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Sciam 03/2005

By Gregon

The latest issue of Scientific American has been released, with details and free content available at the Sciam website. Free articles available from the March 2005 issue include a look at the misconceptions surrounding the Big Bang, computer modelling of epidemics in America, and skeptic Michael Shermer on the creationist fallacy of the problem of the missing link. Full details at the site.

Greg
Editor
Greg is the owner-editor of The Daily Grail, as well as the author of a number of books including Stop Worrying, There Probably is an Afterlife.
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One Comment

  1. Epidemics in America
    I found this article very interesting in light of experiencing a whooping cough outbreak in our area just prior to Christmas. I think one of the problems of predicting what should or could be done in the event of an epidemic has been hindered by the inability to predict human nature and what people will do in these situations. While the traffic patterns help predict what people would do on a daily basis before they found out about the outbreak it doesn’t help predict what they’d do in a panic situation.

    We were in a near panic situation during the whooping cough outbreak before it was over. People reacted in very off beat and illogical ways that I’m not sure could have been predicted. As one would expect, there were runs on pharmacies for the antibotic, people gave their medications to family and friends who didn’t not have a script and when they felt better or had adverse reactions to the antibiotic (nausea, etc.) they simpy stopped taking it. But there were several, to me, strange reactions to the quarantines. You were only required to remain at home for five days while you took the antibiotic and this was largely a self enforced quarantine, but people lied about being quarantined or ignored it all together. Granted, five days from work does put a pinch in the wallet. This along with people not infected or exposed demanding antibiotics and lining up in pharmacies where people were infected and lax doctor’s office procedures which sat infected people in waiting rooms for long periods of time along side babies not immunized or those with suppressed immune systems (cancer treatments) IMO caused probably half the cases. If it had not been for a week long school holiday and an ice storm, I think whooping cough would still be going around until everyone had it.

    There was certainly a lack of procedures to control the spread of a disease and voluntary isolation did not work. Human nature is unpredictable. I wish these researchers a hardy “good luck” in trying to predict the spead of a contagen.

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