On October 24, 2023, David Wallace-Wells visited the University of Utah to give the annual Tanner Lecture on Human Values. The Daily Utah Chronicle reporter, Libbey Hanson, attended the event and wrote a detailed account of the lecture given by the New York Times science journalist.

 

From the article:

Wallace-Wells began the lecture by comparing the published data of early pandemic times versus published data about climate change. 

He discussed his frustration as scientists published data in the winter of 2021, estimating the number of COVID-related deaths, symptoms and timelines, yet were wrong each time. He felt like he had no control over the situation.

“I was kind of outraged by this,” he said. “I felt sort of betrayed by modelers, but the question of how we model the future is not just an epistemological manner, or quantitative question or something for policy debates. It has a kind of a spiritual dimension to what the future looks like.”

 

Click here to read the full article

---

MEDIA CONTACTS

Missy Weeks, Tanner Humanities Center
missy.weeks@utah.edu |801-581-8879

Published October 26, 2023