We watched the PBS show "Extra Life", based on the new Steven Johnson book of the same name. The book and the show are about what has caused the extension of average lifetime from around 40 to closer to 80. The first episode of the show is about vaccinations. There is a predecessor practice invented called "variolation". African slaves told both Cotton Mather, the famous Puritan preacher, and Tom Jefferson about the practice of smearing some residue from the smallpox sores of someone with the disease into a small cut in the skin of someone to be protected.
Many histories of medicine mention Edward Jenner, an English physician, who tried the more indirect method of vaccination, not variolation, using the related disease of cowpox to prevent development of smallpox.
Today, we have forces in many places for education, for communication, for research, and for thinking. We also have the term 'misinformation' for what gets termed rumors, ignorance and campaigns to mislead and enlist. I suspect that a flash of an idea can occur to anyone. Such a spark may be suggested by experience or by records of experience that we call "data' and "experiment". Teachers have experiences where a student who usually seems almost asleep suddenly comments or contributes a valuable insight. Teachers and parents also have experiences where kids have comments or questions that are out of nowhere and are based on amazing misunderstandings.
It seems that all us humans are remembering and misremembering, receiving zingers of brilliance and blunder, sympathy and suspicion all the time. Don't you worry: we will eventually get it all straight.
