In Defense of Science
That America is getting back to a life we once recognized, of dinners with friends and family, of bus trips and movie theaters, of Broadway shows and an in-person business meeting, is a testimony to the power of science.
I have written before about these amazing vaccines under the heading Yay, Science. But I feel the need to return to this topic in the wake of a movement to demonize science and scientists that is growing in this country, and around the world. Legitimate questions are being taken to absurd and dangerous extremes. The process of science is being misrepresented — either deliberately or due to ignorance. And this isn’t just the work of cynical operatives on the political right.
This Monday, comedian Jon Stewart went on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. It was a big moment, and not just because the old friends were reunited. This was the first Late Show in front of a live audience in more than a year. The crowd — all vaccinated — was packed to capacity, ready for a night to remember what we lost. Most didn’t wear masks.
With this as the backdrop, Stewart had something he wanted to say about the pandemic, and science. “I honestly mean this: I think we owe a great debt of gratitude to science,” Stewart began. I do not believe most people hearing this in real time expected he would go where he eventually did. But go there he went. “Science has in many ways helped ease the suffering of this pandemic ― which was more than likely caused by science.” From there Stewart unleashed a rant, couched in his familiar style of humor, about his conclusion that the theory COVID came from a Chinese lab in Wuhan was a certainty. He added, “Oh my God, there’s a novel respiratory coronavirus overtaking Wuhan, China. What do we do? Oh, you know who we could ask? The Wuhan novel respiratory coronavirus lab.”
