I am a retired scientist and in my retirement I am spending a good bit of time on my family history. So I thought it a least somewhat relevant to combine these 2 interests into my review of “Science Under Siege: How to Fight the Five Most Powerful Forces that Threaten Our World”.
Between 1885 and 1895, my great grandparents had 8 children. Two made it to adulthood. Perhaps a bit worse than many families but the death a child was not uncommon then. It is rare now.
Another way to look at progress in this area is the change in average life expectancy. It was around 47 in 1900, 68 in 1950 and 77 in 2000.
Much of the improvement in both examples is due to science. Science is also important in many way but I thought child mortality and life expectancy might be of interest.
For those with an economic interest. The consulting firm McKinsey estimates that recent advances in biology could have a “direct economic impact of up to $4 trillion a year”. (https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/life-sciences/our-insights/the-bio-revolution-innovations-transforming-economies-societies-and-our-lives)
Michael Mann and Peter Hotez are well qualified to write this book. Both are distinguished scientists and both have been targets of those attacking science. These attacks take many forms distortion and fabrication concerning their work and motivations, death threats, and physical confrontations.
Both are also leaders in very important fields – Dr. Mann in the understating of climate change; Dr Hotez is a vaccine scientist concerned with disease prevention and public health. Both are very important field for the future of humanity. Yet there is significant opposition to scientific research in these and other areas.
The authors write about their experiences and that of other scientists. In addition they write extensively about the causes of this anti-science siege. Its causes and potential solutions. The book is important reading for our time.