I couldn’t substantiate whether this story was true or not. But it is easy enough to find through internet stories that we could call it a parable. It goes something like this.

Five monkeys were in a cage with a bunch of bananas at the top of a pole. As soon as one of the monkeys started climbing to pole, he would get blasted with water until they all refused to climb the pole. Next one of the monkeys was replaced. Once the new monkey started climbing the pole, the other four monkeys would pull the new monkey down preventing him from attempting to get the bananas. Then another monkey is replaced and the same behavior is emulated. Finally, all the monkeys are new and have never been sprayed yet they have been trained to stop any monkey from climbing the pole without a real consequence.

This story seems to be mostly used in the business space to talk about office culture and to inspire to challenge the status quo. But, I can’t help to think about how we are culturally behaving as a result of Covid-19. Call it cancel culture or public shaming but people are no longer allowed to hold individual opinions that deviate from the cultural norm. And when I say cultural norm, I do mean an ignorant, non-fact based, science is settled kind of way.

The idea that science is settled is actually anti-science. There are a finite number of laws in science. Laws are provable by math and measurement. A theory is when data supports a hypothesis but it is not entirely provable or there is not enough data to support universal adoption as a law. Neither of these terms are codified because this by it’s definition is science; even laws should be continuously challenged to ensure that they are still laws.

Let’s get back to Covid and our culture. We are bombarded with radio, TV and quasi news stories about how the vaccines are safe, do our part, etc. I would call it a propaganda campaign. Admittedly, it must be pretty safe (for now) because a lot of people have gotten the vaccine. But as a scientist, I have a responsibility to challenge the accepted norm because the only way to prove a hypothesis is to test it.

My analysis of the situation is that we have the majority of society that are not qualified as scientist and failed to do their own research. They have abdicated any level of investigation to celebrities or media types rather than challenge the status quo. Given that what I believe, people have the right to be ignorant and even stupid as long as their right does not infringe on mine. In this case, we have people that are now verbally shaming and using non-qualified belief to pull the monkey down from the poll.

These were all memes that I saw yesterday that pertain to the Monkeys and the Poll parable. You can watch my Governor as a science authority within the first five minutes. This wasn’t the clip I was looking for but I think it is a perfect illustration of the propaganda campaign.

Unfortunately, I don’t think that there is much we can do about it. My best suggestion is to be aware of the world that we are living in. Pick your battles because we are not going to be able to fight them all and only the ones worth fighting. Let’s keep our calm so that we don’t make enemies out of potential allies.

End Your Programming Routine: One time I remember in seventh grade science that we had two people holding a string on each end tight. The amount of energy it took for one person to pull the string away from the other was significant. But when a third person pushes in the middle of the string, it takes that much less energy. My point is that we are not going to solve this problem using the strategies of the status quo. We are going to have to address the issue from the side where it is much easier to move the string.