Victor Davis Hanson // National Review
During this entire epidemic, and the response to it, there is a growing tension between front-line doctors and scientific researchers, between people who must use and master numbers in their jobs and university statisticians and modelers, and between the public in general and its credentialed experts.
In a nutshell, the divide reflects the ancient opposition between empiricism and abstraction — or more charitably common sense and practical application versus scientific knowledge.
When the two are combined and balanced, then knowledge advances. When they are not, both are deprived of the wisdom of the other.
