The difference between timid and wise can be quite small

I have finally gotten around to reading Adams, a biography of John Adams that won the Pulitzer Prize some years ago. The bulk of the narrative takes place in the 1700s, but I am continually surprised to find clear parallels with life in 2021.

The most dangerous and widespread virus of that time was smallpox, which after killing millions over hundreds of years, has basically been eradicated. I read that the last person to die of smallpox was a woman in 1978.

The world eliminated this terrible disease (30 percent died) though the very first vaccines, but until nearly 1800 the best available tactic was to purposely give people a bit of the pus (yuck!) from a person with smallpox by putting it in healthy people's arms (usually through a small incision). Most of the time (but not even close to all the time), the inoculated person would get sick but with a mild, non-lethal case of smallpox. There would be residual scars (from the pus modules) but within a few weeks or months they would be safe from reinfection. 

More soldiers died of smallpox than actual combat in the American Revolutionary War.

Science depends on experiments and building on prior knowledge and eliminating confusion about "cause and effect." After all, lots of problems can occur when we pursue a course of treatment that is not REALLY the cause of recovery, in the case of diseases. 

I read today that many nations in Europe have suspended the use of the Astrazeneca Covid vaccine because an incredibly small percentage of those who have received that shot developed some blood clotting issues. It is unlikely that there is a clear cause and effect between the vaccine and the clotting problem, but scientists and health officials always err on the side of caution.

Ironically, that very caution can cause the virus to spread and mutate. But the alternative is "full speed ahead and damn the torpedoes." To choose that course would be quite macho -- and that appeals to many proud American males -- but the costs in lives and suffering might be immense.

I often think of how much of life is bound up in people discovering "cause and effect" and thus making rational best choices. The bigger our challenges, the more complicated we find cause and effect relationships to be. 

And that's why progress is relatively slow.