The Wonder of Curing Polio
The most compelling cases of preferring fact to fiction are the most practical. All the prayer, animal sacrifice, and chanting in the world couldn’t cure polio—the Salk vaccine did. And how did we find it? Through rigorous, skeptical, critical thinking and testing and doubting of every proposed solution to the problem of polio until only one solution was left standing. Let others find uncritical acceptance of pretty notions a wonderful thing. I’m more awestruck by the idea of ending polio because someone cared enough to find more wonder in testable reality than in wishful fantasy.
Notes:
It was someone who immersed themself in testable reality that cured polio, no amount of prayer or chanting achieved this.
Folksonomies: science religion healing faith-healing
Taxonomies:
/art and entertainment/books and literature/science fiction (0.534077)
/science (0.359339)
/society/unrest and war (0.335371)
Keywords:
testable reality (0.987704 (negative:-0.565964)), polio—the Salk vaccine (0.851393 (neutral:0.000000)), Curing Polio (0.827425 (negative:-0.562147)), uncritical acceptance (0.614109 (positive:0.909237)), compelling cases (0.610502 (positive:0.850981)), animal sacrifice (0.597622 (neutral:0.000000)), wishful fantasy (0.591113 (negative:-0.569781)), pretty notions (0.589922 (positive:0.909237)), wonderful thing (0.576295 (positive:0.909237)), critical thinking (0.568718 (neutral:0.000000)), prayer (0.401784 (negative:-0.544863)), doubting (0.397881 (neutral:0.000000)), solution (0.379557 (neutral:0.000000)), idea (0.357045 (negative:-0.569781)), fact (0.350612 (positive:0.850981)), fiction (0.350531 (positive:0.850981)), world (0.348596 (neutral:0.000000)), testing (0.346245 (neutral:0.000000))
Entities:
polio:HealthCondition (0.855631 (negative:-0.565964))
Concepts:
Critical thinking (0.966317): dbpedia | freebase | opencyc | yago
Polio vaccine (0.713330): dbpedia | freebase | yago
Skepticism (0.638914): dbpedia | freebase
Thought (0.608420): dbpedia | freebase | opencyc
Jonas Salk (0.559240): dbpedia | freebase | yago
Teaching Kids to Yawn at Counterfeit WonderSchemas
Science Improves Our Quality of Life
Examples of science, technology, and invention improving the human condition.
