Sociologists of Science and Technology take science fiction very seriously. Although it is often dismissed as a cheap literary form, it represents an important way in which contemporary societies try to think about and shape their futures. In this respect, it stands alongside more ‘respectable’ literary forms like modelling or scenario planning. Science fiction emerges… Read More »
Would the world be a better place if it were governed by physicians instead of politicians? The Greek scholar, Plato, asked that question 2,500 years ago. After all, physicians focus on healing the sick and promoting the health of the well. Why would you not want to put them in charge? That focus, Plato says,… Read More »
…policies have been made by people with very narrow life experiences and imposed on others with whom there is ‘no intercourse and no sympathy’…This indifference is as true of our scientific and medical elites as of our politicians and public servants. Although STEM disciplines have traditional been ladders of social mobility, we are seeing the… Read More »
Let us first understand that ‘disease’, ‘illness’ and ‘infection’ are not categories that are given to us by nature. They are human moral judgements about the undesirability of the impact of certain microorganisms on ourselves, and a few favoured plant and animal species that are particularly relevant to us. Most of the sciences that study… Read More »
The COVID-19 pandemic has had enormous effects on health, wellbeing, and economies worldwide. Governments have responded with rapid and sometimes radical public health interventions. As nations grapple with the question of how to regain normality without unnecessarily endangering lives or healthcare systems, some scientists have argued for policies to encourage or compel the use of… Read More »
The UK government has regularly been denounced by many in the public health community for its absence of strategy in responding to the Covid-19 pandemic. Much of this criticism, however, reflects a simple dislike of the strategy or of the government that has authored it. On closer inspection, the UK government does have an intellectually… Read More »
Somewhere along the line we have lost a sense of proportion about the Covid-19 pandemic. At the beginning, we were rightly concerned that a novel virus, to which human populations had never been exposed, might represent an existential threat to our species. This justified rapid, and often poorly-evidenced, actions to interrupt transmission of the infection.… Read More »
21 May 2020 PANELISTS: 2:00 Samuel Veissière (McGill): Introductory remarks on the ‘infodemic’, the role of the Internet, and pre-existing social pathologies 2:15 Cécile Rousseau (McGill): Symptoms – Virtue – War 2:30 Stefan Ecks (Edinburgh): The importance of social science in pandemic epidemiology 2:45 Robert Dingwall (Nottingham Trent): The three social pandemics: fear, explanation and… Read More »
In the midst of the present chaos, it is easy to forget that the world has had pandemics before and that they have come to an end. Can we learn anything from these experiences that might help us in dealing with Covid-19? Note first that no pandemic has actually wiped out humanity. While this may… Read More »
Going Viral is a podcast developed by Mark Honigsbaum, a journalist and historian to look at issues around infectious disease outbreaks. The current focus is on Covid-19, with a historian’s interest in the longer-term context of the immediate UK government response. Richard Horton has been arguing that rapid action should have followed the publication of… Read More »