On Uncertainty

As life goes back to normal and the pandemic fades into the background, Kenny, Tihitina, and Will ask Amani Surges Martorella about what has been lost amidst this year of social distancing and lockdowns. Amani is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker and a counselor at the Johns Hopkins Counseling Center, in addition to being the advisor for A Place to Talk. Drawing on her experience working as counselor, Amani speaks on how creating and sustaining relationships has changed, especially for college students due to the pandemic. We talk about the impact of zoom and using technology to stay connected with each other and if the changes brought forth due to this reliance on technology will stay with us. But we also ask about the possibility it doesn’t and everything returns to normal and what the consequences of that will be. We recorded this podcast back in early February just as the vaccine was being put into arms. But as we return to normal, this conversation will hopefully keep in our minds what we faced this past year. Thank you for joining us this year and learning with us! It has been incredible to have these deep conversations about the world around us.

What can physics tell us about biology? This is the question we start off with in our conversation with Dr. Francesca Serra, a professor in the Physics Department who studies soft matter particularly a phase of matter called liquid crystals. We talk about liquid crystals, topological defects, thermodynamics, and how these physical phenomena can provide insights into biological processes. We also move into a bigger conversation about what we can learn about life from physics and if physics offers a possible answer to the secret of life. If you want to find out more about the interplay between physics and biological make sure to check out Does cell biology need physicists?, an article from the American Physical Society.

In this week’s episode, we continue our conversation on pain and the opioid crisis with Professor Travis Rieder, a Philosopher and Bioethicist at the Berman Institute of Bioethics. Having established the historical context leading to the conflicting pain treatment attitudes doctors hold last week, we speak Professor Rieder as he brings out some of the philosophical problems underpinning pain and addiction. How can a doctor know her patient is in pain? How does a patient's appearance impact how valid their claim to pain is perceived to be? Listen to hear about the non-objectivity of pain, "the most obvious principle,” the philosophical implication of an imagined “pain-o-meter”, and much more!

The opioid crisis is destroying livelihoods and communities across the United States. How did we get here and what can we do about it? To help us think through this question, we talk with Professor Travis Rieder, a Philosopher and Bioethicist at the Berman Institute of Bioethics, about his memoir In Pain. In this deeply personal memoir he talks about his experience in dealing with pain and opioids after a motorcycle accident while also detailing the historical foundations of the opioid crisis. In part 1 of 2 of our conversation, Professor Travis Rieder shows us how, historically, opioid use could be characterized as a swinging pendulum, conjugated with periods of liberal and conservative prescription of opioids, and how the present is a precarious time as opioids are being simultaneously overprescribed and underprescribed. We then talk about his own experience of being simultaneously overtreated and undertreated for pain, the subsequent medical mis-guidance he received in tapering off opioids, his resulting struggle with withdrawal, and much more. Join us next week for a philosophical discussion about the problem of pain! 

While the entire world has been upended by the coronavirus pandemic, most of us are understandably focused on the devastating impact the virus has had on the United States. However, in this episode of On Uncertainty, Dr. Clara Han from the Anthropology Department talks to Kenny and Tihitina about how the coronavirus is affecting low-income residents of Santiago, Chile. Drawing on her extensive anthropological research into poverty, disease, and everyday life and the deep relationships she has with some families living in Santiago, Dr. Han gives us a detailed look into how households and communities in Santiago are dealing with the social and economic effects of Covid-19 . We talk about how crises already faced by the poor are magnified by pandemic measures, the widespread distrust by those in Chile of their government,  and much more.