Germ theory, plague houses and your career

We are in a position akin to that of early physicians who could see that people were getting sick but couldn’t do anything about it, because they didn’t understand the underlying causes. They knew of a few tricks that seemed to work. For example, nailing up plague houses tended to limit the spread of plague. But even the smart doctors tended to fall under the sway of pet theories that were wrong, such as the idea that diseases were caused by imbalanced humors or bad air. Once that happened, they ignored evidence that contradicted their theory. They became so invested in that theory that they treated any new ideas as threats. But from time to time you’d see someone like John Snow, who would point out, “Look, everyone who draws water from Well X is getting cholera.” Then he went and removed the pump handle from Well X and people stopped getting cholera. They still didn’t understand germ theory, but they were getting closer.

Neal Stephenson, author of The Baroque Cycle, interviewed in the current issue of Reason. I know it’s a reach but he could easily be talking about marketing and public relations agencies in the age of participatory journalism and transparency. Stumbling around, cutting open dogs and hoping to get all the stuff back in.

Link via boing boing

technorati tags {Neal Stephenson, Public Relations}

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