Review of 'Opinion: Compound risks and complex emergencies require new approaches to preparedness'

Magical Thinking and Lying in the Time of Crisis

 

I am praying for the wellbeing of our PNAS extended family. How I wish praying was the magical thinking referred to in the title. Unfortunately, it is not!

Reading Kruczkiewicz et al. (2021) speak of "a replenishable pot" of funding reminded me of a recent open letter written by Indian scientists, which, among other things, requests the Indian Prime Minister to "adequately fund" (Shashidhara et al., 2021). What is so magical about asking for more money? The magical thinking of this Indian scientific community is in the date--29 April 2021--of the open letter, based on which Nature journal published an article, which for all intents and purposes serves to promote the soothing narrative that if only Indian government listened to its scientists (Padma, 2021), India would not have had to go through all that which made the world sob for Indians. Note that Padma (2021) does not substantiate any claims made therein by way of references, except for that open letter dated: 29 April 2021. All it takes to see the magical thinking of these Indian scientists is to look at the news on 29 April 2021: Indians were dying with gasping for breath as their last breath and the journal Nature rushes to make room on 30 April 2021 for a safe space to exhibit magical thinking (at the risk of evoking cosmic conspiracies, I cannot help but draw attention to the standard media practice of writing obituaries before deaths [to ensure timely publication]). How else would an open letter dated 29 April 2021 change anything that happened on (or before) 29 April 2021?

To make matters worse, the behavior of Indian scientists and that of the journal Nature is not surprising i.e., it is along expected lines. First, let us look at the track record of Indian scientific community (including me). Beginning with Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, many Indian scientists, including Manmohan Singh (Jayaraman, 2007) and Koneru Ramakrishna Rao, have all recognized that independent India did not make any significant contributions to the world of science. In doing what American or European scientists do, Indian scientists not only forgot to think for themselves, but also how to think! How else can one account for Indian scientists asking for more money and more convenient data format, especially when we have scientists doing what Indian scientists could have done: real-time analysis of COVID data (e.g. https://c19early.com/, which includes data from India; if I may, I'd like to request PNAS, Science, and Nature to fact-check the analysis). If Indian scientists knew how to think, they would not be asking for more money, for thinking does not cost a penny (cf. Posina, Nathan, and Behera, 2020).

Being a responsible and productive scientist is not easy. Independent thinking is needed for the advancement of science: aligning reason with experience! For example, persuading established mathematical authorities with intellectual suasion, Professor F. William Lawvere reconceptualized algebra, geometry, and logic; and in doing so, brought to light the unity of mathematics (Clementino and Picado, 2007/08). Madam Fatima Lawvere imagined making this profound mathematical unity comprehensible to total beginners, thereby giving birth to the textbook: Conceptual Mathematics (Lawvere and Schanuel, 2009).

The complicity of the journal Nature in promoting magical thinking is, unfortunately, not an accident of its eagerness to save Indians. Competing with religion, Nature journal has been calling for blind belief and faith in the unseen (Nature Editors, 2016). This is all the more disturbing in light of the sensible and reasonable trust placed by all of us--of all religions, of all sects, and of all denominations--in education. Just count the number of hours spent in school (see Pinker, 2011, p. 311) and contrast it with that spent praying. It is the moral responsibility of not only Indian scientists, but also that of all scientific institutions (including Nature, Science, PNAS, among other scientific journals) to work towards raising the standards of education and science by way of purposeful research (Sarewitz, 2017). We--the scientists--need to make the required intellectual investment to match the enormous trust placed by humanity--including countless families for whom feeding their children is a struggle, an everyday struggle--in education. In education we trust (Posina, 2011). It is in teaching--in an understandable manner--that we see the world anew: "the need to explain daily for students is often the source of new mathematical discoveries" (Lawvere quoted in Clementino and Picado, 2007/08, p. 13; see also Lawvere, 2003).

No less important is telling useful truths. Imagine a child pointing to a pen and asking: What is it? Nobody in their senses would answer: "It is multi-colored" or "It has parts" or "It does not have any friends" or "It cannot swim". Lot of what we have been told about the crisis we are suspended in--with our lives turned into a spectacle we are allowed to watch--is reminiscent of the above answers. And then there are lies presented as "the most favorable data" by none other than His Holiness Anthony Fauci (Vogel and Kupferschmidt, 2021, p. 1294; for varieties of lying, see van Ditmarsch, Hendriks, and Verbrugge, 2020). Every scientist I know--beginning with Professor Edwin J. Furshpan, whose foundational contributions to neuroscience include: discovery of electrical communication between neurons and violation of Dale's principle), who often answered my one too many questions, while teaching me the basics of neuroscience late into the night, with: I don't know, thereby teaching me the most significant lesson of the practice of science i.e., humility--not only made mistakes but also corrected their mistakes. But Dr. Fauci seems to be immune to and from error, plausibly by virtue of being an immunologist (pun intended ;-). Seriously (and with all due respect), the pronouncements of Dr. Fauci, in light of his eminence, must be subjected to added scrutiny (cf. Vazire, 2017).

Lies--the most egregious lies of Mehra, Desai, and Patel--are admittedly the most significant (i.e. ignoble) contribution of post-independent Indians to the world of science. Once again the journal Nature was too eager to broadcast the lies and not so much so to undo the resulting damage. Here is how, what, and why (in all its gory detail). It begins with the Nature News: "India expands use of controversial drug for coronavirus despite safety concerns" (Pulla, 2020). The Nature news article, citing an editorial 'Expression of concern'-marked paper (Lancet Editors, 2020), which has since been retracted (Mehra et al., 2020), first states: "people who took it [hydroxychloroquine] were more likely to die than those who didn't", and later on adds: "Scientists have since raised serious concerns about the study's data and analysis."

The above sequence of statements, according to Dharma or "cosmic law", constitutes lying. In Mahabharata, Yudhishthira first says: "Aswathama died", which leads Dronacharya, who is undefeatable, to drop his weapons thinking his son Aswathama died, and in turn gets killed by Yudhishthira's army. Yudhishthira thinks, since an elephant [also] named Aswathama has been killed, his murmuring "Aswathama, the elephant" after screaming "Aswathama died" would retain his status as one who tells the truth. Fortunately, cosmic law thought otherwise and sentenced Yudhishthira to hell for lying!

As though adopting Yudhishthira's failed strategy to retain the status of truth-teller, Nature published its first update (possibly in response to the barrage of my emails to Nature Editors): "This article was updated to note the retraction of a study suggesting that hydroxychloroquine might be dangerous to patients with COVID-19" at the end of their article (https://www.nature.com/arti.... Subsequently, Nature added another update at the beginning of the article, which acknowledges that their article cites the retracted paper: "a study reporting that hydroxychloroquine is dangerous to people with COVID-19, referenced in this article, was retracted" (without acknowledging that the retracted Lancet article is the only scientific study cited in the Nature News article, which warrants "despite safety concerns" in the Nature article title).

More broadly, part of the problem is with editorial "Expression of concern". In the case of Mehra et al. (2020), The Lancet editorial Expression of concern alerts: "serious scientific questions have been brought to our [editors] attention" (Lancet Editors, 2020). Given that raising serious scientific questions is the norm in science, it would be more helpful to explicitly state that an 'Expression of concern'-marked paper can be reported only after categorically stating that the paper is under investigation and not the other way around (as Yudhishthira and Nature did, which is confusing if not lying). This is one of the moral lessons that the Harvard-Lancet-Mehra et al. research scandal (Servick and Enserink, 2020) teaches us.

Even more broadly, in the context of the present coronavirus crisis, studying "Thinking in an Emergency" (Scarry, 2012) can be useful. Oftentimes, during emergencies and crises, governments and other institutions of power unleash mechanisms that stifle dissenting voices in the name of: It's time to act; there's no time to waste on time-consuming debates or thinking. However, more than anything else, reason is the need of the hour in the time of crisis. How do we reconcile these two [seeming] incompatibles: reason vs. action? The answer is to transform reason into [conscious-reflex] action by preparing and practicing for imagined emergencies (e.g. firefighters; a related phenomenon is practicing for a performance, see d'Amboise, 2006). It is in this context, cognitive scientists can contribute their share to the ongoing global struggle in dealing with the COVID pandemic by elucidating the transformations between thought and action, as noted by Kruczkiewicz et al. (2021).

We may not know exactly when, how, or in what form a crisis might show up, but we do know, upon looking at our history, that crises sure do visit us every so often. We find the present COVID crisis unprecedented, but it is not novel to humanity. Humanity has been through a lot and has prevailed in large part due to the crisis-preparedness that has been made part of human culture. For example, in my state Andhra Pradesh, New Year's Day (Ugadi) is celebrated with Ugadi pachadi, a festival dish with six different tastes: sweet, salty, hot, sour, tangy, and bitter, symbolic of wishing one another well in preparing for the happiness, fear, anger, disgust, surprise, and sadness that the New Year may have in store for us.

In a similar spirit, science publishers may want to consider putting in place crisis preparedness plans to preserve their commitment to presenting useful truths in a time of crisis. Time, of course, is of essence in a time of crisis, but there is no reason not to solicit more reviews, open reviews, and delete author and affiliation information (to protect reviewers from the intimidation that comes attached with names like Harvard and Fauci). In the face of thousands of thousands of tragic human deaths, switching from the usual confidential positive reviews to mandatory open positive reviews as the criterion for publication of a scientific report that has global impact is not too much to ask for. In this context, nothing is more important than bringing into figural salience--for all to see--the fact that there is no dearth of sincere scientists speaking truth loud and clear. It is the open letter written by James Watson (2020) on behalf of more than two hundred physicians, scientists, and statisticians from all over the world that forced The Lancet journal to mark Mehra et al. paper with 'Expression of concern'.

However, it may be difficult for any individual editor to hastily make up a new review policy during a crisis. It is exactly for this reason that we need, in addition to thinking individuals, institutions to pitch in thinking in a time of crisis. Science journals and universities are two spaces, where such institutional thinking (that needs to get triggered automatically by crises) takes place. It is our collective responsibility to safeguard the integrity of these thinking institutions. In this spirit, I join Kruczkiewicz et al. (2021) in calling cognitive neuroscientists, with their expertise in reasoning, intuition, habit, nudges, and action, among others, to take a proactive role in crafting crisis preparedness programs for universities and science publishers so that they can not only avoid the ignominy of lying or propagating fake news (Posina, 2020), but also continue to be the trusted resource we can look up to for useful truths.

Summing it all, the present planetary crisis is not merely a public health and lives-and-livelihoods and sociopolitical crisis, but is also compounded by the barely acknowledged crisis of scientific practice. Scientists, not unlike ordinary people, find it easier to solve others' problems; their sincere struggle to solve others' problems occludes the problems within their own scientific practices. Although not mentioned in Kruczkiewicz et al. (2021), the scientific crisis--wherein self-reflection and original thinking that are indispensable for the advancement of science are too risky for scientists' career--is real (cf. Geman and Geman, 2016). Addressing the scientific crisis is not an end in itself, but is a prerequisite to thoroughly and clearly understand the ever-present problem--how should we live our lives on our planet Earth--so as to find evermore sensible and reasonable solutions. It is high time we put Science, in its etymological sense of knowing, and the attendant useful truths, along with their organization into a cohesive body of understanding, on the list of endangered species, if we care about science that is needed for harmonious interaction with reality (as given in experience in general and planned perception in particular). In closing, I have put forward corrective mechanisms--for further debate--to rescue the science-in-crisis in a time of crisis.

 

References

d'Amboise, J. (2006) The mind in dance, Daedalus 135: 76-77.

Clementino, M. M. and Picado, J. (2007/08) An interview with F. William Lawvere, Bulletin of the International Center for Mathematics.

van Ditmarsch, H., Hendriks, P., and Verbrugge, R. (2020) Editors' review and introduction: Lying in logic, language, and cognition, Topics in Cognitive Science 12: 466-484.

Geman, D. and Geman, S. (2016) Science in the age of selfies, Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 113: 9384-9387.

Jayaraman, K. S. (2007) Indian science is in decline, says prime minister, Nature 445: 134-135.

Kruczkiewicz, A. et al. (2021) Compound risks and complex emergencies require new approaches to preparedness, Proc Natl Acad Sci USA.

Lancet Editors (2020) Expression of concern: Hydroxychloroquine or chloroquine with or without a macrolide for treatment of COVID-19: a multinational registry analysis, Lancet 03 June.

Lawvere, F. W. (2003) Foundations and applications: Axiomatization and education, The Bulletin of Symbolic Logic 9: 213-224.

Lawvere, F. W. and Schanuel, S. H. (2009) Conceptual Mathematics: A First Introduction to Categories, New York: Cambridge University Press.

Mehra, M. R., Desai, S. S., Ruschitzka, F., and Patel, A. N. (2020) Hydroxychloroquine or chloroquine with or without a macrolide for treatment of COVID-19: a multinational registry analysis, Lancet 22 May.

Nature Editors (2016) Digital intuition, Nature 529: 437.

Padma, T. V. (2021) Indian government should heed its scientists on COVID, Nature 593: 9, 30 April.

Pinker, S. (2011) Decline of violence: Taming the devil within us, Nature 478: 309-311.

Posina, V. R. (2020) Lancet, Nature, and fake news, Science, eLetter 05 June.

Posina, V. R. (2021) In education we trust.

Posina, V. R., Nathan, H. S. K., and Behera, A. (2020) Nudging scientific advancement through reviews.

Pulla, P. (2020) India expands use of controversial drug for coronavirus despite safety concerns, Nature, 03 June.

Sarewitz, D. (2011) Kill the myth of the miracle machine, Nature 547: 139.

Scarry, E. (2012) Thinking in an Emergency, New York: W. W. Norton & Company.

Servick, K. and Enserink, M. (2020) The pandemic's first major research scandal erupts, Science 368: 1041-1042.

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