Monday, April 6, 2020
The lasting effects of watching cable news on Saturday linger like the taste of sour milk. However, instead of leadership, I am back to epistemology. There is a big difference between trying to find meaning (and hope) and making something factually correct. Even when one's motives are good (I want to make sense of this thing), it is easy to slip into logical fallacies, conflating meaning and truth. As educated, thinking adults, we owe it to our fellow humans to speak the truth and to call out unknowns of reality - even when the facts are hard to face, filled with uncertainty, and painful. And even more so if we are accountable for some portion of the unfolding of that reality.
--------
The latest from FT. It seems they are more consistent in their data presentation.
https://www.ft.com/coronavirus-latest
I was not the only one bothered by public statements regarding hydroxychloroquine. A number of my colleagues have concerns. I would suggest reading these threads. Anecdote <> Data. Here is a twitter biopsy:
https://twitter.com/kidney_boy/status/1246844770300891137?s=12
https://twitter.com/allisonrbond/status/1246811905898852353?s=12
https://twitter.com/scottgottliebmd/status/1246963609365774344?s=12
I am also not alone in my consternation about the masks.
https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/04/coronavirus-pandemic-airborne-go-outside-masks/609235/
I continue to get asked [by certain people in my life] about dogs and cats and COVID. The Chinese, I read, killed many abandoned animals in January and February (need to verify this, but that is not the point). Over the weekend, Tigers at the Bronx Zoo have tested + for COVID.
https://www.businessinsider.com/tiger-tests-positive-for-covid-19-bronx-zoo-in-nyc-2020-4
What does this mean? Do cats get sick from COVID? Can they spread it? What about other animals? (And thanks to Netflix, tigers seem to be everywhere these days!)
Here is the best layman's scientific article I could find on this -
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/cats-animals-pets-coronavirus-covid19
An excellent description of the mechanism of how viruses work, by a virologist, turned biotech investor.
https://twitter.com/PeterKolchinsky/status/1246975275021348865
he also wrote about COVID mutation and the hopes for a vaccine
https://www.city-journal.org/coronavirus-vaccine
And lastly, a non-COVID (and somewhat self-serving) article helping me cope with that boundless trauma of middle school.
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/04/the-perks-of-being-a-weirdo/606778/
----
Bonus Round --- More people who seek the truth.
I have a thing for Hanna Arendt. Here is a quick read on her work describing the how we make sense of the truth. A quick read on a big topic.
https://www.brainpickings.org/2014/09/16/hannah-arendt-the-life-of-the-mind/
I read some history around the Islamic golden age philosopher Avicenna recently. The complexity and depth of recorded human thought over the last 3 millennia is an endless source of amazement to me. He was a physician, mathematician, and philosopher (amongst many other things). And, he was an early writer about the scientific method - advancing earlier thoughts on more inductive reasoning with ideas on how to TEST a hypothesis and deduce truth through observation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avicenna
An interesting overview of his place in medical history (note that this journal is named after him though, so be thoughtful!)
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3558117/
Clean hands and sharp minds
-AW
The lasting effects of watching cable news on Saturday linger like the taste of sour milk. However, instead of leadership, I am back to epistemology. There is a big difference between trying to find meaning (and hope) and making something factually correct. Even when one's motives are good (I want to make sense of this thing), it is easy to slip into logical fallacies, conflating meaning and truth. As educated, thinking adults, we owe it to our fellow humans to speak the truth and to call out unknowns of reality - even when the facts are hard to face, filled with uncertainty, and painful. And even more so if we are accountable for some portion of the unfolding of that reality.
--------
The latest from FT. It seems they are more consistent in their data presentation.
https://www.ft.com/coronavirus-latest
I was not the only one bothered by public statements regarding hydroxychloroquine. A number of my colleagues have concerns. I would suggest reading these threads. Anecdote <> Data. Here is a twitter biopsy:
https://twitter.com/kidney_boy/status/1246844770300891137?s=12
https://twitter.com/allisonrbond/status/1246811905898852353?s=12
https://twitter.com/scottgottliebmd/status/1246963609365774344?s=12
I am also not alone in my consternation about the masks.
https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/04/coronavirus-pandemic-airborne-go-outside-masks/609235/
I continue to get asked [by certain people in my life] about dogs and cats and COVID. The Chinese, I read, killed many abandoned animals in January and February (need to verify this, but that is not the point). Over the weekend, Tigers at the Bronx Zoo have tested + for COVID.
https://www.businessinsider.com/tiger-tests-positive-for-covid-19-bronx-zoo-in-nyc-2020-4
What does this mean? Do cats get sick from COVID? Can they spread it? What about other animals? (And thanks to Netflix, tigers seem to be everywhere these days!)
Here is the best layman's scientific article I could find on this -
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/cats-animals-pets-coronavirus-covid19
An excellent description of the mechanism of how viruses work, by a virologist, turned biotech investor.
https://twitter.com/PeterKolchinsky/status/1246975275021348865
he also wrote about COVID mutation and the hopes for a vaccine
https://www.city-journal.org/coronavirus-vaccine
And lastly, a non-COVID (and somewhat self-serving) article helping me cope with that boundless trauma of middle school.
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/04/the-perks-of-being-a-weirdo/606778/
----
Bonus Round --- More people who seek the truth.
I have a thing for Hanna Arendt. Here is a quick read on her work describing the how we make sense of the truth. A quick read on a big topic.
https://www.brainpickings.org/2014/09/16/hannah-arendt-the-life-of-the-mind/
I read some history around the Islamic golden age philosopher Avicenna recently. The complexity and depth of recorded human thought over the last 3 millennia is an endless source of amazement to me. He was a physician, mathematician, and philosopher (amongst many other things). And, he was an early writer about the scientific method - advancing earlier thoughts on more inductive reasoning with ideas on how to TEST a hypothesis and deduce truth through observation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avicenna
An interesting overview of his place in medical history (note that this journal is named after him though, so be thoughtful!)
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3558117/
Clean hands and sharp minds
-AW
Comments
Post a Comment