I also noted Professor Firestein's comments about the effects of timekeeping on our experience of time because I am fascinated with the ways in which the cultures we live in affect us on such deep levels. Related to this topic, I found his discussion of our sense of progress, which many people think of as innate, interesting because he argues that it is a relatively new thing for humans to think about the future in terms of progress. I wonder if there are any studies about people who do not think about time or progress in ways that perhaps the majority of people do, and what those ways of thinking say about our society.

I like your point about the relationship between stress and anxiety, especially because it is difficult for anyone to really know where one stops and the other begins. The terms we use for psychological states are never very clearly defined. In Susan Murphy's research, I was curious what kinds of physiological factors indicate stress to the researchers and how those factors might also indicate other psychological conditions.

As a non-quantitatively inclined reader, I found the paragraph that contains the most numbers, in which you discuss the current uncertainty in the risk of dying from COVID-19, most interesting and helpful. In this paragraph, you describe different projections for COVID-19 related deaths and what that means for the uncertainty in the risk. Ultimately, this kind of reasoning relies on very simple, straightforward math that I find easy to follow. I haven't come across a clear description of what uncertainty means in terms of risk of dying from COVID-19, even with all of the articles I've read since the pandemic started. I think news outlets might shy away from this type of mathematical reasoning about risk because it could scare off readers. This essay shows that the math involved in calculating uncertainty in risk can be quite simple to explain and understand.

I also found her description of those two false positives fascinating because it really does seem like the best preparation for some of the questions you ask about human response. If I were in her position, receiving signals from what looked like an alien, I would immediately think I had done something wrong and would not assume it was actually an alien. Obviously, Dr. Tarter takes her work seriously and believes in what she's doing so she has reason to believe that she might actually get so lucky as to make contact with some extraterrestrial life. I follow up question I would have to these questions is: would anyone actually believe scientists who said they received contact from extraterrestrial life?

I had similar thoughts in response to Dan Gilbert's discussion of the benefits of herd behavior in getting people to act on climate change. In some ways, his idea that humans are more likely to act on an individual level when they see those around them acting similarly matches how I think about the world. He gives the example of recycling, saying that because everyone recycles now, even those more opposed to dramatic climate change action recycle as well. My first issue with this idea is that it is inherently conservative and slow-paced: if we only act once a certain threshold of other people act we will be too slow to respond to something as imminent as large scale global warming. I am curious how the theory of humans as herd animals could be used to circumvent this issue. Also, as you point out with your example of developing countries looking at the relative successes and failures of democracy, I think there are some major differences between personal action, such as recycling, and collective, political action, like deciding to sign the Paris Agreement. In order to combat global warming, I think it has become clear that large scale, governmental efforts are more important than personal actions and I am curious about Gilbert's thoughts on what kind of factors go into those decisions.

As someone who would love to learn more about my genome, I also find it surprising that many people would not want to gave their genome mapped and studied. It seems extremely compelling especially given the selfish reasons of wanting to find out about genetic predispositions for certain diseases. However, I think one consistency in these prediction interviews has been a sense that large segments of the population don't trust scientists or the scientific community. Because things like climate change and vaccinations require collective action, people who study the climate or epidemiology recognize the need for creative public outreach that meets people where they are. Maybe the nature of genome research, which doesn't involve any potential catastrophe on a global scale, gives scientists like George Church less incentive to get creative about involving the public and trying to gain their trust. I'm not sure exactly what this would look like in his case, but I feel like it would involve people who are not entirely involved in research and have more of an expertise in public outreach. I also find it fascinating that 80% of Americans who influence the sex of their child choose to have girls. Those decisions are so intimate and personal that they give a genuine insight into our culture in a very interesting way.

I definitely think these questions relate to a wide range of the interviews that we've watched this week. One that comes to mind for me is the interview with George Church, in which he makes pretty clear how much the test subject needs to know before giving their genomic information to his research group. While he goes in depth on this subject, I wanted to know more about how much other groups of people, such as academic institutions and governments, should be persuaded to encourage the growth of this type of research. It seems like those large institutions could possibly do more to affect change than any one person. Of course, education on the individual level is extremely important, but it's interesting to think about how someone like Church could go about expanding his research which could save lives.