I
mean, besides griping and whining like everyone else. And feeling embarrassed
for sneezing in front of a class. And I don’t mean an ordinary sneeze. I mean a
convulsive one that makes me bend over double, one that is uncontrollable, and
which makes me invent new consonants. Red Skelton did a comedy routine about
this once.
What
do we scientists do when we get sick? We test a series of hypotheses, that’s
what. It keeps our minds occupied even though we may never find out which
hypothesis, if any, might be true.
When
I became sick over a month ago, I tried to figure out what it was. I first
assumed it was allergies. Allergies are famous in Oklahoma. I got a severe sore
throat one night, assumed it was a cold, Hypothesis 1, but it was gone the next
day, to be replaced by all the usual symptoms of either an allergy or a cold.
Lots of other people had the same experience on the same day, which just
happened to be the day the rain stopped and a strong wind came from the south
during cedar pollen season (Juniperus
ashei, abundant in Texas). How likely was it that I had an infection when
everybody else had allergies? The rain came back and our windshields ran yellow
with cedar and elm pollen. That was hypothesis 2: allergic reaction.
But
it didn’t go away. I assumed that Hypothesis 1 had been correct. But nine days
later, I still had this cold. Maybe, I thought, it was a bacterial infection,
Hypothesis 3. Maybe the allergic reaction weakened my immune system, making me
vulnerable to bacteria that I already harbored and which had been waiting their
chance to invade me. Evidence: yellow snot. Not just from breathing pollen, but
even when the pollen had been rinsed away by more rain.
Ten
days of amoxicillin seemed to help. At least my sense of taste returned. But my
cough and congestion continued. I went to the clinic again. My snot was now
clear, so the conclusion was that Hypothesis 2 had been correct, and I got an
allergy shot.
By
the beginning of the fourth week of whatever-the-hell, I was beginning to think
of bacteria again, because the allergy shot brought no relief. I thought it was
working, but this was bias on the part of my brain. My snot was yellow again,
and there were the convulsive coughs, along with abdominal muscle pains just
from the coughing. I have already used more tissues than I typically do in two
or three years. But this is Hypothesis 4: amoxicillin-resistant bacteria.
Antibiotic-resistant
bacteria kill thousands of people. They are the premier example of the
statement I used in my encyclopedia: What
you don’t know about evolution can kill you. If I had not studied
evolutionary medicine, I might never have thought of Hypothesis 4. Most
infections, even bacterial ones, are self-limiting, which means you eventually
get over them in a few months or decades. But I have too much life that I want
to finish before I die, so I hope it doesn’t take this long. And recovery is
not guaranteed. Weep not for me, gentle friends, but for the books I will not
have a chance to publish unless I recover.
As
of this posting, the second-line antibiotic seems to be working. If it does
not, I hereby authorize my heirs to post a notice on this blog.
I
was in the mood for hypothesis testing because I was reading This Is Biology: The Science of the Living
World, by the late great Ernst Mayr. He wrote the book when he was 92 years
old; he died at age 100 in 2004. It is thick with information, but pleasantly
written (even with a joke or two), and I could relax in the assurance that he
had figured out the philosophy of science so that I did not have to. He was not
a great fan of philosophers; during the height of Karl Popper’s popularity, he
said that every scientist he knew claimed he or she was a Popperian and then
went ahead and did whatever he or she was going to do anyway. If I did not have
to sit at home, I might never have looked at this book.
Hypothesis
testing helps us understand reality, but it also helps take our minds away from
the reality that would depress us.
