The history of science and medicine in the context ofCOVID-19
The history of science and medicine in the context ofCOVID-19
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DOI：
10.1111/1600-0498.12311
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发表时间：
2020-05-01
期刊：
影响因子：
1.2
通讯作者：
McKay, Richard A.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Charters, Erica;McKay, Richard A.
这一焦点问题鼓励人们反思当前的COVID-19大流行，不仅仅是通过与以前的流行病进行比较，而且还通过说明流行病值得在更广泛的文化，政治，科学和地理背景下进行研究。流行病不仅仅是病原体的一种功能;它们也是社会结构的一种功能，政治权力如何以公共卫生的名义行使，量化数据如何收集，疾病如何分类和建模，以及疾病史如何叙述。这些活动都有自己的历史。正如科学和医学历史学家早就指出的那样，即使是支撑科学研究的最基本的方法论观察、相信数字、使用模型，甚至实验方法本身都有历史。它们不应被视为既定的东西，而应被理解为在特定历史背景和解释方案下谈判、争论和发展的进程，甚至战略。了解事物的历史--无论是数字、叙述还是疾病--使我们能够看到更广泛的轨迹。这些不同的历史也提醒我们，我们目前正处于一场混乱的不确定性戏剧中，在我们自己不稳定和展开的叙事中。
This spotlight issue encourages reflection on the current COVID-19 pandemic, not simply through comparisons with previous epidemics, but also by illustrating that epidemics deserve study within their broader cultural, political, scientific, and geographic contexts. Epidemics are not solely a function of pathogens; they are also a function of how society is structured, how political power is wielded in the name of public health, how quantitative data is collected, how diseases are categorised and modelled, and how histories of disease are narrated. Each of these activities has its own history. As historians of science and medicine have long pointed out, even the most basic methodologies that underpin scientific research-observation, trust in numbers, the use of models, even the experimental method itself-have a history. They should not be taken as a given, but understood as processes, or even strategies, that were negotiated, argued for and against, and developed within particular historical contexts and explanatory schemes. Knowing the history of something-whether of numbers, narratives, or disease-enables us to see a broader range of trajectories available to us. These varied histories also remind us that we are currently in the midst of a chaotic drama of uncertainty, within our own unstable and unfolding narrative.