Getting the COVID-19 vaccine is a matter of trust - opinion

Our trust is based on the complex capability to develop science and technology for the benefit of mankind.

By LIAT BEN-DAVID
Updated: DECEMBER 22, 2020 21:50
A MAN receives a COVID-19 vaccine at a Meuhedet vaccination center in Jerusalem on Monday. (photo credit: OLIVIER FITOUSSI/FLASH90)
A MAN receives a COVID-19 vaccine at a Meuhedet vaccination center in Jerusalem on Monday.
(photo credit: OLIVIER FITOUSSI/FLASH90)
“I won’t get vaccinated,” said the text message I received from a colleague. “I trust the body’s wisdom to heal itself.”
When I asked if she had the same kind of trust when Polio or Measles are concerned, she didn’t answer, but I know she saw the question. Not because of the blue check mark that appeared next to it but because of the laser treatment she recently had for her eyesight.
She was right about one thing: It’s a matter of trust. Every time we walk into a building, swallow a painkiller, board an airplane or get on a roller-coaster, we trust the professionals who developed, planned, manufactured and put them in place for our use. We trust that they know what they’re doing and that they took all necessary measures to ensure a productive and safe use of whatever it is they made. Our trust isn’t blind. On the contrary – it’s based on generations of experience and understanding of one of the most unique forms of human intelligence: the complex capability to develop science and technology for the benefit of mankind.
We are curious beings, exploring ourselves, the environment and the processes and interactions within it. We accumulate knowledge, understanding and experiences, actively harnessing them to expand our biological abilities and answer our needs and dreams in all realms of life, such as food, shelter, transportation, commerce, communication and health. Our technological and scientific intelligence has taken us from hunting and gathering to the Moon; has enabled us to have real-time video discussions with friends on the other side of the globe; expanded our longevity and quality of life within a few hundred years; and so on. We have trust in these abilities of ours, continuously using them in flexible ways demanded by ever-changing needs and environments.
Our trust doesn’t lack doubt. We make mistakes, can stubbornly refuse to admit we are wrong, and sometimes are even knowingly harmful or cruel. The price of scientific progress might be high, even irreversible. It’s scary, sometimes terrifying. The painful results hurt our trust in ourselves and in others.
To successfully navigate this continuum between trust and its absence, we need to use the kind of reason and action we developed through science and technology: the complex system of knowledge and skills based on facts, figures, critical thinking, understanding of interactions, problem-solving and decision-making – and the realization that in some cases, we still haven’t developed them enough to necessarily make the right choice. Nevertheless, it’s this system that we need in order to successfully and responsibly cope with issues such as climate change, use of resources, sustainability – and pandemics. It’s the engine of our development and one of our most crucial assets. We develop it through ongoing science education, from the very first time we ask “why” when we are toddlers and throughout our entire lives.
Our biological abilities are limited. We expand them in unprecedented ways by our scientific and technological wisdom. As in other cases, in the case of COVID-19, our “body’s wisdom to heal itself” isn’t enough. It needs help. Based on what we already know, as well as what we don’t and are yet to discover, considering risk-management factors, each of us must make a decision. This week, if nothing unexpected happens, I will receive the first dose of the COVID-19 vaccination. It’s a matter of trust.
Liat Ben David, PhD is the CEO of the Davidson Institute of Science Education.