I was curious about what in the field of climate change according to him is the most important unknown? I understand that is not his direct field, but since he teaches a class on the unknown in science, it seems like there remains a lot of differing opinions regarding the key questions that remain unsolved in science regarding climate change? Also, I am curious regarding the progress over the course of our lifetime in mental health research, are there many unanswered questions where we have no idea how to begin or we are aware of how to answer but it takes time to explore all the edges? I ask this because naturally I see a lot of my friends and also old people struggle more with mental health in the modern world especially depression, anxiety, and trauma than I do with physical illnesses. Link
top of page
bottom of page
Your question about mental health really resonates with me. I wonder too whether we really are less well now - whether even with all the little luxuries of capitalism, maybe there's something spiritually about us which causes us a lot of pain - or, perhaps we are just better at diagnosis now and these problems have always been around. It's so hard to know - and even more of a challenge given that perhaps diagnoses themselves can be harmful (for example, someone who is wrongly diagnosed with a mental illness might take a medication that exacerbates other problems). Acknowledging these unknowns and uncertainties are important in understanding our relationships with our mental health - yet it's not something I've heard at all when people are actually being treated
Gaurang, you make several important connections between Firestein's point on ignorance and societal problems of climate change and mental health. In each of these problems, I think human behavior poses a significant unknown. How do people react to climate change policy (e.g. support vs. against)? Do they only react strongly to economic incentives, or can the public be shaped to care about the environment as their own, rather than a public good in the tragedy of the commons? Also for mental health, there is likely not be a one-size-fits-all set of indicators for mental health risks or disorders. Perhaps uncertainty can be diminished by more personalized approaches, potentially powered by machine learning and big data.