Post-pandemic science and education

Abstract

Existential threats our society faces: While the onset of a global pandemic should not have come as a great surprise, the chaotic federal response and the heartbreaking loss of life have shaken the faith of many in US institutions and will result in a changed nation and a very different world. Beyond this, a pandemic is only one of several potentially existential threats that we face, also including social breakdown, conflicts and crises over food and other resources, and runaway global warming. There is too little broad understanding of these threats, let alone wise, effective action to address them. It seems paradoxical that this national failure has come from a society with signal and public achievements in computing, biomedicine, technology, and physics—achievements by a scientific subculture that seems disconnected from our current political leadership and that appears irrelevant or even threatening to a disturbingly large fraction of the electorate.