Science in the Time of COVID19

Science in the time of COVID19

Perhaps I was just lucky to be born a baby-boomer. Unlike my forebears, a relatively comfortable existence hasn’t been troubled by war, famine or pestilence. Until now. A sense that everything moves inexorably but positively forward has always been there, rarely troubling my consciousness. This confidence, that science and rational thinking will see off whatever challenges a relatively untroubled existence might face, has formed the bedrock of an almost religious faith.

Science is about organising observable and measurable phenomena (at least I think that’s what Aristotle was getting at). Scientists are engaged in the same activity: bringing order and sense to the infinite range of phenomena that intersect with and shape our lives. Molecular biologists, engineers, physicists, mathematicians etc., all share at least one common purpose: reducing disorder in the world.  We choose our own small piece of that uncertainty and dedicate our lives to organising it.  

Meanwhile, comfortable in our arrogance, we’ve sleep-walked into the current pandemic. Our confidence as scientists has been shaken. Now we want that creative energy focused and coherent, like a laser illuminating and resolving this perplexing problem.

The inexplicable faith I mentioned earlier; it’s coming back to the surface.  I’m sure we’ll overcome this problem and a status quo ante of sorts will be restored. But is that the outcome we want? To get back to where we were? No, we want to have moved forward; to learn, and feel confident that we have learned. Rarely are we presented with such opportunities to work and learn together as a global community. Sadly it has taken already and continues to take many deaths and immense socio-economic disruption to bring people together in search of solutions to this and future pandemics.

I hope my (perhaps misguided) faith in science and rational thinking will not let me down. The science thrown at the pandemic problem has been staggering, uncovering and revealing as many new issues as it has answered. We are grappling with lots of new questions about epidemiology, respiratory pathology and immunity. Coming back to Aristotle, we’ll need decades to organise what we’ve observed and measured.