When it comes right down to it, science is the our species' only real weapon against the things that would destroy us. Without science we're unarmed - animals fleeing before the wrath of nature. https://twitter.com/jbrafel/status/1247058257341972482

While most of us figure out more efficient ways to flee, or concentrate on our own survival, or dream of how to fix the world after the virus is gone, our scientists are even now preparing a massive counterattack. https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2020/04/what-coronavirus-drug-will-look-like/609661/

When our scientists finally produce a weapon that can defeat the coronavirus, the vast majority of us will not understand how it works. We will merely take it and use it gratefully, like a piece of magic. And then we'll go back to our lives, confident in our supremacy once again.

And while we go back to fighting over politics and squeezing profit out of the market, scientists will go back to scrounging for grant money. The heroes who beat back nature's wrath will once again be largely forgotten and defunded.

...Unless we refuse to forget this time.

A modern society undervalues science at its peril. Without science, we're nothing but slightly clever apes, beating each other up and stealing from each other until the day nature decides that playtime is over.

(end)