Ari Schulman at The New Atlantis:
As I have written elsewhere, we must begin again to see science as something people do. We must stop seeing science as an alien force and admit it as a full participant in human affairs — a messy enterprise like all others, with its own distinct yearnings and vices.
It is with no small trepidation that I suggest the spirit of a rather different story: the Manhattan Project, whose proof of success, the first detonation of an atomic bomb, happened seventy-eight years ago this weekend, and will be depicted in Christopher Nolan’s movie Oppenheimer, set to be released next week. Here was an episode where America spoke of science not with the passive but the full active voice, as a powerful — and dangerous — ally.
Science has led America well through crises when it has eagerly anticipated needs and set ambitious, specific, achievable goals. The vaccine development, backed by Operation Warp Speed, was the proudest example during the pandemic. The Covid Tracking Project, which became our national data dashboard, nimbly solved a dire problem that the CDC wouldn’t.
more here.