Rand Paul’s ignorance of ‘pure science’ research leads to his abuse of Anthony Fauci

The Greek playwright Euripides observed ‘Talk sense to a fool and he calls you foolish.’ Watching Rand Paul trying to assassinate Dr. Anthony Fauci’s reputation reminded me of watching a used car salesman filibustering God. His threats of launching investigations into Fauci only accentuated his desperation to find something intelligent to say about the valedictorian of the Cornell University Medical School class of 1966.

Paul’s combative insinuation to Dr. Fauci that a laboratory in the United States had funded research that accidentally released the virus into the population stunned me with its ignorance. Paul, like most conservatives, is never one to miss an opportunity to create smokescreens that feed anti-Chinese racism that has resulted in attacks on Asian Americans. His xenophobic fear-mongering distracts from the fact that blaming China does not change the reality that the Trump administration botched our response by ignoring the threat for several months.

The right wing attempted to treat this a political issue rather than a medical one to foment the latent animosity many Americans have toward China. Various genetic analyses have determined unequivocally that the Covid-19 virus arose in the natural world in southeast Asia, most probably in the bat populations that live there. All coronaviruses, including the ones that cause the yearly cycles of influenza, trace their origins to that same source, namely the fresh markets that traffic in live animals as food. These zoonotic diseases are spread between humans and animals and have been found in several different animals around the world. The question is why are the bats that harbor it not adversely affected by it.

Paul’s attack on research efforts of pure science flabbergasted me. Apparently, he does not understand how real science operates when he questioned the need for pure science for which he saw no practical applications. The tirade reminded me of the parochial myopia of an algebra student whining about ‘When am I ever going to use this?’

All discoveries and inventions result from pure scientific research that had no planned real world purpose. For example, in 1957, researchers at Bell Labs invented a new device that emitted a very thin intense beam of red light they called a laser that had no practical application. In 1960 Dr. Theodore Maiman of Hughes Research Labs produced the first working laser, an application of the original pure research that is essential to the modern world. Today lasers are used for surgery, surveying, reading UPC stickers, scanning cds, and hundreds of other applications from what was just a toy.

Between 1856 and 1863, an Austrian monk, Gregor Mendel, studied how seven characteristics of pea plants were passed from generation to generation. The results of his pure science investigation laid the foundation for the science of genetics that led to better understanding of the mechanics of heredity. That insight enabled improvements in agriculture, stock breeding, enhanced medical treatments and culminated in mapping the entire human genome in 2003.

The German mathematician, Gottfried Leibniz, published a paper in 1689 describing a new mathematical system that only used 0’s and 1’s. In 1847, George Boole, described a system of logic now known as Boolean Algebra that assigned a value of 1 to true statements and a value of 0 to false ones. Having only two numbers could be thought of as electrical switches being on or off, a discovery that led to modern computers.

In 1637, Rene Descartes merged algebra and plane geometry into analytical geometry that revolutionized mathematics. Ultimately, Cartesian coordinate system, was adapted to invent the Global Position System to map the world.

During his development of his theory of evolution, Darwin hypothesized that all life on earth arose from the first cells. That explains why all organisms depend on the same organic molecules from DNA to amino acids. How else can we use insulin and heart valves from pigs to treat human medical problems or culture vaccines in chicken and duck eggs?

Benjamin Franklin gave the best response to the naysayers of pure scientific research. When Franklin was extolling the invention of hot air balloons, one cynic asked Franklin ‘What good are they?’ Franklin snapped back, “What good is a newborn baby?” None, but its potential has limitless possibilities.

Not all pure science discoveries lead to earth-shattering applications but we cannot know ahead of time which ones will. It is foolish to ask what good new discoveries are because somewhere down the line a researcher may look at a discovery with fresh eyes and use it to solve a problem. One would think that an ophthalmologist trained in the scientific method would realize that.

One would think.

Roger Guffey is a retired math teacher.