Hantavirus Cruise Ship Panic: Should You Actually Be Worried?
Cameron (00:01.314)
Hello and welcome to Thinking Out Loud. I'm your co-host Cameron McAllister.
Nathan (00:05.546)
And I'm your co-host, Nathan Rittenhouse. Again.
Cameron (00:07.192)
We're here to talk about viruses. Again, here we go again. Well, or do we go here again? Yeah, that's, well, that's kind of the question in the very online world. no, I do, so I do want.
Nathan (00:20.676)
How long is it before you're going to be dead from the hantavirus? That's what Cameron's really wondering.
Cameron (00:24.822)
Yeah, right. That's the thing that's preoccupying my mind right now. That's what I'm really worried about when it comes to the world today. Not global conflict or anything like that. But no, do want to talk about this briefly because I do think there are some interesting elements to this story of this cruise ship, which I think as of this recording, still I think it's bound for a harbor right now, but it still hasn't... the people still have a disembarked.
Nathan (00:51.62)
They're headed to Spain, right? They're going to evacuate some people to Spain, but they're trying to work out exactly what to do with them. And then they're kind of trying to contact trace people who have been off of it and yeah. right. So epidemiology, here we go.
Cameron (01:00.012)
Yeah. One suspected case here, epidemiology here, one suspected case here in my home state of Georgia, think another being monitored in Arizona, Texas, California.
Nathan (01:12.27)
but not related to the cruise ship, just because this is a virus that's a virus.
Cameron (01:17.132)
Yeah. And I guess, mean, just a little bit of, this is the stuff that anybody could look up, but interestingly, it looks like right now as of this recording, Argentina is believed to be the main place where this is happening. I guess the most cases I had ever heard...
Nathan (01:32.61)
Now Cameron, you can't talk about viruses origins being related to a specific country. That's problematic.
Cameron (01:38.188)
Sorry, sorry, it's for Bowton. they're working overtime, epidemiologists, they're working overtime to try to figure out what's going on. But I had never heard of, had you ever heard of hantavirus?
Nathan (01:49.636)
Yeah, cause the, the, uh, well, a couple of reasons. So one, if you've ever watched the TV show alone, the survival show, there are seasons of that where the survivalists are not supposed to eat the rodents because of hantavirus outbreaks in that area. Um, and so, so some seasons they're allowed to eat the mice and rats they catch and some seasons they aren't because of this. Um, and then Gene Hackman, his wife, or he died from. Yeah.
Cameron (02:04.15)
Okay. Yep.
Cameron (02:10.915)
Yeah.
Cameron (02:16.597)
that's right, I keep-
Nathan (02:18.094)
So this is a pretty big news story a year or two ago in Arizona.
Cameron (02:21.582)
I didn't even pay attention to the causes of death so much there. Gene Hackman was one of my favorite actors, just side note. I just thought it was a very sad and bizarre end.
Nathan (02:33.142)
yeah, I mean, it's, it's, it's horribly sad. I'm not making light. when I, I'm saying, and we'll get to this a little bit. Like when I was saying the tongue in cheek thing about, can't say where a virus originated or that's racist or something like, there are some interesting parallels here of, of where we're coming from. The difference with this is, is that the coronavirus was a unique virus. Hantavirus is not. I mean, it's, it's there in multiple.
Cameron (02:56.846)
Mm-hmm.
Nathan (03:01.71)
climates and regions and ecosystems. a, it's a known existing thing. Like this isn't new. What's new about this one is on a cruise ship and we just love the idea. think you point out one time is this idea like somebody be on a paradise cruise and it turns into a living hell. it's, the drama of the context of this version of it, not the uniqueness of the fact that there's a hantavirus.
Cameron (03:17.25)
Mm-hmm.
Cameron (03:24.428)
And you do add some elements of us being victims of our own success. This thing spreads much more efficiently because of modern modes of transportation. I think that adds an element here too in this story.
Nathan (03:35.342)
yeah, take people from all over the world and put them in a isolation bubble together. Let's see what happens. But that could be said for airplanes and subways and the DMV, so.
Cameron (03:40.748)
Yeah, and then put them on flight and...
Absolutely. I do have to one last semi humorous note. mean, so this is serious. I know the people on board. This is not, this is funny to them. This isn't the stuff of satire. Some of you have seen some of the, was one video from a travel blogger, travel blogger. What do you call these people? An influencer with a phone? What do you call these people these days who made a sort of tearful video saying, hey, we're all pretty scared. Yeah, of course. But I do think
It is funny when you read the news, some of the stuff, just comes off as so banal. Well, know, if this is spreading person to person, know, coughing and all of that could play a role in that. But if they're having sex, they're probably, 10 times more likely to spread this virus, scientists say. Do you really need a scientist to tell you that, yeah, sexual contact with somebody who's infected is probably going to make it much more possible for you to contract the virus?
Nathan (04:33.636)
We need experts.
Nathan (04:39.746)
No, but that was a headline back during COVID too of whether or not you were supposed to wear a mask during sex. This is the world we live in. This is the kind of stuff that obviously sickness, virus, and death is sad, but then there's the human response to this and the cultural response to this that I think does allow for some pretty significant eye rolling, Cameron. And we, okay, but we, okay, yeah, start there.
Cameron (04:45.582)
Mmm, yeah. Alright.
Cameron (05:01.772)
Okay, so I do have a question for you on that. Yeah, so on that one specifically, Nathan, so because I think because you've got a scientific background. So one of the things that happened with COVID-19 is that the World Health Organization lost some serious trust and credibility. And I think you could make a broader statement and say that the scientific establishment lost a few credibility points. Whether that's fair or not is a completely other story, but they did.
And I was really frustrated recently because I had seen a talk that was given by a very prominent scientist who happens to be a Christian. And this question was brought forth and I thought, scientist has an opportunity to really address this serious public loss of trust. And instead, the scientist just said, well, people were very irrational and silly and they should just trust the science and just trust the science and they didn't and they didn't follow.
the mandates or the policies. So what I want to ask you here, Nathan, specifically is, you know, the World Health Organization, people are, you see them talking and you can see the frustration on their faces. This is not COVID-19. This is not coronavirus. This is a very different type of virus. They made some of the same statements you just did earlier. This is a known virus. We are familiar with it. It doesn't spread in the same way. Can you speak a little bit? But of course, people are responding skeptically.
And social media is a buzz. Are we going to be in lockdowns again? it all? So I'd like you to speak to that loss of trust a little bit and how what a balanced response might be for those who are not scientists.
Nathan (06:44.526)
Well, the thing of it is, is that...
Nathan (06:49.976)
This isn't strictly a science issue, which will sound weird here, but the process of science is to the scientific method works by exploring an unknown and then coming up with multiple hypotheses of what the causation, whether the mechanics, how does this work? And then you test them and the vast majority of time, the theory is wrong, but in the process of testing,
Cameron (06:54.862)
But Nathan, I'm just kidding.
Nathan (07:19.716)
and then coming back with the information, you work on the theory, you apply it again, you test it to reality. Science is more like an amoeba that feels its way forward into the unknown than it is this step one, step two, step three, step four in a very precise mathematically deductive process. part of the struggle that you see in the face of the epidemiology, now as a result of that, then
Research is done, papers are written. Our understanding of the biological virology of epidemiology comes from that. do have legitimate experts who have thought about this and studied it, but it's it's complicated in the sense that, when you wake up, like I would say nine times out of 10, the National Weather Service gets the nighttime low for where I live correct. That is a modern marvel that
15 hours in advance, can foreknow what the temperature is going to be. And then sometimes they're off by like seven degrees and stuff freezes. And you're like, that was a swing and a miss. That's not a failure of science. That's a, the world is really complex and there are a lot of variables at play. to understand a process does not mean that you have mastery of the outcome of all these variables. So,
The problem that think that the epidemiologists and the policymakers are having is that people have an overly concrete vision in view of what overly romanticized and almost religious vision of what science is and what it does. And even the people who are like the pure scientists themselves would say, no, you're overstating what it is that we can know here. That's not to say there isn't a lot of value to it. It's just that the future is very, prophecy is very hard.
And science is not a form of prophecy.
Cameron (09:20.204)
Hmm
Nathan (09:21.572)
And so you can't there's there's almost no way to with pen you can now you can make best-case scenarios and worst-case scenarios and and Come up with recommendations based off of how similar things have happened in the past all extremely valuable but it reminds me of you know the thing where they a lot of murders in the US go unsolved and and somebody was talking about how
Cameron (09:43.574)
Mm-hmm. Yep.
Nathan (09:46.2)
how frustrating that is to the people who have watched a lot of like Law and Order or NCIS or these crime shows on TV where you've got the brilliant investigator come in and the science and the forensics and they track down and they can figure out every little detail of everything and boom. And so there's a fake TV version of how crimes are solved that we then take into the reality or let's take somebody who would say like, I've watched a bunch of episodes of House.
Cameron (09:55.596)
Yeah.
Nathan (10:16.311)
So every hospital should be able to solve every single condition. That's just not how reality works. That's a fantasy that you're trying to map onto reality. And so I'm belaboring the point here, but I think there's a lot of that going on with the public cultural vision of what science is and what it does and the expectations we have for it.
Cameron (10:25.549)
Mm-hmm.
Nathan (10:37.86)
that isn't coming from science itself. Now, politicians and community leaders and the way in which stuff is communicated, that is a dumpster fire frequently. So I want to defend science as it is and see that it is good and it's a beautiful gift to humanity, but also put the boundaries on it that it puts on itself of what it can and can't do.
Cameron (10:48.524)
Okay, I want to talk about that next. Yep.
Cameron (11:02.798)
All right, I wanna talk about that. So you brought up the next item of business, Nathan. I have other questions for you. So often you get to, you're interrogating me, not interrogating me, you ask me questions. So now I get to turn the tables here and ask you some questions. So yeah, one of the aspects about this and also about COVID, which is fascinating and it'll be studied for years and years, is the handling of the information itself. And of course, the...
Nathan (11:12.033)
you
Nathan (11:30.18)
Mm-hmm.
Cameron (11:32.695)
really interesting variable here for us these days is social media. I mean, you simply cannot contain what's, I think if Michael Crichton, you know, the author of Jurassic Park, if he were alive today, I think I would love to get his creative spin on this. He wrote a novel a little bit about the spread of misinformation, if I'm not mistaken. But I mean, social media is a whole nother ball of wax here. So,
Nathan (11:43.032)
Yeah.
Cameron (12:00.387)
The way the information's being handled here is really interesting already, Nathan. I think for me right now, the most fascinating piece of footage is the captain of the ship. the name of the ship is escaping me right now, MV something. But anyway, you can look that up. You can look that up, dear listeners. You're smart. But the captain, now the captain may have been ignorant here at the time. Nathan's looking it up. I can tell by the direction of his, the aim of his head.
Nathan (12:27.438)
Hondius, envy Hondius.
Cameron (12:29.135)
Hey, I was half, 50 % on that. So the captain, you don't need to look his name up, Nathan, it's okay. But he may have been ignorant at this point. We don't know. mean, think this was at some point in, this was in April. There's footage of him making an announcement to the ship. Hey, somebody, know, a man has died. We know that the man's wife then subsequently, she died as well, I think in Johannesburg.
Nathan (12:31.684)
you
Cameron (12:56.729)
But he has died and the captain says he died of natural causes. And so now, know, lots of, but what's interesting about that is of course, that's not accurate. But what did he have access to at the time and also the way it plays now in the eyes of the public? In some cases, maybe we, the public know more than certain people depending on their signal and their wifi.
Nathan (13:10.197)
Wait a second!
Cameron (13:22.979)
than they do even about what's going on. That's another interesting, because I've been on a cruise ship once before and you have pretty limited Wi-Fi access in certain international waters. But anyway, the handling of the information, Nathan, and go.
Nathan (13:24.267)
right, yeah.
Nathan (13:40.942)
Well, if you die from an infectious disease from an animal, that is death by natural cause.
Cameron (13:52.801)
All right, well, I guess we give them a technical pass on this one. Yeah, you're right. Yeah. But people will say, that's not what we mean. That's not what we mean. And you know it. Yeah. Okay.
Nathan (13:52.857)
So, I'm just saying, it was like, but we're, but we are, but it speaks to what I'm saying. We're living in a time in which dying is not considered a natural thing. So, so this, mean, it can't happen. People don't die, Cameron. This is an outrage. Now, is this on a cruise ship? Yeah. So, so is it sad? Yes, absolutely.
Cameron (14:10.092)
Yeah, right, sure.
Cameron (14:17.903)
especially on cruise ships, that's when you're having fun.
Nathan (14:23.157)
We believe life is sacred and to be honored and has intrinsic value granted by our Lord.
Cameron (14:30.009)
Amen.
Nathan (14:31.428)
But the, so, so a couple things. One is he might not have known. Two, he might have been communicating, the guy wasn't murdered. You'd probably want to know that if you're on a cruise ship. So what's the alternative thing he's supposed to say? Hey, somebody's dead, but we're not going to tell you why. That's probably not comforting to the pet. He is asleep. And the Lord struck him down. No, yeah. So I, I, I,
Cameron (14:47.287)
In the biblical sense, he fell asleep. Sorry. It's not the time for it. Yeah. Anyway, go ahead. Yes.
Nathan (14:56.516)
There's so much of this that it's so easy to sit back and armchair a quarterback of this is what the captain of the cruise ship should have said
It's almost meaningless to go through the hypothetical.
Cameron (15:08.323)
But the overall handling of the information... But the bigger picture, Nathan. So the way... Yeah.
Nathan (15:13.454)
Well we have no-
Nathan (15:18.033)
I'm just saying there are no trusted sources. What we consider to be a trusted source is somebody who has already formed the opinion we want to hear.
Cameron (15:26.221)
Also, your prognosis is pretty grim there then. So is this a little bit of the do your own research phenomenon, Nathan? Or is this more, let me go searching for the story that's going to confirm my suspicions kind of deal and find my brand of, or not my brand of news, but my interpretation. Let me find my interpretation in print somewhere here on this particular story.
Nathan (15:40.817)
yeah.
Nathan (15:52.495)
So here's another question you asked, because I think this is relevant, because you were saying that some people's response has been like, have we learned nothing from COVID?
Cameron (16:01.517)
Yeah, I'm seeing that more and more. We're learning nothing from COVID. So it brought to mind for me. OK. Well, what should we have learned from COVID?
Nathan (16:11.094)
Here's what you should learn. One of the things, this is Nathan speaking definitively here, is that any time that you're in a crisis, the relationships that you formed before the crisis are the most valuable. Like the worst time to pack a parachute is after you're already falling out of the plane, or the worst time to train for a marathon is in the middle of a marathon. And so do you, so I'll give you good example. During COVID, I knew people,
who a lot of information was coming out about the vaccines, about this, that, and the other, and we're hearing lots of different stuff. And they would come to me and say, um, what do you think about this? And I would say, Hey, you do know some people from the Christian community that you might even go to church with who know a lot about this. You should talk to them and hear what they have to say. So it's a, it's a preexisting relationship of trust with somebody who also happens to have expertise in that category.
That is an incredibly valuable thing to have. It's a pre-existing relationship that can help you think wisely about the decisions you want to make. You trust and respect them. You know that they care for you individually. You know that they have some insight into stuff you don't have. Awesome. That is the ideal. And I don't think anybody would argue with that. Like that is, you, Cameron, you recently had a massive plumbing incident in your house. And at that moment,
Cameron (17:35.894)
Mmm, that's fun, yep.
Nathan (17:39.354)
You thought, wait, I'm in a small group of somebody who knows how to handle this. So the crisis was managed through a pre-existing relationship and it worked out, right? Not to say it wasn't difficult, but you knew who to lean on. I'm saying that nationally and globally, we do not have the resources and the pre-existing relationships to know how to handle a crisis well.
Cameron (17:43.545)
Mm-hmm.
Cameron (17:50.84)
It did.
Cameron (18:03.553)
Okay. Let me press into that for a second. So here's my one slender contribution to this conversation because I think Nathan is the wiser owl here in general, but especially in this conversation. I think often of the phrase from Marshall McLuhan, global village. I've been using that a lot. He coined that in his book, The Gutenberg Galaxy, and he meant for it to be a provocative phrase because global and village don't obviously go together as words. And a village is
Nathan (18:31.471)
back then.
Cameron (18:32.557)
Yeah, because a village is just so darn specific. You're talking about a very specific place with people and it will have its own specific peculiar laws, customs, traditions. That's the way a village works. But the ambition for modern people has been a global village where we're all connected and we all live together as happy, clappy consumers who like to go on cruise ships. mean, and that's our vision of
paradise in some ways or an all-inclusive. the part of... So one of the big lessons I think that I'm hoping we took to heart from COVID is that there is still such a thing as a village. There are still villages in the sense that there are localities with their own specific demands. And so the answer of trying to come up with some top-down mandate policy for everyone, everywhere...
on this planet is a fool's errand. Different places are going to look different. So different places will need different approaches and different policies. So that's something that I hope we've taken to heart. I'm not sure we have, but...
Nathan (19:48.197)
Well, see, no. here's the thing Cameron is,
Let's say this, I'm just making up a random hypothetical here. Let's say you're sitting in church on Sunday morning and somebody notices that there's a rattlesnake under this bed. Cause I think snake handling in church, that's not where I'm going with this, but there's, there's a, there's a venomous, you know, there's some kind of creature. and, the, some, so one of the deacons walks with the front of the church and says, look, we need everyone to orderly, stand up and walk.
Cameron (20:10.703)
That was going to make a joke.
Nathan (20:25.207)
out of the back of the church. Something has come to our attention. So people would probably stand up and walk out of the back of the church in orderly fashion. Or somebody could scream, there are venomous snakes under the pews. And then think about like, what would be the response of that? Now, hopefully you have, know, well ordered church people take care of each other or just some crowded place. So what I'm getting at is what happens when you don't trust the people to handle the truth?
Cameron (20:54.457)
Mm, yeah.
Nathan (20:55.203)
That's where the tension from the expert opinion comes in here. When you feel like, here's an expert who is telling me something that they don't necessarily think is exactly accurate, but they're not telling me the truth because they don't trust me to respond properly, culturally, societally, or whatever, if I actually knew the true nature of this. And so this is really a, can you handle the truth? And people who want to make their own decisions on things,
The fact of the matter is, a lot of times we do want to our own research and we do want to make our own decisions on things and we make the wrong decision.
Cameron (21:30.668)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Nathan (21:31.909)
So that's difficulty in this of...
Yeah, could the cruise ship captain have said, hey, by the way somebody died last night of a human to human born virus.
Cameron (21:47.791)
rare virus and 50 % fatality rate. Don't panic. I always find the phrase don't panic really funny because it's going to get people to do the opposite, of course. It's not going to accomplish its goal. mean, the World Health Organization have said this several times. It's very important that you don't panic. Well, then it's very important that you probably jettison that phrase and say something else. Even remain calm is better than don't panic. back to it.
Nathan (21:49.829)
Everybody stay calm.
Nathan (22:10.245)
You
Cameron (22:15.299)
The earlier question I was asking, Nathan, so you laid out, I think, very well that we are conditioned to expect too much from scientists. We often see science, if you look at our television habits, I like the NCIS or law and order example, it's perfect, or house. We have a kind of magical view of problem solving in the modern world, and it's reinforced constantly.
So we clearly do expect too much from scientists. Where did, in your estimation, Nathan, and I'll chime in here too, if you want, you can feel free to turn it back around, but in your estimation, where did some of the leading scientists in COVID-19 go wrong in their communications? So clearly, I think we expected too much of scientists, but where did they let the public down? There was a significant breach of trust.
there on the part of scientists as well. They made some mistakes. So why is it when people hear the who now and they say, whatever, why am going to listen to these people?
Nathan (23:19.314)
This is a tricky one. Well, this.
This is a tricky one because you have, sir, you have somebody who has a great scientific career and then they get put into a government agency to lead or to fund or to be a resource or a reference point for public policy. Well, at that point, are you speaking on behalf of the administration that appointed you? Are you speaking as a public policy politician, a consultant, or are you speaking as a scientist?
And I think those are very different questions.
Cameron (23:53.315)
Right. We haven't mentioned Fauci's, I haven't heard Fauci's name in the midst of all of this. I'm sure it's out there, but we haven't mentioned Anthony Fauci. He would be the, think, he was not the only one. He's the easy person to point to here, yeah.
Nathan (24:01.029)
He'd be a great example of this. Yeah. Yeah. So he'd be an easy point person to point to of there are times in which the scientific community is going to say things that are not politically beneficial.
So the thing of it is very few of us inhabit just one sphere of influence or life. here's the fence that I'm trying to sit on if it's ambiguous. I want to say, what do you do with...
Hey, the scientist who says, hey, you know what, the whole like, um, glacier melting, uh, ocean rising thing, uh, there's a little bit of ambiguity here. Um, we need to have some little more clarity for that person's not going to have a YouTube channel and be consulted by 57 news agencies. But the person who says that the East coast is going to be under four feet of water by 2035 is going to get all the press. But that, that person is a.
Cameron (24:43.79)
Mmm.
Cameron (25:02.091)
Mm-hmm. Sure.
Nathan (25:06.469)
It's not based on the science. So here's the thing. The science says, the science doesn't say anything. Scientists can say things. So, the science doesn't say, scientists say. And a scientist does not think just purely in terms of, I went to the lab today, I observed this virus in a Petri dish, I observed this virus in a rodent, and then shut that...
Cameron (25:07.619)
Mm-hmm.
Cameron (25:16.043)
I like all of say that again. That's really important.
Cameron (25:22.799)
Mm-hmm.
Nathan (25:34.432)
often and come home and only think about viruses when they're having dinner. We're, we're, we're comp, we're humans. We, and you're, you're allowed, you're allowed to have opinions on everything as scientists on theology and philosophy and yeah, and margin. But so I'm trying to walk a fine line here of being incredibly grateful for the men and women who spent a lot of their time precisely trying to understand our world. And at the same time say there are a lot.
Cameron (25:40.249)
Yep. Yep.
Cameron (25:46.903)
and margin of error is real.
Okay, can I?
Cameron (25:59.364)
Yeah.
Nathan (26:03.973)
it's a splendid universe and That we live in and it is complex and odd and there are delightful things that we're continuing to discover We do not have all of reality reality neatly sewed up in a in a bag and at the same time saying just Because of the unknowns doesn't mean that we toss out all of the expertise That has been amassed in the past So that's this is why it's hard for me to directly answer these questions because I think they're at least multiple variables in it
Cameron (26:24.407)
No, you're doing a marvelous job. You're, yeah.
Cameron (26:31.747)
no, I'm not expecting a direct answer. I think you're doing a marvelous job of painting the picture of how rich reality actually is here. part of, here's another aspect of this that I think is worth mentioning and considering. You have...
Nathan (26:40.645)
That's a good phrase.
Cameron (26:50.787)
People have studied into the ground. These are usually academics, and these are the kinds of academics who don't make the news because they'll say, well, it's more complicated than that. well, in an interesting footnote, yeah, they're not the people who are going to give you big sensationalistic statements. They're going to give you careful, responsible statements, which careful, responsible statements are good, but they're boring. So there's a gap. Sometimes there's a chasm between scientific research and the public, the general public.
Nathan (27:19.648)
Mm-hmm. see, see, yeah, but here's the thing that gives me, well, so here's what I've come to recognize. If you're reading a news article, for example, that makes a claim and it hyperlinks to the study, click the link. Because, I mean, what often happens is you'll have a journalist or a politician say, this study shows, da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da, and then in the fine print,
Cameron (27:19.725)
And the general public aren't stupid, but they're laymen. They're not scientists. Yeah. Say something here.
Nathan (27:47.44)
There will be a redaction the next day where the scientist who wrote that paper said, I wrote that paper, but it does not conclude what the journalist reported or said my paper supports.
Cameron (27:57.539)
Yeah. But along those lines, Nathan, just to make it worse, yeah, but sometimes you might go to a paper that's so highly technical, you really can't make head or tail of it. So you can't. Some of them are behind paywalls, but some of them you are not actually trained or qualified to really understand it.
Nathan (28:08.801)
and some of them are behind paywalls too.
Cameron (28:19.107)
So that's the whole, what I'm saying is there's a gap between somebody who is legitimately an expert and is looking at something. Some scientific literature, if it's not translated, is only going to make sense to those who are initiated in it or have been trained in it, whether we're talking about physics or biology or epidemiology. But that's what I'm pressing into. No, what I'm pressing into...
Nathan (28:19.299)
Yeah, I don't...
Nathan (28:40.429)
Well, now we're getting into a whole nother world of, of education. Yeah. But I mean, the thing of it is, like the state of West Virginia gave me 13 years of free education in order for me to be able to read and understand. Publications of what's happening in the world. Like it's not that the state isn't trying to give me the resources.
Cameron (28:52.289)
No, but here's what I'm saying, Nathan. Part of the is right, but we're in the we're in the information age where there is an illusion that everybody has unfettered access to all this information. Therefore, we're all going to be able to understand it. And that simply is not true. That's another part of the illusion here. There are there is a gap between genuine expertise. And this is an this is not an elitism state in a lead a statement. There is a genuine gap between people.
who have been carefully trained in a certain area, virology would be one of them, and the general public. And so how you translate across that line is a fascinating aspect of all of this.
Nathan (29:28.909)
Okay, but, but.
Nathan (29:35.983)
So what you said is true and is fine if you live in a culture of high trust.
Cameron (29:40.557)
Yes, and that's what we keep coming back to, that trust is.
Nathan (29:42.917)
So the question is, if I recognize I have a knowledge gap in a certain category, who do I trust to help me make decisions if I don't understand all the details?
Cameron (29:52.365)
And once again though, Nathan, let me put to you the question. No, it's not really a fair question, I'm interested in part of that trust is because we have an unrealistic view of how science actually works.
But how much of that trust has also been, I think sometimes maybe the certain scientists who speak for science in certain major official capacities, because they're speaking to a general audience and to the general public, are forced to do what politicians and public speakers are always forced to do. They speak in overgeneralizations or they choose, they opt to go for a very confident line of thought in order to...
get people to do what they want them to do and they just rely on good old-fashioned rhetoric. The problem is because people aren't able to sometimes just make, I think that's a common sense distinction between science and scientists saying there's the practice of science and then there's the scientist speaking. If a scientist...
Nathan (30:55.001)
What we talked about this was Richard Dawkins, great scientist. Does that mean he's an excellent theologian?
Cameron (31:00.239)
Well, yeah, and so it's trying to people. And there's the very online world, which is different from when you have day-to-day conversations. But in my day-to-day conversations along of this nature, what I would usually say is, I put this question to several people in my life during the COVID, during the pandemic. All right, if a scientist misspeaks, or if there is a policy that turns out to not be a very...
effective masking policy or whatever it is. Does that invalidate the enterprise of science? And few people were willing to say that. Some people seem to almost be willing to go in that direction. And that was, okay, here we've got to, that's a different problem there. You're not.
Nathan (31:39.589)
Hehehehe
Nathan (31:43.974)
There are categories here Cameron though that so I think I've tried to define defend the scientific Method model and consensus, but then there is a lot of other knowledge that works and exist Outside of the scientific realm, but also in in quasi parallel Fashions one of those you could think about food science for example
The amount of times that even in my lifetime that eggs are awesome or going to kill you has switched back and forth. Has is that kind of stuff that drives people crazy of. But then I can also yeah, but then I can look at my my grandparents who have all lived very long lives and been like. You know what I live in the same time and place they do. I'm probably physiologically most like them genetically speaking. Here are the things that they ate and lived a long happy life. Eggs probably aren't going to kill me.
Cameron (32:08.206)
Mmm.
Cameron (32:15.767)
Milk, Seed oils. Yeah.
Nathan (32:37.795)
You know, there is a little bit of local knowledge also that we have to take into account here. Not at the expense of what we can measure and know rationally and scientifically, but in the places of ambiguity, having people who have lived well before us is a valuable resource to have. And so there are times in which a study will come out and it turns out that it was totally nonsense or that there were some serious things that were fudged behind it or that a massive
company funded the research in order to get the data to say something or a huge food company or the olive oil industry publishes all the positive results of the Mediterranean diet. It's easy to get cynical, I guess, because as much as you want to say there are systems here that we can learn from, you can find a thousand what looked like conspiracies that turned out to be true as well.
I don't think we solved anything on this other than to two things. we live in a low trust society. Two, if you can form deep relationships with knowledgeable people before the crisis unfolds in your life, that's a really valuable thing. And number three, you know where we're going with this, is that Cameron and I will say the place that you do that is at your local church with the other people who are engaging with your actual village and the actual people around you.
and the actual resources that are available to you and the actual knowledge of how to live well in the time and place in which you live and with an actual knowledge that there are ways of knowing and understanding and being that don't contradict our scientific understanding, but that transcend and broaden and flesh out and give a fuller sense of meaning and purpose that go beyond just the tabulation of numbers. And so this is again, one of those things where the best way to overcome
some sort of disease is if you can be inoculated against it beforehand. And I think this is one of those categories, or there are oftentimes things that pop up in life that our ability to handle a crisis, we're inoculated, we've built the relationships sort of through a worshipful inoculation beforehand, and our relationship to God, whose hands we actually live in, who actually gives us the breath that we have, is sovereign over the cells in the way in which our bodies function.
Nathan (35:01.399)
and the community that he has given us and the wisdom that he has imparted to us through the people around us and through his word and through his Holy Spirit and through our work. So the, the, the biggest indicator of how you're going to come out of the other side of the COVID-19 virus was your physical health before you got COVID. Which sounds harsh to say, but that's just numerically, mathematically, statistically true is that the best thing you could have done in response to COVID was to be in good shape before it happened.
And so many things like that happen in our lives that we develop and grow through our habitual repeated patterns of worship and community, communion with God that stabilize us and build the network of trust in God and in each other that really do give us a solid foundation to journey through a conflict ahead. And that's not to say that there won't be contention in that, but I do know from watching families and congregations and
local businesses and stuff that the people who had really tight knit relationships. When the conversation came up, Hey, what should we do about masking, social distancing, vaccinations, all of that? The family didn't fall apart. The church didn't fall apart. was a, an attempt to understand out of mutual love for each other, what the right thing to do was not how do we all just jump into our little Facebook silos and yell at each other. And so even the ability to communicate through the disagreements.
Cameron (36:26.479)
Mm.
Nathan (36:31.397)
is a component of community and trust that is necessary for us to journey well into the unknowns of the future. And so if you're thinking of reality like that, then if you have the tools to handle the unknown, there's a little bit of a way in which you kind of lean into it with an expectation of saying, it'll be interesting to see how the Lord gets us out of this one. And so the future doesn't have to be fearful. It's unknown for sure.
but the unknown doesn't have to be fearful. And that's the illusion that science gives us, that we can measure everything and therefore we can predict everything and therefore we can have control over the future. And so when you run into things, particularly like viruses that you can't see, it unsettles, it pops the bubble of that narrative of control. And I think for those of us who are well habituated into our patterns of worship and have a bigger sense of reality, we know that that...
promises and illusion in and of itself, but we have learned to live with the unknowns based on the foundational certainties that we do have. So, lean into the things that you really can know are true, and in doing that and finding community around it, you'll find the tools and the resources you need to handle whatever is ahead in the Splendid Unknown.
Cameron (37:40.569)
Hmm.
Cameron (37:50.497)
Amen. You've been listening to Thinking Out Loud, a podcast where we think out loud about current events and Christian hope. Just a quick word, if you like what we're doing, you enjoy it, you can like it and share it and subscribe. And if you would like to support us financially, you can do that by going to www.toltogether.com.