Julie Heng ’24 is a Crimson Editorial editor. Her column runs on alternate Tuesdays.
There’s not a lot going for uncertainty.
As Harvard professor emeritus of zoology and biology Richard Lewontin wrote in the preface to his book “Biology as Ideology: The Doctrine of DNA”, “a simple and dramatic theory that explains everything makes good press, good radio, good TV, and best-selling books.” Meanwhile, he noted, “if one's message is that things are complicated, uncertain, and messy, that no simple rule or force will explain the past and predict the future of human existence, there are rather fewer ways to get that message across.”