The Three Blind Men and Covid-19 (Part 1)
A 2,500-year-old Indian proverb used by both Hindus and Buddhists teaches that people perceive the same reality in different ways.
It tells how seven blind men learned an elephant was coming to town and all wanted to examine the exotic beast with their own hands to see what it was. Each approached the elephant from a different direction. One grabbed the elephant’s trunk and exclaimed, “An elephant is a giant snake.” Another touched a tusk and said, “An elephant is a sharp spear.” The next felt the pachyderm’s ears and explained, “An elephant is a fan.” The fourth felt the side of the jumbo. “Oh, an elephant is like a wall.”
Another grabbed a leg and commented, “This elephant is a tree.” The sixth curious one handled the tail, convinced the beast was a rope. The final blind man felt the end of the tail and pronounced, “An elephant is a brush.” All of them had felt the elephant and were convinced their own understanding was correct.
They had “seen” it themselves. After the elephant left town, the blind friends fell to arguing among themselves, each claiming only they knew the true meaning of an elephant. Different subjective experiences produce different understandings. No corner of knowledge or medicine possesses a monopoly on absolute truth. The scientific consensus of today is not always the consensus of tomorrow.
When one analyses a complex problem, it is best to consider it from several points of reference. Otherwise, one merely acquires a one-dimensional understanding. Life, society, and diseases are complex. People need perspective. That is why we have two eyes instead of just one. What if one walked across the Namibian desert and kicked a dull, dirty glass-like rock? It might be a crystal. Or it might be a diamond. Cut and polished by a master, that dull, dirty rock might be worth a fortune.
Understandably, medical science is amazingly complicated. Visit a major medical school library and millions of journal articles there each convey an infinitely small piece of scientific knowledge. Not even top doctors know absolutely everything, or precisely how 100% of it fits together. Medical understanding is constantly evolving as discoveries are only gradually accepted as proven science. Medicine is a conservative profession. Historically, some of the most important breakthroughs have taken decades to gain acceptance. Examples abound – from inoculation and genetics forward. Today, one of those breakthrough understandings is how selenium affects viral disease – and vice versa.
Like a three-dimensional