Name: ____________________________
Group Exercise - Critical Thinking about Science and the Pandemic
Instructions:
This is an in-class exercise that you will begin discussing during class, and will finish after class.
Type your answers to the prompts below. The page will expand as you type and is not limited
to the space on the page. Give it some thought and clearly explain your answers. When
finished, upload the assignment to Canvas by Sunday January 30. This exercise is worth up
to 10 points.
Now you are going to start a critical thinking exercise.
Despite the fact that the field of science and medicine has not been perfect in the pandemic, I
think that society is begging for scientists to be able to answer certain questions, and I get the
impression that many people feel like "why can't scientists just give us the answers definitively",
and when science cannot, they lose faith in science entirely. In fact, I think that many people
have distrusted science for quite a long time.
Personally, I think that part of the problem is that the general public has unrealistic
expectations about the scientific process and people don't understand how hard it is to
answer the questions that we would like to have answers to.
In this exercise, you will have a discussion about why it is so hard to get answers to these
questions.
While you are having conversations, take notes. You don't have to take notes in perfect
complete sentences, and you don't have to take notes about everything that you said, but take
some notes to show that you had a detailed conversation.
One question that we have all been focused on has to do with whether or not there are
any existing drug therapies that may be helpful for treating COVID.
Imagine that you are a doctor or a medical researcher and you think that there is reason
to believe that a particular drug would help improve the outcomes of hospitalized
patients with COVID. However, all drugs have side-effects, and you have no evidence
that it works yet, just a hunch (e.g., maybe it helps on some similar diseases, or maybe
you have a theory for why it might help).
If you had unlimited resources (time, money, personnel), please describe the study that you
would want to run to answer this question. Who would you recruit? How would you recruit
them? What would the study design be like? How long would it take to see the outcomes?
What outcomes would you be measuring, etc?
What practical issues are likely to arise in answering this question?
What ethical issues arise that make it difficult to answer this question?
Given the practical and ethical issues, please describe a more feasible study that you might run
instead of your ideal study. What weaknesses might this study have?
Do you have any additional thoughts about how scientists, doctors, and society more broadly
has handled this particular question? (I’m not asking about how society has handled COVID-19
generally – I’m asking specifically about this question).
You are now done with the in-class exercise. Remember to submit your answers no later than
Sunday Jan 30, 11:59 PM.