mentioning: the speed at which information now travels is undoing science. Not only can disinformation, myth and "alternative facts" be rapidly shared, but also scientific findings.
Scientific findings are not the same as scientific facts. They are merely way points on the journey to facts and implementation. What happens is that news media pick up a new finding, broadcast the heck out of it as if it is the second coming and the public is left to believe that a new truth has been discovered. Witness all the many, many new "discoveries" about food, nutrition and diet that we are fed everyday by a non-critical and hungry press.
Science is an iterative process and truth-finding is a slow process.
Patience is a missing ingredient in modern science.
4
True. Media and audiences like the clickbait. More clicks bring bigger ad revenue. Quick, easy and dramatic is what it's about. Astronomers find an exoplanet that appears to have oxygen, and people's news feeds fill up with stories that appear to tell of a planet that could be just like Earth. It's not helpful.
We all owe Mr. Trump a great debt of gratitude for acting promptly to ban travel between the US and China when this disease came to light. A lot of people criticized him for it, including Democratic front-runner Joe Biden, but this decision may well be the principal reason why we have a fraction of the cases relative to multiple countries in Europe in spite of being a population many times larger and I would suspect having far more international travelers than anywhere else. On behalf of all Americans, I thank you Mr. Trump for the broad shouldered leadership you have brought to bear on our collective behalf!
2
@Bob
Oh, please.
4
There is ordinary incompetence, and then there is anti-competence. Trump and his administration always do exactly the opposite of what any competent administration would do.
The Coronavirus/COVID crisis continues to worsen, not only in America, but across the world.
The testing fiasco is only one example, and it will not be the last.
Widespread testing on the West Coast and elsewhere will show thousands of cases of Coronavirus, and more deaths that had been attributed to something else.
Economic disruption from the pandemic will lead to a worldwide recession.
I do not believe that full recovery is possible until after Trump is defeated in the November election, and leaves the White House in January.
7
@AKJersey
He'll be defeated in November, but his leaving the WH will probably require armed US Marshalls - not to mention contending with his armed-to-the-teeth 'base.'
1
If the past 3 years are any indication, get ready for a truly massive bungle on the coronavirus problem.
And it's probably not great that America lacks an adequate medical system. Not to mention Trump's decision to decimate funding for pandemic preparedness.
I'm sorry to see a great country falling apart like this.
4
Prayers don't achieve anything except for a sense of satisfaction to the prayer, who then proceeds with doing what he/she has always done until the next crisis. What can and should be done is to agitate the authorities, local, state and federal, to urgently address existing and potentially emerging health, safety, environmental and technical issues affecting society. America's strength has been volunteerism throughout its history, but it is generally in a reactive rather than in an anticipatory mode. Most of us are very complacent beyond the immediate future, a fault that extends as well to business and beyond to government policies (excepting a few like defense). Few people save towards retirement, businesses focus primarily on earnings in the current quarter, and even fewer on contingencies affecting health, safety and income. Hence society lends a deaf ear to science based prediction and prognosis until the threat is present or imminent. And the US is not alone at this. Science ignorance has a lot to do with this complacency, and is therefore easily exploited politically as we see it done by this administration and its industrial supporters who oppose strangling regulations affecting their near term profits. Facts don't matter anymore. Scientific evidence has become such a nuisance that the only way to neutralize it is to strip all scientific programs to their bare bones, as the Trump administration has attempted in every budget they proposed over the last three years.
4
Very nearly all our problems can be solved by four smart people in twenty minutes, but for the influence of money in politics.
When we have erected the superstructure of a perennial multi-billion dollar election-industrial complex -- one that greatly benefits a compromised media -- it is all but impossible to put the public good ahead of the political interests.
Let's look for politicians who understand the toxic effect of money in pasting together federal, state and municipal governments.
2
Councilwoman Candi CdeBaca last week responded to a tweet that said, "For the record, if I do get the coronavirus I'm attending every MAGA rally I can."
Nice
7
@Jimd my messages get censored because I often have an alternative view from the radically progressive readership of the NYT. Yet publishing something about spreading disease to Trump rallies, even if tongue in cheek, is acceptable?
Maybe, just maybe, if certain groups weren't intent on eating every endangered species you can think of, and keeping them in disgusting conditions while doing so, all because they think it will make your thingy bigger, that would be a nice thing. For the endangered species, and also to not start global pandemics. But hey, I'm no expert.
12
One person's freedom to do whatever is depriving the freedom of another person. Just one infected person breaking away from quarantine will trap many others into prolonged quarantine.
One person's freedom to believe in not getting vaccination, is depriving others the freedom to go to school, go to work.
Pence can believe whatever God he want, but he is infringing on the beliefs of others to love and care.
Freedom of belief, speech, etc is NOT absolute.
Dogma not based on facts, evidence, and reason has no place in modernity. Sadly, it is not true in most societies, USA for example. At lease Chinese students keep their STEM test scores high.
4
Coming of age in the 60s, it was clear science had broad bipartisan support - when it had to do with launching satellites and perhaps nuclear warheads, and getting to the moon.
Once that was done, Republicans were through with science, as all it brought was evidence for evolution and warnings about inevitable global climate change due to pollution.
Much has been written about Republicans' racist 'southern strategy' but in fact it has been a three-legged stool of racism, show-window 'Christianity,' and anti-science - all pretending to represent "traditional American values."
How has it been so completely forgotten that the Founding Fathers everyone rhapsodizes about were clearly people of the Enlightenment, informed by science and objective truth while skeptical of religion??
Besides better and more teaching of the sciences in our schools, we need clear teaching about our Founders' belief in the value of science to inform our decision making.
Science ought to be seen as being 'as American as apple pie,' but the Republicans and 'religious right' have worked all their lives to make folks believe that that apple is poison - at a loss to all of us. Mother Nature will always have the last say.
12
@Ambient Kestrel Yes, it would appear that the lack of rigor in elementary and high school has reduced American education to a glorified baby-sitting service despite the many, many, many dedicated and competent teachers.
Fund education to the max.
Remember that getting rid of Trump means getting rid of Betsy Davos too.
3
I have been a scientist for my whole life.
It baffles me that people can trust their GPS will get them to their location, the planes we fly will reach their destination, the medicine we take will heal us, and our phones will turn on everytime we touch them, yet when it comes to trusting the same people when we say "the earth is round, vaccines are safe and necessary, and man made climate change if unchecked will cause human suffering" there is doubt.
I don't get it. It is selfish, cherry picking what science you want to trust in.
43
@Guy
Absolutely, excellent point! When it comes to the great American values of Convenience and Money, no questions will be asked of science - or anything else. But when science raises challenging questions... 'OMG, no, please don't make us think too much!'
Those who support prayer over data should be treated to a month of so of 'pre-scientific' life: No pain meds, no phone - let alone GPS - no plane flights, no microwave, etc, etc! They would find out just how dark the Dark Ages really were.
2
The testing thing in particular is a complete disaster. Angela Dunn, a Utah Health Department epidemiologist, recently released a statement saying Utah has resources on hand for 400 coronavirus tests. The statement was delivered along with Gov. Gary Herbert. I believe Dunn was attempting to offer reassurance and avoid panic.
Let's think about this though. 400 tests in a state of roughly 3 million. That's 1.33e-4. Meaning we have enough resources on hand to test exactly 0.013% of the population. Guess what? A lot of potential cases aren't going to get tested. We're flying blind. Utah is considered a leader in emergency health management too.
When people ask why I wanted to restock the pantry last weekend, my answer isn't avoiding coronavirus. I don't expect to avoid coronavirus. I plan to get really sick sometime very soon. I don't want to go grocery shopping when sick. So I restocked the pantry. I'm mostly hoping no one in my family dies.
By the way, I happened to know Angela Dunn professionally at one point. Her statement was anything but reassuring.
4
The problem with science is its sales force and shareholders, looking for big wins.
Look at what Merck did with Vioxx, inventing an entire fake medical journal and developing a “hit list” of unenthusiastic doctors to discredit.
Such antics undermine the faith of the general public. Science is amazing and fascinating, and those who taint it with deliberate, not innocent, mistakes deserve to be....well, fired seems inadequate.
3
The science was developing the drug. All the rest of it was business.
2
Yes, yes, to supporting and being scientifically literate, but we also must understand that science is information and doesn't make decisions. Values and emotions make decisions. Our laws and politics are based on values. And then emotions are mixed in to the decision-making process, which sometimes overwhelms our values. The experts of disinformation rely on leveraging our values and emotions to divert our attention from what science tells us. We must always look inward to determine if we are allowing someone or some thing to manipulate our emotions at the expense of our values and science before we make a decision.
3
When the Republican party denies evolution, climate change, and other well accepted scientific findings is it any wonder we find ourselves in this mess. Unfortunately their motive is profit and if scientific findings undermine their profits then they use obfuscation and plant doubt into the public's mind. Every school needs to spend more time teaching students how to parse credible sources and to learn how to think. We currently have a lot of lemmings who will jump off a cliff just because trump says so. Let's hope come November we can restore sanity.
7
Thank you for bringing attention to this very important matter. It is correct to say that as a whole the trump administration has launched a full scale attack on science. Science exposes truth and creates ideas and new thoughts. That can be threatening to someone who stands to “lose” should the truth be revealed.
America should be investing heavily in education and its people. The scary trend is how more and more Americans do not place importance on investing in its people. Heated debates regarding healthcare , education, social services, free college tuition at any level , free pre K ; all are scrutinized but an explosive budget to buy ships, guns and tanks - no problem no debate.
Americans are at a point where the feeling of EVERY MAN FOR HIMSELF ideology dominates. If science runs contrary to this ideology , it will be debunked and the people being fooled will allow themselves to be because they have made up their mind already.
5
This is now officially the blame-America-first column in the Times. This outbreak, like so many others, is the result of the primitive cultural practices of living closely with, eating, and trading animals, some endangered and exotic. Pathogens jump species. For example, the slaughter of chimpanzees in Africa is likely the origin of H.I.V. The U.S. always has room to improve its health care, but ignoring or pandering to the practices that give rise to disease in the first place isn't especially accurate or helpful.
5
@Blair
So um, what group of people are most likely to be uniformly against such practices and communicate that to the public? Answer: Scientists.
2
A bit over the top. Science is more well funded than it has been ever in history, with tens of billions flowing towards it.
I am not anti-science, but I don't support scientism either. Yes basic research is important and so on, but nature is what it is, and you can't prevent epidemics.
1
just for the record, Trump did not cut the CDC budget. AP and Snopes fact checkers indicate this spin is false. Do a web search.
No matter how many times folks repeat the spin that the CDC budget was cut, it does not make it true.
a bevy of science would not have prevented this global pandemic from coming here. Yes, we need science to contain and cure it, but it was already here, sir.
"blame Trump" is quite unscientific reasoning though I understand the sentiment.
5
@Open Yer Mind
Trump fired the global pandemic team (part of the National Security Council) to cut costs. That is a fact.
In Trump's proposed budget for 2021, he ASKED to cut CDC funding by 16%--that is still to be decided, so, yes, you're correct that it has not been cut--yet.
5
Interesting. Yesterday Snopes said he DID cut funding. Perhaps you should do a web search...
1
This is not correct. The reality is considerably more complicated. There have been cuts proposed and of course, staff firings with no new hires Read the whole Snopes article. https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-cut-cdc-budget/
2
I think instead of praying, we can better support science and scientists by contacting our representatives in the Senate and the House, as well as our state-level officials, to demand that scientific research be adequately funded.
One motivation for Trump to disband the White House's pandemic task force was that short-sightedly eliminating the operational cost of that unit (along with many other essential things) helped fund/justify his unnecessary tax cut to corporations and the uber-rich (hey, ya can't fund tax cuts by deficits alone). Until we as a society re-adjust our priorities, and accept that taxes are not evil but rather the cost of some essential (often life-saving services), the Coronavirus response will be not an outlier but a prelude to all communicable disease emergencies to come.
I'm sure that in hindsight, even some of the biggest beneficiaries of that tax cut would prefer to have a little less cash in the coffers, in exchange for a less haphazard and flat-footed response to the pandemic at the doorstep.
6
and yet United States has one of the lowest percentage of infected people, while Europe and particularly Switzerland filled with politicians that love science have the highest percentage of infected people, way higher than US.
Sometime it takes much more than science, it takes bold politicians that are not afraid of being criticized, just like Trump. Science itself is unreliable, limited in knowledge and at times weakened by conflicting theories and approaches, within the discipline or interdisciplinarily.
Switzerland has decided to not close the borders, probably social scientists, which are themselves scientist have opted for open borders, allowing cross workers and Swiss to come and go to Italy. I think it was a mistake. So far since last monday, there has been almost 400% increase from 23 to 93, in the next few weeks will have a better picture.
Science is not only about climate and virology, it is about a number of disciplines that in today's world of interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary to decision making cannot be considered in isolation. it takes time to get consensus and finding the best approach, too much for the coronavirus' threat.
That's why the most important ingredient in a society is leaders that are able to take bold decisions and not afraid to be criticized. Trump is one of them and the facts are there to see. Switzerland will be an interesting case to follow.
2
@Paul.R
Yes, the US has a low infection rate - now.
Wait and see. You're jumping to conclusions.
1
@Paul.R ...."and yet United States has one of the lowest percentage of infected people,"....You could not possibly know that unless a very large number of Americans had already been tested for the virus. They haven't been; the number of infected Americans is unknown.
2
From the day that a wise aunt of mine gave me Carl Sagan's 'Cosmos' companion book for my 13th birthday (in those pre-cable/satellite days we were too far away to receive the nearest PBS station) I was hooked on science. This was after a few years already of reading a hand-me-down set of encyclopedias; which I did for fun.
Science and technology are neither good nor bad, they just are. They may have in many ways brought us to the edge of oblivion as a species, but without them we are most certainly doomed. Curiosity, and cooperative problem solving are a huge part of what defines us as a species; empathy also. Therein lie the keys to our survival.
3
How about being honest about gun related issues? Was the federal government really hamstrung in doing "scientific research into gun violence." Or did the Dickey Amendment only apply to the CDC and to its advocacy of gun control?
The essay urges us to thoughtfully engage with science and scientists, and I agree. But it's a departure to propagate this mistaken idea.
Part of the problem this article describes goes beyond ignoring science but derives from twisting it. The drug companies that push opioids and other drugs often fund research supposed to prove the effectiveness -- or non-addictive properties -- of their products. Then, if the study results don't fit their marketing plans, the research gets covered up and stays unpublished.
Yes we need science and scientists. And we need honest science that can recognize and acknowledge results that may seem undesirable.
5
@carllowe ..."The drug companies that push opioids and other drugs often fund research supposed to prove the effectiveness -- or non-addictive properties -- of their products.".....The clinical trials are all approved and monitored by the FDA, and all of the results are reported to the FDA. An independent panel reviews the results and makes recommendations to the FDA.
The problem with science is that sometimes it gives answers I don't like. Fix that, and I'll be all for it.
4
Good for you.
As a former chemist and a lifelong lover of science and it’s purity, I applaud your column. And I do wish them all well in the coming years, and for a renewed appreciation by the rest of us in their search for the wonders and the truths. I hope we have the courage to follow.
2
Thank you. I have been chiming in for years on science related topics. Funding for basic research is at an all time low, thanks to decades of subtle assault on the very concept of it. There was a time when those who earned a degree in chemistry or biology would covet the opportunity to become one of 'God's chosen few'...to work in a research lab in the pharmaceutical industry. Early in my career I worked in such a capacity, in antitumor drug discovery. Every big pharma company had natural product drug discovery units that complemented synthetic organic divisions. There are virtually none now. The excuses of big pharma management were varied and lengthy...and all wrong. Greed, lack of imagination, and shortsighted economic (quarterly) gain are/were the real reasons. Once industry abandoned basic research, the domino effect of reduced federal funding for basic research from NIH and NSF began, to the point where funding rates for all but the top 1% of major (we call the R1) universities are regularly funded...sound familiar?
Some private foundations have stepped up, but now even they are getting stretched thin. International collaboration in science is probably at a low point for many as well. My own collaborative international research on overcoming multi-drug resistance in pathogenic fungi is unfunded because of the difficulty of distributing money to two different countries.
A new approach is needed. We cannot look to industry for help...
9
I'm not sure that scientific understanding and knowledge has decreased. We have many more scientists than ever before, most if not all understand and try to use rigorous scientific methods, and they work with much better equipment and devices. The general public's knowledge of science may or may not be better than in, say, 1965, but what has become loudly obvious since at least the origins of our knowledge about global warming is that the relatively elite status of scientists, and of those who work with the outputs of science, has inspired a bitter backlash, and fueled the careers of politicians willing to exploit it.
4
there is an old cliche, work like it depends on you...pray like it depends on God. We need scientist to work like it depends on them and people of faith to pray like it depends on God. Both sentiments are accurate. Despite what people say science and faith aren't enemies. we need scientists to figure out a vaccine and asap. we need faith to believe it can be done in a fashion to minimize the havoc this virus could have on the population and to calm our nerves; Psalms 91 would be a good place to start for calming nerves while the scientist work. Take note, we are not the first generation to deal such an issue. There was the black plague in the 1600s and the bird flu almost 100 years ago. Yes, those plagues/viruses were devastating but mankind survived. However, we are the most sophisticated generation to deal with such an issue. Let us act like it.
4
These points are of course correct, but making policy decisions about science-related issues is not as simple as "believing" scientists. What we need is trust in our government and our fellow citizens. When we lack those things, we won't take the collective actions that scientists recommend, which are personal inconveniences but necessary for everyone's well being.
That trust cannot exist when most of the population feels like maintaining their standard of living is a zero-sum game. Nor can it exist when one political party's entire reason for being is to demonize the very idea of societal benefits. Particularly because that party has also figured out that polarization, the internet, and cable news enable all of them to lie without consequence about literally everything.
7
I think you are underestimating the lengths to which those in power will go to maintain that power. When, in the history of mankind, have we ever experienced the wholesale disregard for human life, safety and health at the hands of those holding power? Well, the short answer is that we have experienced this since the beginning of recorded time. It has always been this way, and it continues today.
The difference in modern times is that people like Donald Trump no longer invade our lives mounted on horses with a marauding horde charging behind them, intent on destroying everything in their path and commanding unyielding fealty to their power. Instead, they hold campaign rallies and buy widespread media coverage on Fox News. I fear the effect is far more devastating; at least with the invading hordes we knew what we were up against. With Trump, we can't tell up from down.
Science is objective, fact based. Even when it cannot draw firm conclusions, that determination is made based on objective facts. Facts and objective truth have always been the bane of authoritarians, inconveniently contradicting them. Far better to have fearful loyalists willing to say whatever helps them keep their heads.
Looking back on history, I cannot find a single time when divine intervention changed this. There are, however, numerous instances of successful revolution. Some things never change.
13
It's not your grandmother's science. It's difficult to gain wisdom from a simpler time. It's not just technology that has advanced well beyond the grasp the common person, but the basic science that allows such to be built.
We need a 21st century renaissance of sorts to bring us into the light, lest we all get mired in our own shabby beliefs and bad ideas reinforced by sources of no authority or legitimacy.
The renaissance was born of the plague in Italy. The plague killed off so many outdated institutions and old ideas that new ideas flourished. It created the modern university system that resulted in advanced understanding in all schools -- medicine, science, art, literature. The university thrives today, spinning off businesses and technologies that cannot be equaled by private investment.
Maybe it takes a disease like Covid19 to scare the world enough to change without actually killing half the population as with the plague of old. Perhaps the wisdom of that time applicable today is that we need to invest in universities and open them to more students of any age.
5
Wow. That’s bold.
Progressives have done more to politicize (and weaken) the basic process of scientific inquiry than conservatives could ever hope to.
And adding a “pray for them” is doubly ironic.
Well played.
5
@MB
Sorry, but in all of my 35 years of working in science in both academia and industry it was conservative politicians, conservative businessmen and women, and a science-skeptical conservative populace that has time and time again assaulted science.
2
You say that so confidently, it must be true.
No, do not pray for science or science. Acceptance of the results of science should not be dependent in any way on divine intervention. Science is mostly the discovery of things which actually explain phenomena and on the actual usefulness of those explanations, rather than just ascribing everything to the whim of supernatural beings, or the intensity of your devotion to them. Don't join your religious friends in prayer, explain to them how science has actually worked, for example in essentially eliminating smallpox or in modern electronics which they may use in every waking hour. These things did not come from prayer.
4
@skeptonomist
PerhapsMr Manjoo was being ironic.
I was raised to believe that God helps those "what helps themselves." And this is the underlying principal to have faith in science and scientists. We all bring different things to the table. But those who have pursued science as their calling deserve our utmost respect. God gave us the brain power to develop fields of knowledge. It should be appreciated and applauded.
5
I am sorry, but I do not understand why so many feel that science and religion are incompatible. Science gives us factual information and procedures, while faith gives us the courage and compassion to implement it in a way to benefit all of humanity. Many of the world’s great scientists have had deep religious faith.
13
I also think you miss an important point. This outbreak and others that have arisen in China are a direct result of cultural practices that science has deemed dangerous. They have warned for decades that the wild animal trade and farming practices (fowl+swine) provides a route to pandemics. China (ie the gov't) MUST end these practices (they have made progress on the farming front). These cultural practices put the entire world at risk (this is not a racist comment but fact). Also pangolins, rhinos, tigers and bats (and other exotic animals) will be thankful.
10
We had, along before Covid-19 emerged, enough scientific knowledge to stop it from happening. It is here as an uninvited guest because the Chinese people and their government did not stop the trade in live, wild animals in open markets in China.
Many people in China believe that eating the flesh of a wild animal not long after it has been killed will cure diseases and problems like impotence in men. Although the practice was banned, it continued with little impediment. The animals contain viruses that have not previously migrated to humans so that when the animals were bought and sold, and then eaten, the virus found an opportunity to invade.
We are not short of knowledge. We are not short of expertise. What we lack is the good sense and the will power to follow what we know to be true.
It was said long ago that "living well is the best revenge" meaning that one's own well being is vastly more important than people who have offended or impinged on you and your desires in life. It seems, however, that we humans would rather fight with each other, and turn every disagreement in a mega-political battle, than to live well and good.
Somehow, someway, the China habit of trading in live wild animals must be stopped. This current emergency provides that opportunity.
8
As a scientist, I appreciate the sentiment. But the misplaced appeal of the "precautionary principle" is actually in the way of many things that science can do. For example, climate is about to really throw a spanner into diseases for humans, animals, and plants. But the Precautionary Principle enshrined in the EU policy will prevent the tools that science has from rolling out.
It doesn't account for the harm of doing nothing. It's part of the problem, in fact.
2
People forget that GOD and science are one and the same, indivisible and not mutually exclusive.
5
Right. And Eve was created by Yahweh by extracting her from what’s his name’s rib.
Pray also for the scientists (I am one) to find their soul. Scientists are ourselves to blame for losing respect in the public sphere. Too often scientists prostitute themselves to funding sources and industry "institutes". Sometimes for very little money - the corruption of science is just the price of a funded research program, a bunch of research assistants and the opportunity to keep publishing. Even editorial boards have been known to be susceptible to the power of money. So I pray for scientists and the spirit of honest inquiry.
5
My mother always said, Don't expect God to deliver you from being hit by a train, if you are taking a nap on the tracks.
May we all get off the tracks and start doing something about the ills that are hurting people and our society and the world.
I get the irony of this article that now we have to trust in a power outside ourselves for deliverance from ourselves.
Right now, we are facing an election and a vote to deliver ourselves from the disease in the White House and the Senate and it will take more than prayer.
Take action. Vote FOR science and scientists with funding, education, and regulations that protect our citizens and the world.
Vote against myth and fantasy and hearsay.
Take one action for science. Vote. And stay involved after you vote. Watch what is happening and don't become complacent. When that Pandemic Team was dismantled there could have been street protests against it. Nope. Headlines and sometimes shrugs.
We didn't fully understand what that dismantling would mean because some were too absorbed in "breaking news," our phones and gizmos.
Now is the time to rise and calmly act.
Don't panic. And wash your hands.
This is Mother talking.
27
Not just partisan political view have driven the issue, but even more so, the religious fundamentalism being seen across most major religions world wide. The US fundamentalists have joined the anti-science dogma at the hip with political dogma, and injected it into the entire existence of public life, from education to public health. Legislators have humored this far right mentality for far too long - some in cynical efforts to get and stay elected, others, because they themselves are a product of this base ignorance. Yes, it needs to stop. To get that ball rolling, those of this ilk need to be removed from office, and the public education pushed forward with scientific and mathematics as part of the core - and not allowing it to be confiscated by those who want to avoid learning about reality in the name of their personal religion.
9
If scientists would perform their critical work without denigrating those who pray, or pray for them, the public likely would be more willing to accept what scientists have to say.
8
@Jay Orchard
They are. It's safe to say that most scientists making a living using it are far too busy actually working & engaged in what they're doing to bother with wasting time making snide comments about pray-ers.
The reverse unfortunately seems to not be true.
34
You may have a point but I know plenty of scientists who pray and none interested in denigrating prayer. They have other work to do.
2
How about the other way around.
2
I found it concerning that an article in NYT about avoid contagious diseases on the subway seemed to dance around the obvious: Stay off the subway if you can. Stay off buses if you can. This helps not only yourself, but also those who have no alternative by reducing density and wait times.
The article says "it is hard to assess" the risk of being on public transit, but it is not hard to say it is almost certainly worse than wallking, biking or driving.
Much of the fuss over some so-called "green" tech seems similarly distorted. The net effect is many people decide denying climate change feels better than falling for scams.
Yay for science and engineering. But if it is politicized for the "elites" that read NYT, odds are it will be seen as fair game to politicize by most people. Leaders have to act like leaders, not manipulators who know where to steer the masses for their own good.
1
@Alan
I normally ride my bicycle to work but couldn't this morning due to a flat tire.
I've Purell-ed my hands twice already today and it's not even 11:00 a.m. yet.
Thank you for this much needed op-ed. To explore this topic, I recommend "Uncommon Sense, the Heretical Nature of Science" by Alan Cromer, Oxford University Press, 1993. It can be found on Kindle under "uncommon sense" as the 28th entry for $12.34. So, this is an obscure book. Cromer explains and contrasts scientific thinking with religious and magical thinking. He shows how scientific thinking is fairly recent recent in history and is still uncommon in our modern culture.
Great essay. This also illustrates the danger of the Electoral College as it is currently interpreted by the states. It was supposed to keep the unenlightened out of the White House. As it currently works, the rural states with less-educated white people are running America because the electors in most states must choose the president from the popular vote in the state. Furthermore, rural states run the Senate, which allows further blocking of science. Finally, voter suppression takes thousands of people out of the equation, both educated and uneducated, that would vote for progressive policies that are generally scientifically correct. If we want to cure this problem we need to allow all voices to be heard in elections.
5
It is unclear that the world would be worse off had it done nothing in response to the onset of the new virus. It seems likely the death rates are only marginally worse than the flu. The damage inflicted on individuals, businesses, corporations and governments at every level is impossible to calculate. But, my best guess is the financial calamity and political instability ensuing the current response is likely to be worse than just accepting the death of 2% of the worlds population. Vaccine or no vaccine the global population is likely to develop an immune response that does way less damage than a global population that is panicked.
2
Why do we have to lump the US efforts which have been successful with China which have been a disaster? Too much anti-trumpist political claims in science too. If you want to advocate for objective measures and reason don’t be hypocritical and bring politics into it.
6
Scientific Research tells us more about the world we live in. Good science is free and open and never set in stone because there is always something else that reveals itself as we explore further.
2
Nobody is surprised that peak convenience is also peak maladaptation. Global supply chains and other systems were built with no redundancy because the bean counters focused exclusively on profits. Any perturbation will cause the entire chain to break down. Globalization is peak fragility.
5
The article states-- "The failures to contain the outbreak and to understand the scale and scope of its threat stem from an underinvestment in and an under-appreciation of basic science."
This under-appreciation and suboptimal/very controlling funding extend from major centers of science to the curriculum available for learning science in our public schools. We are not only caught short now. The USA will be left behind in science for DECADES. USA, not so great.
Trump's choice of Pence as virus czar belies his utter incomprehension of the problem, as well as his seething contempt of the ENTIRE American citizenry. All of us will bear greater and greater risk while he dithers, covers up and makes excuses, spending his energy on evaluating Wall Street and trying to figure out what political advantages this virus might give him with Iran (etc).
Does the "expert" Pence know the difference between DNA and RNA? What a retrovirus is? What goes into making a vaccine?Trump, Pence, and all of their explainers and enablers are culpable for the lives of Americans lost in the upcoming weeks.
I have news for you, Mr. President. You can't quarantine yourself enough. Hugging a flag and having tele-rallies will not protect youfrom this, and the developing rage of Americans of all political stripes.
10
Trump and Pence: Our anti-science guys at large are now in charge.
Trump’s fallacious and confused responses to the coronavirus threat are emblematic of a much deeper fissure within our nation. Trump's falsehoods and Pence’s attempts to micromanage the scientific experts are consistent with widespread Republican anti-intellectualism.
Many Republicans, like Trump and Pence, think primarily in terms of short-term economic advantage, deregulation and tax reduction. Many also fear complexity, ambiguity and "Others."
First-rate colleges and universities promulgate critical thinking skills and scientific-experimental modes of inquiry. These modes of thought enable individuals to rationally confront threats to the common welfare and provide solutions beneficial to the nation’s physical, psychological and spiritual well-being.
Institutions of higher learning also broaden student sensibilities with respect to social complexity, to ethical ambiguity and to those "Other" than themselves.
Critical thinking skills, experimental reasoning and humanistic reflection threaten the fundamentalism so dear to many a Republican heart: "Free"-market fundamentalism and tribal "Christian" fundamentalism.
Hence Republican leaders and their media enablers continually promote an insular anti-intellectualism and disparage both science and critical reflection. GOP tribalism is a regressive rejection of our common humanity, and of our communal intellectual and spiritual potential.
12
If you keep repeating a lie - it does not become the truth - The doctors at the frontline did what was necessary and apt for the time and moment.
if the west wants to keep repeating it - they surely can - but it is not going to change much
they were at the front line - they did not know whether it was just a flu or something else - but USA got at least 2.5 months heads up - What has the west been doing - after the heads up was given.
USA basically said - oh its just a common cold it will go away.
3
As more models are created that reflect the spread rate, the mortality rate, the severity rate its evident educated humans will take more solace and rational action from them.
For example, I won't be going out t buy face masks and a case of bottled water. Instead, I will carry my own pen to sign credit card receipts and avoid drug store check out pen tablets. I will think about all transmission vectors unafraid of science or religion.
Let us pray and meditate for cool headed approaches to all our daily actions.
2
Why do many people ignore science, or at best misunderstand and misuse science?
Perhaps because scientific thinking is not just hard, often requiring advanced knowledge and skills, but because it is fundamentally different from how most people think.
Science is the process of trying to understand things using unbiased observation, objective reasoning, and critical thinking. Science rejects emotion, ideology, partisanship, magic, and most other common human traits. Science does not by design aim for consensus, but always supports skepticism and questioning. In science, their are no preferred outcomes, no issues or conclusions that are politically unpalatable, and no concessions to vested interests.
8
I don't think prayer has anything to do with good science. I think prayer is a waste of good time. That said, please pray if you want to. Me? I will continue to vote for those individuals who set forth ideas to further our health care and science.
10
The writer was being ironic about prayer
In Mr. Majoo's own words, it is indeed paradoxical to 'pray' for scientists. Prayer is based on faith, science on reason. As far as I(and most scientists) are concerned, they are effectively incompatible.
Prayer, plus two dollars, will get you a small coffee at Starbucks. So stop praying and start doing - it's as simple as that.
21
Of the ways basic science is being demeaned and ignored today the rising anti-vaccination movement is amongst the most foreboding of all. In brash denial of the existential benefits of herd immunity anti-vaccination types are irrationally putting the herd at risk as an expression of their individual rights. This is what happens when public health is politicized: people put their faith in ideology instead of science. We need a president who returns rigorous peer-reviewed and double-blind scientific research to its rightful place as the foundation of a democratic and compassionate society.
7
As a scientist, as a professor, and as an advocate for prayer, yes, I agree: Please, please pray. But most scientists will suggest that what we need are enlightened political and industry leaders, and for this we need enlightened voters, shareholders, and consumers. I for one am directing my prayers and personal activities to those groups. Hopes and prayers are nice, and are welcome, but we on the ground can do so much more, right here, right now.
412
I would complete your thought with Education!
Those of us who have been blessed with wonderful, inspiring teachers or lucky enough to have been forced to read the writings of, and then discover the mind of Stephen Jay Gould - first who comes to mind.
And as children, to be helped to develop critical thinking - so much to be done.
36
@Rick
Agreed. Our enemies are running right by us while we get degrees in gender studies and revised American history. Time to wake up.
17
@Rick
Our own GOP ignorance in three years have put America in this pathetic scenario. A country consumed with making money at all costs is vulture capitalisms. A delusional president who cant even understand basic science concept's and a praying VP.has put people's lives at risk. We don't need prayers we need medical action and not for profit institutions who don't do quality testing think Boeing but people associated with institutions who care about public health
We know that scientist will clear their heads of the white noise and continue to move forward with understanding this virus so lives can be saved
The ignorance of the GOP is on the level of the people who lived during the dark ages. It is difficult to believe that these people are Americans, ignorance is so in your face.
Vote blue down the ticket if we all want to see our children grow up to a planet that is thriving.
Whenever I see the CDC speak excluding the people that Trump has put on the team I am encouraged that they are telling the public the truth. When I see Trump hires speaking I know that they are ill informed and ill equipped to handle the virus.
The truth does matter
39
I don't think you can answer this without also addressing the decline of the Humanities. Science needs lots of things to function, one of which is an engaged citizenry with critical thinking skills. You can have all the empirical data and evidence in the world but if people think it's fake news then it's not worth the paper it's written on.
The Sciences and the Humanities should be seen as equally important and vital to a healthy society, and funded accordingly! There's a reason why despots and conservatives always target the humanities, and when they're done with us, they'll come for you.
694
@Alex /exactly. And the Humanities, education in general, take decades to produce nurses and doctors and other staff critical in these situations.
It is establishing a broad base of educated people as pipelines for when we need them.
.
51
@Alex Thank you! And the same forces that work against science oppose supporting the Humanities. I include American universities here because, like corporations that silence science for monetary purposes (gun manufacturers, tobacco industry, etc.) university administrators value teaching subjects that bring in money. Hence the gutting of English and foreign language literature departments. Hence the use of highly trained educators as adjuncts rather than offering them well paid, secure tenure track positions.
75
@SMcStormy Yes, it would appear that the lack of rigor in elementary and high school has reduced American education to a glorified baby-sitting service despite the many, many, many dedicated and competent teachers.
Fund education to the max. Remember that getting rid of Trump means getting rid of Betsy Davos too.
67
Far too much anxiety expressed in this op ed, which both unnecessary and unappreciated.
4
If you’re not anxious with present situations going on right now then you’re not paying attention
We are in trouble.
I'm a family doc in a large clinic and unfortunately money takes precedence over science at times.
There has been a lack of solid guidelines for us to handle Covid-19. Quite frankly it's just "wash your hands". We have no easy and rapid way to test patients for Covid-19 who have symptoms, which are the same as the flu...
To add to all of this our healthcare system is a business model, a very dysfunctional one. Americans will be hesitant to get tested if they think they will get a large bill.
If I was an older patient with health conditions, I'd be extremely worried right now. Sadly it's "Every man for himself" in America.
Good luck and was your hands...oh, and pray.
853
This is so true, three of my children are physicians who tell me they can’t even get Covid tests for patients let alone protective gear for nurses and physicians. We are totally unprepared!
101
Yes. Is it true that in South Korea there is drive through testing now? What an embarrassment our country is in its ability to govern and attend to the needs of citizens. More interested in fighting far flung wars for economic interests.
59
If I pray for anything it will be for the removal of trump administration and all anti science Republicans. I also vote and March as prayers aren’t action.
95
The other countries battling this virus have one major advantage. They have universal healthcare. A person who thinks they have the virus can immediately seek medical attention.
And now, let's talk about our healthcare system. How many infected patients will wait before seeking medical attention? How much will it cost them when they are seriously ill, and visit ERs and ICUs? How much will it cost those with insurance, who are exposed to the infection because so many cannot afford insurance?
641
@ATronetti
And many people who lack health insurance won't go to a doctor until they are seriously ill, than they head to the nearest Minute Clinic or emergency room. How many heath care workers will be exposed to COVID, or will just quit their jobs because of this risk?
73
@ATronetti
Universal heath care, whatever that means, is not going to solve all our problems anymore than getting rid of trump will return us to a time that never in fact existed. Things like communicable diseases and global warming are far more complex, subtle and difficult than the slogans that have come to pass for political stands in this country.
19
@AT, universal healthcare is a system that ensures all citizens have access to quality healthcare. There are various models of it, but that is the core principle. Now you no longer have to wonder what it means.
118
The daughter of a friend who was forced to return from her study abroad program in Milan just reentered the US at Dulles Airport. SHE WAS NOT TESTED for Coronavirus. She was not asked if she'd been in Italy. She was asked if she'd been to IRAN. Is there any surprise that the virus is spreading if entry to this country seems to focus on political concerns rather than scientific concerns. So where, exactly, are all the tests and protections afforded by CDC or HHS?
19
You're the parent, can you say if she appears ill? And fever? Coughing?
Those concerned about spreading possible infection should self-quarantine. is she doing that?
You might not think the gatekeepers at the airport are performing perfectly, but do you not have common sense in your own?
Testing doesn't stop the spread of disease, it just identifies those who have positive results at the time of testing, so it isn't a solution on its own.
Yes, reality can be cruel, many people don't like it, they would rather live in their fantasy world. Just look at the number of people who play the lottery, throw their hard-earned money into a system with screamingly bad odds. You never know, you might win. That's true, but reality is probability theory - a major tool of science. Remember small pox, polio, and most likely other ruthless killers; what stopped them, super heroes in the movies or scientists ? But don't listen to the scientists, they're purveyors of uncomfortable truths; listen to the snake oil salesmen and anti-vaxxers, they promise us Eden on Earth. Evolution teaches us statistics, and statistics tells us, improving our educational system, and paying attention to science reduces the amount of nonsense that pervades our society.
268
@eclectico
Well we have had enough of delusionals and con men. If people don't realize that by now they never will and the only way we can support science is Vote Blue down the ticket.
Ignorance has no place in 2020 and people who practice faith in delusions need to be out of public office . Get a job in the movies or a talk show but where you can not hurt the American people, institution's anymore.
Trump is unfit to be a president to call a virus that kills a hoax,
11
@eclectico Too many Americans love a con man
10
@eclectico One of the biggest self-delusions people have is that they are superior to others in the animal kingdom, and that conquest and consumption have no ramifications. Our planet is dying in large part because we refuse to see the misery we inflict on other species. "Wet markets" are horribly dangerous, and have given rise to multiple incidents of new human illnesses.
But "regular" meat is just as bad. Cancer, hearth disease, salmonella, etc. are much more prevalent meat-derived illnesses that we just turn a blind eye to. The next time you eat a hamburger, think carefully about the life and slaughter, pain and misery that created that hamburger. And of the consequences eating it has on your body.
7
Thank you!!!!!
Amazing how many are asking when a vaccine will be ready. I wonder how many have been against vaccines.
When I practiced neurology, I heard about all sorts of stuff from reflexology to New Age crystals from hospital workers where I worked. Strange, when they had a bad headache, neck pain shooting down an arm, facial paralysis, or brief one-sided weakness, how they eschewed those other folks and found their way to my office.
They also wanted CTs or MRIs--those things that science made possible.
10
There is a term for the response of the Trump Administration to the coronavirus threat, dereliction of duty.
What ever they are doing now, good or bad, and seems to be mostly bad and based on lies like the million tests supposedly available is late by two months.
Lives will be lost because of that. The opportunity to fight the virus at the star was there in the month of January but they didn't act, claiming falsely that we were safe and that the virus was a good thing to happen to American businesses. Now we are into March and they are still no ready. That is criminal misconduct.
7
"And pray not just for science, but for scientists, too,..."
You sound just a little too breathless. Too dramatic.
In your quest for truth, how about some facts. Can we get a definitive profile of those most at risk and those that are dying? Everyone can contract the disease. People with no underlying health issues, seem to weather this with no more problems than a cold.
SOUND THE ALARMS. A scientific heretic.
If this disease affects seniors disproportionately, the attention should be focused on them. Precautions for the elderly must be intensified and the rest of the population needs to carry on.
Just for clarification, how many children, in the US have died from this disease?
3
@Mike
Better question might be--how many children have died in China? It's too early to do statistics on the death rates here.
If I remember, correctly the first doctor in China to die was not a kid, but quite young.
And can kids transmit the virus even if asymptomatic? I suspect yes.
@SBA The doctor may have had the virus. I suspect he died of lead poisoning. If kids were dying, Trump would be held responsible.
Yes, pray for science. But pray harder still for all of the animals killed for ridiculous "cures" and even more appalling reasons like "male vitality." The wet market wildlife trade must be shut down permanently, not temporarily. It wouldn't hurt for everyone to eat less or no meat, too.
11
The phrase "routine Trumpian incompetence" struck me as indicative of another disease circulating amongst us: Trump Derangement Syndrome. Trump may be many things, but incompetent is not one of them. By the way, funding for the CDC has increased every year since Trump took office (due to Congress, yes, but signed by the President nonetheless).
8
(A correction)
The importance of science and the scientific community will be understood as a result of this article and because the epidemic which is happening now. But the same article would have little impact on people when there is no crisis around to temper their thoughts. Or this article wouldn't be published at all. And whatever impact this article produced on readers now would be lost once this epidemic scales down. Ironically this too is just like religiosity.
I had an argument with a neighbor over climate change. He has a degree in geology and I in sociology. He claimed that global warming was a natural cycle of planetary climate change unrelated to any action taken by human beings. He clearly impressed me with his knowledge of all of the different ages of earth history, what the climate was like, how the climate came to be the way it was in each specific era and how it influenced the evolution of flora, fauna and geology. But, he denied what 98% of climate scientists agree on - that the hotter planet we now inhabit is due to human activity - specifically the burning of fossil fuels. That this apparently educated man finely tutored in a field more closely related to climate science denied the empirical proof of human induced global warming was truly frightening to me. As Voltaire rightly asserted, "Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities."
14
@Anam Cara Perhaps you should read some of the criticisms of the studies purporting to claim what "97% of climate scientists" believe. Both those studies, and the claims made about them, are absurd.
More importantly, you might consider the fact that, in science, opinion is not evidence. Your friend the geologist most likely wanted to discuss actual evidence with you. He may have, for example, showed you plentiful evidence to show that current climate change is well within the range of natural variability and is in fact not in any extraordinary. He may, on that basis alone, have pointed out that there is nothing whatsoever that nullifies the null hypothesis that earth is currently doing exactly what the earth does normally.
Or he may have given you a great deal of other evidence showing empirically that the models used to describe the earth's climate empirically fail to do so accurately, since that is also the case. If you close your mind to all evidence, however, and refuse to consider either the evidence or the logic presented to you, then you are the one that is acting in a genuinely frightening manner. Who do you believe is truly more scary, the uneducated member of the mob screaming about how everyone knows that witches have made the local crops fail, or the educated man who tries to point out that there are other explanations for that phenomenon, causing the crowd to scream at him for being a witchraft denier?
2
@Anam Cara Your friend the geologist may have actually looked at the data supporting the human caused global warming -- it's full of holes. I assume if you are a Ph.D. level sociologist you must have some training in statistics and analyzing data sets. You might look at the actual data and see what you think.
2
@Ralphie I am sure you are right and the actual climate scientists are wrong, data illiterate, unfamiliar with the scientific method, dismissive of confounding factors, unskilled in multivariate analysis, without access to longitudinal sources, are ignorant of the difference between causation and correlation, incapable of constructing operational definitions, cannot distinguish between independent and dependent variables or cannot identify a host of other valid and reliable indices of a human induced climate change.
1
Like most of the problems facing the United States today, science denial is an asymmetric burden imposed by Republicans. Yes the anti-vax movement is primarily liberal, but that small fringe group is denounced by the vast majority of us. Across the aisle science denial is part of the litmus test for being a modern Republican. Were it not for his acceptance of climate science and empiricism surrounding gun violence, Michael Bloomberg would still be a Republican. But because he believes in science, he’s been forced to take refuge in a political party at odds with most of his other positions.
Dogma replacing imperial facts. Sounds like a return to dark ages when loyalty to religious dogma over powered interest in learning and using facts. Now, it seems to be loyalty to political power that requires the silencing or ignoring of facts. Actually, maybe it was about political power then too, just cloaked in religion..
Unfortunately both political parties in our country play this game. Dogma over facts. One party is better at it than the other but both play the game.
5
My prayer in defense of science is to keep it growing and evolving This is the point of investigation. And in the world of religion I would say God, all gods, gave humans brains to question, to investigate. Please, let our human brains be used in the name of better unraveling the mysteries of science and using our findings wisely.
3
Thank-you, Fahrad, for an excellent and timely piece.
A major factor in the decline in trust of science has been the enormous amount of corporate money, over many decades, supporting polemical arguments against scientific truth that threatens large corporate interests.
For example, tobacco companies knew for decades before the 1964 Surgeon General’s report on the health hazards of cigarette smoking that smoking caused cancer, chronic obstructive lung disease and coronary artery disease. Yet, they heavily invested in public relations campaigns backed by pseudoscience to discredit credible scientific evidence showing harm.
This same corporate influence continues to aggressively assault the credibility of good science, which has demonstrated a multitude of public health hazards inflicted on our citizenry by corporations whose only focus is on shareholder return.
Corporations fight regulations with specious arguments about the “insignificant benefits” of public health protection when compared with the damage to the economy by regulation. Monetizing human life is a fool’s errand at best, and immoral at worst.
So, here we are today with a President, in collaboration with Republicans in congress receiving corporate dollars, aggressively unraveling the regulatory protections put in place over many years, which were supported by intensive objective scientific research conducted by government and academic researchers. It is a tragedy beyond comprehension.
7
Let's call anti-science a virus. How is it spread? Long term, it is spread by disbelievers to their children. Like in religion, children are indoctrinated early on by parents and learn how to keep parents happy (or not). They learn what to pay attention to in school (or not). They learn what to think about people of color (other than their own color). Long before children become functional, thinking people, they have been imprinted with their parents' belief systems.
People have the right to think as they will about the world. But at least try not to bias (or worse, harm) your own child by ignoring science and reality in favor of myths.
6
Anti-science and anti-government. We used to have organized civil defense against nuclear war--Republican Eisenhower was a big proponent. Now we need civil defense against pandemics and much stronger research to develop treatments against superbugs, be they viral or bacterial. Instead, people stare at their phones--the phones being scientific marvels, but there's a lot of profit in this--they stare at their phones, view their favorite 'social influencer' and buy a pair of shoes that s/he's selling.
1
Is the irony of the introduction deliberate? - i.e. "pray for empiricism"
1
Methinks ,yes.
China is a totalitarian/authoritarian system, driven by an autocrat. The US is a democratic system, imperfect enough for the system to be weakened when the two top positions are held by autocrats, as is the case now. Autocrats conceal the truth and offer propaganda instead. Viruses don't listen to propaganda.
3
As I understand it, we don't have many scientists left in this government. Trump doesn't like them because they contradict many of his most ignorant assumptions. To quote Michael Halpern the Union of Concerned Scientists.“Across the board, science has been sidelined by this administration with significant consequences for both public health and the environment.”
8
@Christy
This is patently false and makes no sense.
@Matt
I suggest you stop watching Fox News and start reading some of this:
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/28/climate/trump-administration-war-on-science.html
https://tcf.org/content/commentary/remarks-trump-administrations-assault-science-environment/?session=1
https://www.npr.org/2019/09/10/759554200/how-the-trump-administrations-attacks-on-science-put-americans-at-risk
https://ucsusa.org/resources/endangering-generations
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-01961-6
https://www.wbur.org/cognoscenti/2019/09/19/trump-attack-on-science-rachel-licker-andrew-rosenberg
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/the-trump-administration-has-attacked-science-100-times-and-counting/
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/oct/06/the-five-ways-donald-trump-has-attacked-science
3
As a scientist (astronomer), I say - Amen!
3
I find it remarkable that we never talk about the cause of these pandemics. It seems to me that they are entirely avoidable. If we would quit eating animals we wouldn't be having to deal with pandemics every 10 years. We need to hold those responsible for unleashing pandemics responsible for the costs. It's only a matter of time until an American hog or bird "farm" unleashes a pandemic here so don't claim I'm being racist. We should send the bill to China and put meat farms on notice that they will be held accountable.
Two other main factors need to be addressed: overpopulation and global travel.
2
I pray that Dr. Fauci of the CDC will continue to speak truth to power (and to the rest of us). Trump will almost certainly fire him at some point, because Dr. Fauci has already corrected some of the President’s untruths about the virus crisis. Woe be to us if we must careen, rudder-less, without a strong CDC voice to guide us.
12
So true. It was obvious how angry Trump was at the first press conference, when Fauci was laying out the timeline for developing the vaccine. The longer he spoke, the madder Trump looked.
1
Actually, the headline of the article should have been: "The Trump Administration's Response to Coronavirus is What You Get When You Ignore Science". And it illustrates a much deeper problem: the haphazard will to ignore facts to benefit political ends. I am a university professor and a biomedical scientist, and -frankly- I am tired of writing about this. There is disdain about the intellectual elites, facts, statistics and the scientific method. Facts and the scientific method transcend all disciplines. See what happens, if we ignore simple facts or create "alternative" facts. Fact-free arguments got us into the Iraq war. Fact-free arguments (aka lies) dominate Trump's policies in every aspect. The media and politicians celebrate each fall the newly announced Nobel laureates. But when the scientific method that brought us these Nobel-worthy discoveries needs to be applied to everyday problems, we resort to emotions, illusions and ... prayers. How pathetic and pitiful! I saw a bumper sticker that said: "The nice thing about science is that it is true whether you believe it or not". Enough said.
514
@flyer78 Thank you for stating the problem very well. The peril of living in a "free" country is that preventative medicine can be ignored (anti-vaxers), and that everyone is entitled to their opinion (right or wrong). My ignorant "facts" are just as good as an expert's facts. This country is definitely divided, but I think the division has more to do with education and lack of it than anything else. I wish Mr. Spock was running for president.
38
@Daphne , He'd never win: he's not a guy you'd want to have a beer with. As we know, that's a key qualification for office.
17
@flyer78
Dunning Kruger Effect
11
Pray if you will, but stay at home to do so. Gatherings, whether religious or not, create occasions for contamination.
4
The reason why science is ignored is greed.
2
I am with you 100% in the support of science. However, not being able to focus on long-term threats and systems is a human cognitive issue. We are just not oriented that way, sadly.
1
Let us be specific. Coronavirus is what you get when you ignore basic hygiene and decide to eat everything that crawls, slithers, walks or runs. On the other hand, Contagion is what you get when you ignore science.
13
Thank you Farhad. 'Science' didn't come into being and evolve in order to prop up the PR of so-called leaders. Science is a spin-off and the principal tool of curiosity and industriousness. Our president, who uses all science, engineering, and humanities to create a veneer of awesomeness for himself, isn't the first practitioner of this dark art. The Republicans have been cultivating a non-reality culture for decades. Is it about power, or stupidity, or something in between?
I love the irony of this piece; pray for science and the scientists! As a scientist who is also an agnostic, I'm in nevertheless.
6
To reduce the issue down to its essence:
Religions are based on lies that satisfy and science is based on facts that terrify.
Much easier to accept the former and reject the latter.
1
I've just finished re-reading "The Great Influenza" by John M. Barry and recommend it to anyone who wants to a window into the politics, human nature, workings of science and the resistance to and consequence of ignoring those workings as well as how information (and infection) flows in a time of plague.
4
I disagree with Mx Manjoo. They assert that Coronavirus arose from ignoring science, but in fact, runaway new viruses like Coronavirus will always arise from time to time and may just be unstoppable, it's just a fact of life. That said, ignoring science does make pandemics worse than they need to be. In that, I agree with them (Mx. Manjoo).
3
The fact that Trump tasked someone who believes in prayer and not science, and has a poor track record with his inadequate response to another deadly virus in his state is itself an insult to the American people and part and parcel of this "administration's" incompetence. People's lives have always been at stake with this man in the WH, and perhaps now many will be shaken up enough to wake up to the fact that this is not a reality show where those highfalutin liberal types with their science and environment stuff are now going to get taunted by conservative's favorite TV bully. It's all fun performance art until one's own life is on the line and their emperor is naked.
13
Trump believes that a tested, safe vaccine for corona virus is possible in 3-4 months. Let us pray. Mike Pence is the lead man in our effort to contain covid-19. Let us pray. Senator Markey (D-MA) thinks we need a "universal" flu vaccine. Let us pray.
2
@Quinn
A universal flu vaccine would be desirable. Credible scientists think it possible. They may be wrong, but don't sneer at them.
4
Antibiotics almost eliminated infectious disease as the primary killer it once was. It's hard to exactly calculate how many years this has added to our lifespan, but before their advent, average life expectancy was in the 50s. There have of course been many other medical advances, but if you assume that antibiotics have added an average of 15 years to our lives, then they have given the world about 100 billion man years of human life. That's seven times the age of the universe!
Think of all the creativity, love and joy that this one scientific discovery has given us. For this alone we should drop to our knees and thank scientists.
5
As a scientist, I wholeheartedly agree with the message in Farhad Manjoo's column. I do, however, disagree with its title.
Coronavirus is what you get when you ignore global poverty that enables deadly viruses to spread from one species to another. I have no doubt that science will eventually allow us to contain this outbreak. Precious little has been written about improving living conditions that will prevent the next one from happening.
6
@Rich M
Poverty had nothing, nothing to do with the coronavirus. The desire of rich people in China to eat exotic animals was the cause.
2
I have wondered if we have just plain lost our ability to function. Our systems only worked because people of good will, ethics, and competence worked in them. We are living through a collapse of competence and respect for the common welfare.
17
I think you ever so slightly miss the really big point, namely science pay big dividends in the very long term and earthlings are not well conditioned to invest for the very long term.
Look at our unwillingness to spend on infrastructure or education both investments with huge returns but only over decades. Ditto big investments in pandemic response ( stuff if it works right you barely notice) or the environment.
If you think Covid19 is scary just wait till we have mass starvation and miami is under water due to global warming. We need government to counterbalance human nature to worry only about the short term and ignore long term dangers.
Vote blue no matter who. Maybe not perfect but a heck of a lot better than the Luddite gop.
35
I am an engineer, and my entire career has been based on the discoveries made by scientists over the millennia; many of whom were persecuted and killed because their discoveries did not support the pre-conceived religious dogma of their time.
Through study, a have found that there is something underlying the order and functioning of the universe as well as quantum physics. I am a deist, as were many of the highly educated founding fathers of our country.
Thank you Farhad, for writing this powerful article. I will pray for all the scientists in the world. My prayers will be contained in how I vote in the upcoming elections. Each vote will be a prayer as I understand praying.
33
I disagree. The Trump Administration "ignores" science when it comes to environmental protection that stifles business and deliberately puts people out of work because their jobs are not environmentally friendly. I support the President. I support Trump. Thank you.
5
@Southern Boy Environmental protection is not incompatible with business and job growth. There are booming industries in clean energy that Trump would be wise to support for the health and economy of our country.
19
@Southern Boy
To cite just one of many examples:
Total U.S. employment in the coal mining industry in 2018 - 53,583
Total U.S. employment in the solar and wind energy industry in 2018 - 353,509
The enemy of coal mining jobs isn't and never has been 'environmentalists', it's been technology. Over the last 30 years coal mining has increasingly gone to surface mining which is highly automated. More machines = less workers.
Spouting talking points from FoxNews, the oil and mining lobbies, and their paid lackies in the GOP rarely squares with the facts.
3
This is short term thinking at its finest
5
Thank you, Mr. Manjoo, for this fine piece.
Not only is science an anathema to our president, it is the enemy. Immediately upon taking office he began to scrub any mention of it from the government web sites. Wherever possible he's removed funding and personnel from the agencies meant to protect us and our environment. Where we should've been aggressively working to address the Climate Crisis on our doorstep, he has set us back a decade by removing environmental protections.
What all of this has done to the morale and goals of our country's scientists is tragically evident when you sit and talk with them. Our very future depends on their community more than any other, yet we have a president who actively disdains them before the public and encourages people to ignore their work.
As much as anything else, and even more, we need to remove this man Trump from his perch for his denial of science if we are survive the days ahead. Dedicated teachers, researchers and technicians must be given priority in funding, not to mention respect, if we're to have a healthy informed population living on a healthy planet.
So not only should we pray for our scientists, we should keep them in front of our minds when we vote in November; we owe them a friendly government at the very least for all they do for us.
24
Extrapolating from what we know so far, this coronavirus was able to emerge because of specific unsanitary conditions in China. The farmers I know here (yes, they voted for Trump) know perfectly well that those practices are dangerous.
Conflating trumpism with unsanitary conditions in China is fundamentally anti-science.
8
@disappointed liberal
Thew author's point is the lack of recognition about what was happening in China until it was impossible to contain it. Warnings about pandemics and how to handle them have been put forth for awhile by the scientific community but have not been taken seriously by the Chinese leadership in spite of the fact that other potential pandemics have originated in China. Our administration's response is based on political expediency and not scientific fact or a moral commitment to keeping Americans safe.
22
There are plenty of reasons to think this virus will spread as fast or faster in the United States than it has in China: Americans are wealthier and travel more, they tend to distrust the government and won’t tolerate the sorts of lock-downs the Chinese government has imposed, and many of them must go to work sick because they lack the job security and health insurance that would enable them to take time off or seek medical treatment. In addition, the virus has already shown up in states from coast to coast. It’s far too early to conclude that the U.S. will succeed in containing this virus anymore than China has.
478
@Adrian Cho As I watched coverage of the long lines of voters and the huge gatherings that followed on Super Tuesday, all I could think of was what perfect conditions they were for the virus to spread.
13
If I've said it once I've said it 1000 times. The downfall of this country will be due to the aversion to science.
43
@Xavier Attorney Aversion to science didn't cause coronavirus. Destructive, inhumane, unsustainable treatment of animals and endless human consumption thereof, resulting in preventable human disease for which demand is unchecked, plus an unchecked human population, abetted by anachronistic religions, will be the downfall not only of this country but of the world. We're watching it unfold in real time.
1
@Xavier Attorney We already have to import students into our STEM programs while our native born Americans complain about not having good jobs (that they cannot qualify for because it takes 6 or more years of high school type learning to get ready for vigorous STEM training in college). Anti-intellectualism has been alive and well here since the late 60s (when smart kids were social outcasts) and despite everything (good jobs and earnings in STEM and no prospects for less educated people), it just continues.
1
There have always been strong traditions of anti-intellectualism in the more conservative parts of the world, and we in America have certainly partaken of that, despite our practical "can-do" previous reputation.
It's the height of hypocrisy that climate change deniers, anti-vaxxers, and coronavirus hoaxers get most of their erroneous information from technological devices that wouldn't work without applying scientific principles, and go about their business everyday in conveyances about which the same can be said.
But, never underestimate the ability of human beings to deny the validity of what is right in front of them, for various psychological, political, and religious reasons--the processes of which have also been explained through scientific reasoning. So at least when we all go together when we go, there will be at least a small subset who can tell you why and how it happened.
25
The importance of science and scientific community will be understood as a result of this article and the epidemic happening now. But the same article would have little impact on people when there is no crisis around to temper their thoughts. Or this article wouldn't be published at all. And whatever impact this article produced on readers now would be lost once this epidemic scales down. Ironically this too is just like religiosity.
9
I have been watching science and science reporting for the last 50 years.
During that time three terrible things have become clear:
A) most of science reporting has been sensationalist and rife with erroneous lingo especially for "discoveries" by "scientists" in medicine (especially alzheimers, depression, and cancer) - largely attributable to press releases from drug companies or simple sensationalism.
B) people including some scientists have shallow understanding of genetics and evolution allowing the literature to support ideas of design, intelligent design, and 'purpose' for organisms, life etc.
C) the law defers to expert witnesses, often scientists, and testimony that is delivered in that way often creates more obfuscation than clarification.
I suspect that The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, represents the best example of adding misunderstanding to a huge tangle of ignorance in order to have an expert reference for the courts' assessments of mental infirmity.
10
First of all, we are depending on scientists and hoping that those who govern are too. But in a nation where the Governor of Texas once stood on the shores of the Gulf and tried to pray away the BP oil spill, right along side the ex Governor of Alaska, that hope is problematic. Now add in the Trump selected Virus Czar; Praying Pence, and you can never be sure whether the science will be funded and followed, or denied and denigrated.
51
@rich
And don't forget the current Secretary of Agriculture on his knees praying for rain when he was Georgia's governor.
2
@Michael
Throughout history religions have advocated prayer and ritual, and for the approximately 2,200 religions that exist today and the thousands more that mankind has tried and discarded, prayer has been a central tenet of most. People have been praying to gods, stars, mountains, totems, trees, animals, statues, etc., for as long as they have been fearful and without answers. Evidently, it does not matter what people believe or pray to, or long ago the "marketplace" would have proven which prayers, or superstitious rites actually work and we would all be using them.
I’m still nursing my morning coffee so my comment won’t be eloquent- but please include the increasing number of home schooling parents in this equation. Some do a decent job but many are opting out of the traditional science curriculum for a faith based approach. See what your state requires for home schooled children. If it’s like the very large state of Texas it’s basically reading and math.
197
@Ruth
I haven't even thought of coffee yet, but I am thinking about your response. You are exactly right, home schooling, even at its best. cannot compare to the learning opportunities in a classroom. I look back on my life and appreciate the challenges that so many of my teachers presented. I did not know at the time that many of their contrary views would inform a lifetime. Their words and attitudes trail around with me in a daily mental conversation. I wish I could tell them all what a difference they made. I did contact some, but it was not easy before the internet and now most of them are gone.
15
@Ruth, And sadly, these parents don't realize that schools are not evil places. They also don't seem to realize that science does not rule out religion. It is possible to revere science and to still be religious.
11
@Ruth
One of the stupidest woman I ever knew home schooled her kids. The nonsense that came out of her mouth was unbelievable. And I could never find an author that she had read or had even heard of. And she was her children's teacher.
11
The concept of science and the concept of honesty are baked into each other. Research is done, can it be reproduced, proven, held up to scrutiny, peer reviewed, tested, efficacy, the words that connote honesty in the product. In order for science to flourish, there has to be a like mindedness in leadership. That is where elections have consequences. The response to the coronavirus would have been much different if we had a President who believed in science and built on the scientific public health planning of his predecessor.
53
@SLF
Perhaps a decent start would be electing more people who aren’t lawyers. I don’t see them as having any particular background in science logic morals or even common sense not to mention science.
6
@SLF and @AT - just don't replace the lawyers in politics with MBAs, please.
2
The American disdain for science also includes a disdain for philosophy, the science of all sciences. I believe it is rooted in the development of our educational system which was politically directed for the process of nation building. Science was important because of benefits of its applications in technology. What was important was the cotton gin, sewing machines, steam and internal combustion engines and all manner things to facilitate industrial development.
Unfortunately, possibly the most renowned theoretical scientist is Sheldon Cooper, the fictional theoretical physicist in the Big Bang Theory TV show. As highly rated as that television show was, it depicted the stereotypes of scientists as impractical and odd people who were mostly irrelevant to the world outside of their whiteboards.
The lack of immediate profit undermines the support for scientific and philosophical inquiries. We are far more invested in supporting NCAA athletics than we are in developing people with the capacity to contemplate the relationships of the variables that determine the universe and the course of life.
95
@Zinkler Smart people like Sheldon Copper have to beg for funding, applying for grant to do their project.
Our society does not value scientists. A lot of my friend's children have to switch to a new major because they can not find job in scientific fields.
1
One of the problems of freedom is that people are free to develop in ways that are inefficient, shallow and unsubstantiated.
8
@Victor Lacca If freedom were constrained in a way that people were not free to "develop in ways that are inefficient, shallow, and unsubstantiated", we would have ZERO art, and, in fact, very little science.
6
The problem arises when we elect them as representatives.
9
The job or leaders is to deal with the things we don't want to hear about, whether it is the reality that we are frying the Earth, or that manufacturing jobs will never be what they were in the post-war era, or that education is our main way to improve our situation. Or that universal healthcare protects us in times of plague.
It is the job of government to prepare for disasters, even if we don't want to pay taxes.
But we tend to elect people who tell us what we want to hear, pander to ignorance, and promise easy solutions to difficult, complex problems.
The fault, dear Brutus, lies not int he stars, but in ourselves.
60
Two things are true, even if we do not wish them to be:
1. Science teaches us about how nature works and how we might best adapt ourselves to nature.
2. Nature bats last.
We have the ability to get lost in information eddies from the latest fad diet to the power of crystals to Gwyneth's latest musings. These diversions stand like Scylla and Charybdis preventing our safe forward progress.
Either we stand with science or we perish in its absence.
Batter up!
105
@Doug McNeill As you suggest there is only one reality that we ignore at our peril.
6
@Doug McNeill
And don't forget that Nature also swings a big stick.
6
@Doug McNeill Don't forget "and it bats 1000"!
2
If you've gotten the pneumonia shots recommended for everyone over age 65, you probably won't get the complications of these viral infections that kill. I don't know why these immunizations are not recommended for all ages now.
11
@Steve Bolger While everyone over 65 should get the pneumonia vaccines, they will not protect you against the Coronavirus. According the the WHO website mythbusters section: "Vaccines against pneumonia, such as pneumococcal vaccine and Haemophilus influenza type B (Hib) vaccine, do not provide protection against the new coronavirus." This virus needs it's own vaccine. Call your lawmakers and tell them to fund this now!
4
Is that a known risk reducer for Covid-19? It's a smart response in any case, but I have have not seen any recommendation updates.
@Steve Bolger
One thing we can be sure of is that if they ever are, the price charged for those immunizations will increase precipitously.
When done right, science insists on providing an understanding of the world that refuses to accommodate itself to ideology, religion, or economic interests. It will even overturn itself, given sufficient new data and provably better theories based on them. It requires the acknowledgement of where it has gaps, where there are questions lacking enough data to give a clear picture or a consistent framework to tie them together.
It requires the honesty to say “I don’t know.”
It requires the integrity to say “That’s not the answer I wanted, but it is the best answer I can give based on what we currently know.”
It requires the willingness to say “This changes everything I thought I understood” when new data and new theories are discovered, tested, and proven.
It requires the courage to admit “Natural laws know no pity, and the universe does not care” despite the desire for more comforting answers.
Science is a tool for understanding the universe, but it is also a test of character when all is said and done.
It is a test with lethal consequences for failure, but infinite promise when we rise to the challenge.
121
@Larry Roth: Wow. Beautifully stated. Thank you!
11
@Larry Roth A marvelous description of those of us who strive everyday to interpret new data as sensibly as possible.
And equally true for lay persons who find themselves awash in a sea of contradictory statements with little facility to descriminate sharks from life preservers.
7
"Morning in America" lead directly to mourning in America. Our illusions that we were somehow immune or exempt from the biological, ecological and environmental limits to growth are bearing their predictable pain. Instead of building resiliency we shot for the moon. Prayer to a heavenly host partly got us into this mess. It is time we got to really know how our earthly host really works. I hope that this virus, selected by living beyond ecological limits, brings man some much needed humility. We are not the end all but we are well on the way to ending it all if we don't get a grip on the fantasy we can continue living the way of needing four earths to sustain us.
8
Great piece. Stunned with the past two weeks showing how thoroughly the Trump administration has shredded the capability of our government agencies to do science. We have bench top sequencers that can sequence an entire human genome in a few hours and the CDC has struggled for months to put together a simple PCR test. Hard to appreciate how much we have fallen off the cliff in just a few years.
152
I have heard that you can get Corona repeatedly, that it is not like other Corona viruses that build immunity. Any Doctors out there that can confirm or deny this? It’s all a crapshoot if you are healthy.
4
@Mad
Another virus, influenza, has shown us repeated infections are possible since the viral coat is the face it shows to the world and to which our immune system makes antibodies while the viral core is the cause of the disease of influenza.
There is little reason to expect a coronavirus to behave altogether differently. Small changes in its surface antigens could give us another repetitive infection.
Other infections have different strains-polio has 3, HIV has 6 or so.
We learn about all these things because of SCIENTIFIC INVESTIGATION which we need to continue. We will learn much about this novel coronavirus in coming days including better understanding of incubation periods, recurrences v. reinfections, therapies and effective vaccines. But despite some statements to the contrary from the administration none of this will be cheap or fast.
36
@Mad
Where have you “heard” this? Certainly not from the NIH or WHO. Perhaps on Fox “News”?
As a research scientist and professor my job is to do science and make scientists. But my job is getting harder, as it is for scientists all over the world, because of an erosion of trust and a misunderstanding of what science is.
When a scientific community reaches a consensus about the topic of their expertise, listen. That is all you have to do. Don't politicize, don't accuse us of ideological bias and, above all, don't let non-experts, particularly media personalities with conflicts of interest, interpret what we say. Decades of propaganda trying to nullify scientific findings that suggest policy prescriptions that are antagonistic towards entrenched industries has crippled people's ability to discern fact from FUD and to recognize expert truth-tellers.
Science is not technology in the same sense that computers aren't made of math. Don't tie funding priorities to technological outcomes; scientific discovery does not and has never worked that way. We do not honor people with Nobel prizes for incrementally advancing established science towards commercial goals; we reward breakthroughs that are always a mixture of serendipity, curiosity and collaboration across space and time. Give us money (more than you do now), set some aside for targeted research, some for broadly defined societal goals and let us decide how to prioritize the rest. That is how you will develop cures to diseases and solutions to problems before they happen.
221
@RC
"When a scientific community reaches a consensus about the topic of their expertise, listen."
Ever hear of the Dunning Kruger Effect? Trump is leading the front on this one...
4
Public Health preparedness is not a new concept. Almost everyone understands how disease can spread from person to person. Remember Typhoid Mary, and High School Biology? What plans do local health departments have for the testing of birds and racoons that seem to die from natural causes in public spaces? Are their bodies thrown in the trash? Why the political denial of hard, cold facts? Homelessness in New York can spreads disease, and infringe the rights of others to have live and liberty. Can we legislate clean, safe streets? Is eating on rail roads and subway trains a threat to others as their beer cans spill on the floor? Can commuters lives without a three course meal on their daily commute? Global warming encourages the growth of viruses and bacteria. We learned that in high school biology, too. Our ignorance of public health is endless. This epidemic should be easy. It should be easy to be tested even for the "sniffles". The pathogens are winning this race. Tax cuts are not the cure. No virus is an island.
9
Mother Nature and her microbes rule. Forget prayer and concentrate on the rules of science which aim to interact with nature to our survival advantage. Science is our tool and we rose as a species as tool makers and users.
Modern thinking needs a populace that understands science and does not fight it or doubt it or appeal to an ancient desert cult subject to constant war and destruction. That said, Zoroastrians preoccupation with household cleanliness and fire might have been a better option for our current situation. Clorox as a lesser deity anyone?
39
@poslug: And yet you'll find very few atheists on their deathbeds at the holiest of science's temples: The hospital. Don't "forget prayer," especially after science has failed us yet again.
1
Excellent! As a lifelong embracer of science, I am appalled at how it is routinely ignored (although I bet everyone loves their cell phones & the internet - products of real science) or twisted for convenience. The last 3 years of the current administration's dismantling and dismissal of our science-based policies is at best disappointing and at worst dangerous. It seems the "worst" is evident in the government response to the coronavirus.
We need more than prayer.
For all the hullabaloo about STEM in public schools, we are woefully behind - and how can we expect kids to embrace empirical science when the adults around them demonstrate their predilections for popular pseudo-science.
We need to better educate adults, including our elected representatives that science, not prayer nor political dogma, is behind all of the technological advances of modernity and our future depends on understanding that real science (peer reviewed, etc) will be critical for our future.
In the short run, though, we need to support those who do understand science's role in our lives and ensure that those who stubbornly refuse that truth are removed from decision-making.
100
@DMS "how can we expect kids to embrace empirical science when the adults around them demonstrate their predilections for popular pseudo-science"
The majority of the adults around today's schoolkids are America's teachers. Unfortunately, very few teachers in elementary and middle school have mastered either math or science. For them to be able to teach science, math, or engineering principles, they have to know it. Similar with critical thinking - they chant "critical thinking" as a slogan, but shut it down when a student challenges the education or political status quo in that particular school district.
We need to improve the knowledge of science, math, and critical thinking all up and down the education system.
2
Science is alive and well the world over churning out peer-reviewed and double blind studies at an alarming speed and pace.
Science alas is often not conclusive, at least in the short run and in terms of practical solutions.
The problem is not science or ignoring it, but rather in translating the theoretical to the practical and then implementing it.
That is the world of politicians and administrators (some who may be or may have been scientists) who also have to come up with budgets for these practical matters.
This is also the world of practitioners and their success depends not on scientists, but on those politicians and administrators.
13
Don’t forget the teachers.
1
Science and art (in the broadest sense) are what distinguished humans from other animals. Both are intensely social activities, and we should honor and promote both to the best of our ability. Those that scorn or shackle either are less than fully human.
53
@Paul Adams How can science and art possibly be "intenesly social" activities? How exactly do the composer, the physicist, the poet, mathematician, work "intensely" in teams? Science and art are for the most part solitary activities, with the products of scientists and artists going into the world and being challenged there. This type of comment just show the abject ignorance of science and art in this country.
@Jacques At best, you mistake a part for the whole.
When I recently read Elizabeth Kolbert's book "The Sixth Extinction," I was struck by how much scientists in the field turned to those in the laboratory to develop the significance of what they had observed. Moreover, ideas developed by some scientists in turn informed the research objectives of others. Individual "aha" moments are hardly the whole of science. Although I am not a scientist myself, I will venture that if you looked at the articles in any reputable scientific journal, many, if not most, would have more than one author.
Even in the arts, the fact that individual artists create particular works does not mean that the arts are not social activities. In music, for example, what composers do is informed by all of what composers have done before and what other composers are doing now. In that sense, good composers have some of the best ears out there. What they do does not spring out of the void.
Both sciences and the arts are more than their products; they are processes informed by the interactions of their practitioners.
3
@Jacques. I am not so fond current educational obsession with team work either, but maybe the commenter, by the word “social,” meant “pro-social,” as in benefitting the community. I’d like to think so
The root cause of this easy to see. Since the 1970s the Left has progressively hijacked the education system to point where free speech is banned and politically incorrect essays are failed.
Understandably, a view has taken hold that all academics are governed by ideology rather than facts and logic. Trust declines scepticism reigns and irrationality takes hold.
13
@Mark "Free speech" to the right wing in this context means the right to force kids to swallow the bible's stories about creation and magic and to accept the oil companies' stories about climate change. Conservatives have been attacking science and logic for 40 or 50 years non-stop. Instead, they favor "belief", which is the precise opposite of fact or logic or science.
301
@Mark No. The root cause is religion forcing its beliefs into politics and the school curriculum since the 1970s. If a student writes an essay in science class saying that the earth is flat, he deserves to be failed because he will have shown no proof of his argument. The same goes for evolution, vaccines, climate change and any number of other scientific issues. Truth must win out over ignorance and superstition, or America will fail.
49
Huh. As a retired science teacher, I can tell you that it was right wing parents who resented my teaching about climate change and evolution and those parents tried to pull their children out of my class so they wouldn’t have to be exposed to such “dogma.”
The politicizing of science was created by the Right.
47
Epidemics have specific characteristics and points of failure. Like all natural disasters, societies forget their danger over time and don't invest enough in readiness. But there is a question at to whether or not being ready will help.
For example, there are always people who flee quarantines, before and after they are declared. They tend to spread the disease.
Governments fumble and make mistakes on quarantines.
Having a class of working poor and wage earners means that they will need to go to work to survive, even when they are sick .
Read Defoe's book about the plague in London. That book was commissioned by the city of London to create a memory of what it was like How many Government officials do you think have read it? How many physicians?
35
I’m going to use one theme and sub-theme of this, and leave the coronavirus to others.
While all the reasons cited that science is needed, as well as the forces blocking it, are correct, I want to play off the irony, both intended and maybe not, of his call for the contrarian-seeming prayer, and the precautionary principle from philosophy.
Science actually needs many things, some of which might also seem as opposites, or coming from other fields, such as the philosophy and sociology of science. It needs to self-improve, so hopefully once past the current crisis, and in a better cultural environment, it will be in better position to help us meet other crises.
Here are some: come to grips with the academic critics of objectivity, can it absorb calls for a strong emotional/values component, and find a workable hybrid? Peer review has to be real. Power and discrimination have to be faced. Its relationship with politics and policy needs to be re-thought. The conventional wisdom these are separate is frequently violated. So find another workable hybrid.
Systems, holistic, and post-normal science; and action research have to be explored. It may be that basic science has to evolve. Perhaps, too, the gold standard: the scientific method.
Science communication needs to continue improving. Citizen science needs to be more common.
Scientists getting stuck in existing, but increasingly questioned paradigms, as Kuhn warned, can no longer be afforded.
So while restoring, also improve it.
7
Praying to Science is the modern day version of praying to false gods and the belief that Man is in charge and can control everything.
It is difficult to put faith in scientists when some of the major scientific discoveries have been “serendipitous” (penicillin, chemotherapy, statins) and not as is often portrayed, the conclusion in a predetermined scientific method.
It is almost unthinkable to have faith in the frightening machinations of institutions such as government and science putting their craniums together to deliver false and flawed nutrition policy that has led to the cardiovascular, diabetic and obesity crisis.
And why should we believe believe, much less pray to scientists who can’t agree on whether an egg is healthy to eat or a heart stopper!
It’s evolution. Fires in California destroy the old to make way for new growth. Viruses cull the herds for reasons we may not understand.
Man can’t control everything and praying to false prophets is a waste of time and belief.
5
@Horace
And here we have an outstanding example of why I don't tell people I have an advanced degree in a science.
I have learned that in 21st Century America it is more socially acceptable to explain that gap in my life by telling people I did time in California rather than telling them I was busy doing a PhD.
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@ Horace
While some of those major discoveries were serendipities, the scientists behind them had the brilliance to observe and clearly delineate and replicate patterns in the natural world. And you’ve probably benefitted! It’s not about controlling the natural world, it’s about understanding it and learning to play by it’s rules so that we don’t destroy it or ourselves.
Personally, I WILL take the time to pray for scientists to be:
—doggedly curious and questioning in their pursuit of ideas
—accurate and objective in their observations
—tenacious and unrelenting in the pursuit of science over ego
—willing to share their peer reviewed work with others—public good over patent/profit
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But you are cherry picking topics (nutrition research, for example, that has evolved over time) as a basis for your criticism.
A collective government effort developed the atomic bomb which ended WW2. A collective government effort put man on the moon.
And while many scientific discoveries are serendipitous, a deeper understanding of them as well as applications developed (vaccines, for example) happen due to the disciplined nature of the scientific method.
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I’m a high school science teacher and I think part of the problem is the push, over the last 20 years, to increase testing. Another is the punitive system of rating schools and individual teachers based on the scores their students earn on those tests.
In the state of Arizona, we are currently gearing up to give the AIMS science test to our biology students. We give the test in March in my district, fully two months before the end of the school year.
The result? Teachers cramming content in so their school’s scores will be as high as possible so they can earn a coveted grade of “A” from the state.
The stakes? A low grade means, in Arizona where open enrollment across district borders is allowed, a small school population and reduction in funding.
We teachers are under pressure to get scores up so we focus on content knowledge rather than what science is and how science works. We focus on knowing facts rather than focusing on science literacy. I do my best after the darn AIMS test to focus on the latter and consider it the most important thing I teach all year.
I could focus more on scientific literacy if it weren’t for all the testing or if the test focused on what really matters to an informed citizenry.
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Are you serious?
2
@HOB Yes, the death of critical thinking!
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@HOB
Sorry, that's patent nonsense. There are one in a zillion free-thinkers like Freeman Dyson who can chuck the box aside once they've been inside it and come up with completely novel ways of looking at scientific problems.
But most of us think inside the box. You have to test for scientific literacy, just like you have to do with competency in basic stuff like addition and subtraction, multiplication and division. Moving on to more complex topics like trigonometry, calculus, differential equations. You can't just wing it or fake it until you make it.
I graduated at the top of my classes at a prestigious private school in Michigan, engineering school at Columbia University, and medical school in NYC. I never had a problem with standardized tests, nor did any of my peers.
Your approach leads to planes that don't fly, buildings that crash when someone thought they were safe from a minor earthquake, incompetent people everywhere you look for scientific excellence. Because nobody's feelings can be hurt by testing them for a basic level of proficiency, just keep passing them along to the next grade level.
That's how we get kids graduating high school who can't do 8th grade math and who speak English worse than some ten year old kids I know. Then they wonder why they can't get a job that's not a dead-end low paying one with zero benefits.
1
The congressman whose district includes many square miles of Sierra forests, including Yosemite National Park, is Tom McClintock.
Congressman McClintock is a Republican in a thus-far safe Republican district. You can occasionally find him on television spouting a conspiracy theory about anti-Trump double agents in the state department, or talking about his superior understanding of forestry science or climate change.
McClintock has repeatedly stated that climate science is “suspect science” but fails to explain why he thinks it is “suspect.”
So about every six months or so I waste my time and call his office. The relevant part of the conversation goes about like this:
Question #1: “Has Congressman McClintock explained to his staff, and you in particular, why he thinks climate science is “suspect science?”
The answer I invariably get is “no.”
Question #2: “Has Congressman McClintock explained to his staff why he believes he knows more than literally thousands of scientists with doctorates in sciences related to climate change?
The answer is again invariably “no.”
I think next time I call I’ll add another question, such as “Has Congressman McClintock explained to his staff why he believes the 'scientific method' is wrong?”
Then I’ll go back to my life trying to convince non-voters to vote, and McClintock will continue with his, convincing people to donate to his campaign, so as an anti-science, closeted libertarian, he can keep collecting his federal paycheck.
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@Andrew Sarkas "Then I’ll go back to my life trying to convince non-voters to vote, and McClintock will continue with his, convincing people to donate to his campaign, so as an anti-science, closeted libertarian, he can keep collecting his federal paycheck."
.... until he goes to work for the lobbying firms and those who fund the lobbying.
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@Wyn Achenbaum I was in his district for years and my recent move took me to an adjoining district. I think he's trying to get Trump's attention with his TV appearances and bizarre theories about anti-Trumpers in order to score an appointment in the administration. It's almost as if he's jumping up and down saying "look at me, look at me!"
6
"Today, a lot of people seem to determine how much they trust scientists based on their political ideas, which is backward and bizarre." Education, as always, is key. Unfortunately there are many in power who do not want an educated public.
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@Sue Thompson True, when people don't have critical thinking skills and knowledge, they are easier to manipulate and control. This is why Trump loves the uneducated and Betsy DeVos is in charge of destroying public education.
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@Sue Thompson Trump: "I love the uneducated."
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@Sue Thompson
We had the race to space starting from the early 1960s when Kennedy boosted scientific education at all levels of our educational system. Well, at least in certain schools . . .
Before we even got to the moon Reagan as Cali's governor felt threatened by liberal hippies at campuses like UC-Berkeley protesting the Vietnam War, and he began defunding public education. Public universities in California used to be tuition-free, rates have gradually crept up and up since then. (The defunding part is a bit odd as we spend plenty per-capita, again in *certain* school districts at least.)
It's been downhill ever since, that's why we import so many students as undergraduates and grad students in STEM fields. No engineering school in the country could survive without them, and many if not most come from countries we're supposedly not on good terms with. Talk about selling out your future in the name of retaining political power.
It's been all downhill ever since, and I sincerely doubt we'll recover anytime soon, if ever.
2
It's coincidental that the virus has spread in China and in Iran, the two countries Trump has chosen as enemies for no clear reason except a tantrum and because he can.
In less confrontational times, perhaps a global response would have been possible and we'd all be safer.
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@PNBlanco one thing the virus has exposed, is the vulnerability of the US supply chain monopolized by a communist country that has a plan to become the world power.
We have a President who has been pointing this out, and taking action. Before 2005 most of Big Pharm was manufacturing in Puerto Rico, now it is China.
While China manufactures everything we want and generally nothing we need, pharmaceuticals is the exception, and the last two Presidents had ignored it
10
@PNBlanco , no clear reason? Wake up and read the facts about Chinese and Iranian military buildup and hacking of our defense systems, corporate intellectual property and human rights issues.
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@hawk This reminds me of a saying I learned as a kid in Germany: "Even a blind hen will find a corn occasionally."
3
Coronavirus is what you get when ideology over rules science.
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I am a physician-scientist. I really appreciate your article. It does reflect some of the recent concerns and distractions. Let us all pray for a better tomorrow.
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Looking back over my life, I believe that the decline of basic knowledge of science began in the late 1960's. I'm a librarian and I find myself explaining very, very basic science concepts to patrons when they come in looking for support on crazy ideas. I think this country is in trouble.
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The masses only like cartoon characters to teach them anything.
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