143. Nicholas Christakis — Apollo’s Arrow: The Profound and Enduring Impact of Coronavirus on the Way We Live

<p><a href= "https://www.amazon.com/dp/0316628212/?tag=skepticcom20-20"><em>Apollo’s Arrow</em></a> offers a riveting account of the impact of the coronavirus pandemic as it swept through American society in 2020, and of how the recovery will unfold in the coming years. Drawing on momentous (yet dimly remembered) historical epidemics, contemporary analyses, and cutting-edge research from a range of scientific disciplines, bestselling author, physician, sociologist, and public health expert Nicholas A. Christakis explores what it means to live in a time of plague — an experience that is paradoxically uncommon to the vast majority of humans who are alive, yet deeply fundamental to our species. Featuring new, provocative arguments and vivid examples ranging across medicine, history, sociology, epidemiology, data science, and genetics, <em>Apollo’s Arrow</em> envisions what happens when the great force of a deadly germ meets the enduring reality of our evolved social nature.</p> <p>Shermer and Christakis discuss:</p> <ul> <li>the replication crisis in social science and medicine,</li> <li>determining causality in science and medicine,</li> <li>how we know smoking causes cancer and HIV causes AIDS, but vaccines do not cause autism and cell phones do not cause cancer,</li> <li>randomized controlled trials and why they can’t be done to answer many medical questions,</li> <li>natural experiments and the comparative method of testing hypotheses (e.g., comparing different countries differing responses to Covid-19),</li> <li>the hindsight bias and the curse of knowledge in judging responses to pandemics after the fact,</li> <li>looking back to January 2020, what should we have done?,</li> <li>comparing Covid-19 to the Black Death, the Spanish Flu, and other pandemics,</li> <li>bacteria vs. viruses, coronaviruses and their effects, and why viruses are so much harder to treat than bacteria,</li> <li>Bill Gates’ TED talk warning in 2015 and why we didn’t heed it,</li> <li>treatments: hydroxychloroquine, remdesivir, Vitamin D.<