(no subject)

In retrospect [and additional insight from TPoF] it's more clear what the COVID vaccine community had not done to convince the public about the benefits of vaccination.

In line with the expectations and demands of the period, the prize would go to whoever explained not contagion but variation in con­tagiousness in terms of environmental circumstances.
...
...since their problem was to reconcile contagions and morbid spontaneity. As soon as Pasteur, using anthrax, reproduced in the laboratory the influence of the environment on the virulence of a microbe, all the power of the hygienist movement shifted and became belief in the laboratory of the Rue d'Ulm.

--- Bruno Latour. The Pasteurization of France, 1993.

Up till now we don't know what causes the variation in COVID-19 outcomes. Of course, there are hints developed through limited studies, but no clear causal link has been established yet. We should've had volunteer human trials, after all.

(no subject)

Watch on YouTube

A whole bunch of ostriches!

(no subject)

This is probably the best illustration of the concept of technoscience I've seen to-date.




--- Latour, TPoF, p. 267.