16 January 2021 | New Scientist | 5“It was the best of times, it was the worst
of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was
the age of foolishness, it was the epoch
of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity... ”
We are just a couple of weeks into 2021
and yet that famous opening from Charles
Dickens’s A Tale of Two Cities has never
rung truer. On the one hand, we are seeing
the roll-out of effective vaccines against
a disease that little more than a year ago
was unknown to science – a stunning
tribute to human wisdom, and to the
power of a belief in science. On the other
hand, we have the incredible scenes of
an enraged mob rampaging through
the US Capitol, the fulcrum of what
until recently was considered one of
the most secure democracies on Earth.
Will wisdom or rage set our trajectory
for the coming months and years? It isperhaps too early to say, but what is clear is
that the covid-19 vaccines give us grounds
for hope that some form of normality will
return in 2021, despite all the questions
still swirling around how exactly that
can best be achieved (see pages 8-10).
What is equally clear, however, is that if
and when covid-19 is contained, businessas usual isn’t an option. The pandemic
has ruthlessly exposed the divisions,
inequalities and structural weaknesses
of societies around the world, not least in
established Western liberal democracies
such as the US and UK. Meanwhile, global
problems such as climate change haven’tgone away – 2020, we now know, was the
joint hottest year on record (see page 14).
To see how best to move on, we would
perhaps be wise to ask ourselves how we
got here. On page 36, human development
researcher Robert J. Sternberg makes the
case that at least part of the problem lies
in our faulty conceptions of what it means
to be smart. Prioritising and rewarding
a very limited idea of intelligence has
exacerbated social, economic and racial
inequalities, while fostering a “me first”
culture that leaves us ill-equipped for the
collaborative problem-solving we need
if we are to survive and thrive as a species.
It is a bold, compelling hypothesis
and such back-to-basics thinking may
be exactly what we need if, to continue
with Dickens’s words, a spring of hope
is to follow this winter of despair. ❚Time to think smart
Current travails suggest we need a radical overhaul of the way we tackle problems
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“The pandemic has ruthlessly
exposed divisions and
inequalities around the world”EDITORIAL
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