Gaza, Israel, and the imperative of bearing witness | The Healthiest Goldfish

Thoughts on the unfolding tragedy in the Middle East.

I was today writing a piece on a different topic, but events in the Middle East seem to have overtaken all thoughts I was dedicating to other ideas, which I will get back to in time. I found myself immersed in reading and re-reading about the tragedy unfolding in the Middle East, and, with that backdrop, working to write a note to our community about my evolving thoughts on the issue. I rework here some of that piece for today’s essay. It will be a shorter essay than usual, reflecting, in part, the inadequacy of words in the face of human suffering and the truth that, for all the words that have been used to discuss this conflict, they all fall short of what we want to hear: that the war has ended, that the hostages have been freed, and that steps are being taken towards the creation of a lasting peace.

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Authority | Observing Science

Einstein joked that “to punish me for my contempt for authority, Fate made me an authority myself.” His contempt was achieved honestly: he knew that his originality was based on doubting authority, by asking questions that challenge accepted answers. By becoming an authority himself, he had become someone who should be doubted, rather than a scientist whose role is to doubt. This is, in many ways, a fundamental challenge facing science: how to keep acquiring knowledge and wisdom through hard-won skepticism while also becoming experts who society turns to for certainty.

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Admitting better, encouraging optimism | The Healthiest Goldfish

On “accentuating the positive” in our pursuit of health.

We are in the business of health. Core to this business is having conversations about how we can create better health by creating a healthier world. These conversations often involve talking about how the world is not yet healthy, about the diseases that keep populations sick and the injustices and inequities that drive this poor health. We have these conversations because we must, because we cannot solve problems without first naming them and studying them. My own writing is no exception. When I look back at my written output, I find much of it addresses how we can have less disease, with considerations of health sometimes taking a backseat to engaging with the challenges that can get in the way of health. This is perhaps as it should be. To this point, we have just published a note for our community about the threats to the values of inclusion, dignity for all, and health.  This all reminds us that a hallmark of health is that we do not think so much about it when we are healthy. We want to be healthy so we can live; when we are healthy, we are often so busy living that we do not think much about the health that enables this. On the other hand, when we are sick, even a little bit, it can be hard to think of anything else.

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Diversifying Science | Observing Science

There is abundant evidence both that having diverse teams increases creativity and productivity, and that science is not as diverse as it could and should be. Much like many endeavors that have been the province of the privileged, science has long been overrepresented with persons from majority groups, and from higher socioeconomic classes. In some respect, science is what you can do if you can afford to spend the years in a lengthy (and often expensive) education, and then engage in a field that probably does not remunerate you as much as other fields might if one applied the same aptitude and education. This has created problematic lack of diversity and of representation among scientists, and almost certainly science has suffered as a result.

The good news is that the lack of diversity among scientists has been amply noted in the past decade and substantial efforts are underway to diversify fields, to ensure that persons engaged represent much better the societies within which science operates. We are optimistic that we are headed in the right direction.

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Introducing Observing Science | The Healthiest Goldfish

A new essay series, written with Michael Stein, on the workings of science, the challenges it faces, and its potential to shape a healthier future.

Last week, I announced the launch of The Turning Point, a new book based on a series of essays written in collaboration with my friend and colleague, Michael Stein. Today, I am delighted to introduce a new series of essays Michael and I will be co-writing, to be released each Tuesday through Public Health Post.

For those who are new to Public Health Post, it is our public health science translational website, which we have run as a school for eight years now. Deeply shaped by the vision of its founding Editor-in-Chief, our late and much missed colleague David Jones, it features articles by our faculty, and by writers from around the world. PHP also hosts a student fellowship where every year five fellows join the PHP team to write pieces, as a way of educating the next generation of public health communicators. PHP has been a delight of a project, a wonderful link between education and translating science. You can find PHP here, and if you want to get the PHP weekly digest you can sign up here.

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Game Changer | Observing Science

Now that the Super Bowl is over, American football’s attention is focused on the draft to select a group of new players. The players, trained and developed across hundreds of universities, are chosen to join those already on the roster to make what could become–is expected to become–a better team. At every draft turn, the team chooses the “best available” player who might add an important piece, looking to strengthen the team’s prospects. And, most of the time, as new players are added, teams get a bit better, play at a higher level.

In the best circumstance, science operates as a team, and it is the addition of new scientists who bring new ideas, new ways to play, that advance our understanding. Thought of in this way, science is a shared undertaking, drafting the best available players. We think of science as a team that is never perfect, never unbeatable, but always looking to improve and meet changing challenges.

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Introducing The Turning Point | The Healthiest Goldfish

A new book, written with Michael Stein, which looks backward and forward through the lens of the COVID moment.

In 2021, the US was at a turning point. We had just lived through the acute phase of a global pandemic. During that time, the country had experienced an economic crisis, civil unrest, a deeply divisive federal election, and a technological revolution in how we live, work, and congregate. The emergence of COVID-19 vaccines allowed us, finally, to look ahead to a post-pandemic world, but what would that world be like? Would it be a return to the pre-COVID status quo, or would it be something radically new?

It was with these questions in mind that, in 2021, I partnered with my good colleague, Michael Stein, to write a series of essays reflecting on the COVID-19 pandemic. Our aim with the essays was to engage with the COVID moment through the lens of cutting-edge public health science. By exploring the pandemic’s intersection with topics like digital surveillance, vaccine distribution, big data, and the link between science and political decision-making, we tried to sketch what the moment meant while it unfolded, and what its implications might be for the future. If journalism is “the first rough draft of history”, these essays were, in a way, our effort to produce just such a draft, from the perspective of a forward-looking public health. I am delighted to announce that a book based on this series of essays has just been published by Oxford University Press. Its title is The Turning Point: Reflections on a Pandemic.

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Can We Communicate Science Better in the Age of TikTok? | Observing Science

Not so long ago, communicating ideas to the general public required access to a newspaper with wide circulation or to a broadcast studio. Now, anyone with an internet connection can, at least theoretically, reach massive numbers of people through a variety of digital communication platforms.

Social media has exploded as a form of information exchange. Facebook had 2.4 billion users in 2019 and 79% of adults in the U.S. use social media. This is also, of course, generationally patterned. About a third of Americans under 30 now get their news from TikTok and fewer than half from television.

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