Simon Schama on how inoculation changed the world
HistoryExtra podcast
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The Sea Change Moment in the Age of Enlightenment
We're in a very interesting moment in the 1700s really, where we're in the age of enlightenment and science is seen as the new religion. However, it's true to say that when you have the hammer blows of pandemic after pandemic, it does something in your willingness to be kind of passive in the face of divine judgment. So, if there is another kind of faith, you might call it, or belief, and that belief happens to be statistically measurable, then you're going to shift some part of your faith to a belief that human ingenuity and human science actually can do what God might seem to be indifferent to or incapable of doing. We still haven't quite arrived at
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