![]() ![]() ![]() That the crown jewel of America’s scientific preeminence-biomedical science-has failed so spectacularly to protect society as a whole, and vulnerable populations in particular, from the COVID-19 virus has brought these contradictions into excruciating visibility. We find ourselves in a crisis of cognitive dissonance: though the nation remains the world’s leader in science and technology by almost any measure, the widely shared benefits that such leadership was supposed to deliver to society seem to be drifting farther from reach. Today, the science and technology community must face its own uncomfortable knowledge. The late Steve Rayner, a social scientist who studied the intersections of science, policy, and culture (with a particular focus on climate change), observed that Rumsfeld missed what is certainly the most interesting category of uncertainty: the “unknown knowns,” the things we don’t admit that we know, what he termed “ uncomfortable knowledge.” The statement has been ridiculed for its obscurity and admired for its rigor, but it is perhaps most notable for its incompleteness. But there are also unknown unknowns-the ones we don’t know we don’t know.” ![]() We also know there are known unknowns that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. Bush, famously said of uncertainties around whether Iraq had weapons of mass destruction: “There are known knowns there are things we know we know. In 2002, Donald Rumsfeld, defense secretary to President George W. ![]()
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