On epistemic humility...

It’s clear that we don’t fully understand exactly the timing of these waves around the country and the world. Seasonality, stochasticity, NPIs, sure, but... there’s obviously unknown exogenous factors influencing specific intervals across geographies.

And yet there are a number of factors—political, professional, social—in not publicly broadcasting this. That we really just don’t know for certain. I wish it was more acceptable to admit that all existing explanations fall short. That uncertainty, confusion are OK. (Good, even!)

Anyway, I hope when consensus coalesces around explanatory variables in 90 years, it’s not only entirely outside of our paradigm but also really, really stupid.

Like, semi-predictable regional waves are instigated by an increase in seasonally-shed cat dander. Or the moon!

The dumber the better, tbh. I want our great great grandkids to chuckle at this chapter in the textbook.

Our social structure of scientific knowledge is just so very brittle and humility-averse. It really will serve us right.