Ask More: The Power of Questions to Open Doors, Uncover Solutions, and Spark Change pdfdrive com

announcement [by] the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, that
AIDS is now an epidemic [in] over 600 cases?

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SPEAKES: What’s AIDS?
KINSOLVING: Over a third of them have died. It’s known as “gay
plague.” (Laughter.) No, it is. I mean it’s a pretty serious thing that one
in every three people that gets this has died. And I wondered if the
president is aware of it?
SPEAKES: I don’t have it. Do you? (Laughter.)
KINSOLVING: No, I don’t.
SPEAKES: You didn’t answer my question.
KINSOLVING: Well, I just wondered, does the president—
SPEAKES: How do you know? (Laughter.)
KINSOLVING: In other words, the White House looks on this as a great
joke?
SPEAKES: No, I don’t know anything about it, Lester.
KINSOLVING: Does the president, does anybody in the White House
know about this epidemic, Larry?
SPEAKES: I don’t think so. I don’t think there’s been any—
KINSOLVING: Nobody knows?
SPEAKES: There has been no personal experience here.
In retrospect and with full knowledge about the suffering to come, the words
and laughter from that White House “briefing” ring especially cruel. The
exchange revealed ignorance, fear, and the disconnect between politics and
science. A deadly disease appeared to be striking young gay men. Did the
president have a reaction? No, the press secretary replied, implying: None of us
around here are gay enough to have had that experience. Speakes made no
comment about the health dimension or the research that was needed to solve the
crisis. He made no reference to public health or education. He addressed the

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questions through his peculiar political filter.
It’s impossible to look back on this exchange and not find it appalling. But a
variation of it happens with alarming frequency. We often respond emotionally
or dismissively to problems we don’t understand. Science, on the other hand,
teaches us to step back, slow down, and ask, simply and dispassionately.
What’s going on here?
Why is it happening?
What is causing or influencing it?
Test but Verify
The methodical, logical approach to scientific investigation provides a blueprint
for inquiry that rewards reality, not emotion, one step at a time.
Start with the facts. What have you observed or what do you know with a high
degree of certainty? Fauci knew from the CDC reports that young gay men were
dying of a form of pneumonia that only strikes people whose immune systems
have been compromised.
Formulate your question. What’s going on and why? Why were these young
men dying of a disease that wasn’t supposed to attack healthy people? Fauci’s
team wanted to know.
Develop a hypothesis—your explanation for what you’ve observed—and test it.
In many ways, this hypothesis is the crux of scientific inquiry. The ancient
Greek origins of the word offer an explanation. Hypo means “foundation,” and
thesis means “placing.” Many people confuse hypotheses with theories, thinking
they’re one and the same. But a hypothesis comes before a theory or
explanation. It’s the soil below the basement of scientific thought. Charles
Darwin had a hypothesis, that plant and animal species originated through
competition and “natural selection.” Only half a century later, after vast amounts
of research and observation, did scientists elevate that hypothesis into a theory:
the foundation of an entire field of science. Fauci’s hypothesis was that an
autoimmune disease was killing these young men, and it was a new disease the
world had not previously seen.

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Through experimentation, testing, measurement, and documentation Fauci
worked to see if his hypothesis held up. Only by submitting ideas to rigorous
experimentation, measurement, and scrutiny could he know if the hypothetical
ground was stable enough to support the foundation of theory. This meant
sharing findings with peers who in turn set out to disprove the hypothesis. Think
how different this line of inquiry is from politics and business and so much else
in life. So many questions tend to be rhetorical, seeking answers that prove
people right—or, at least, on the “right” side. In science, you are trying to prove
yourself wrong. The triumph comes when you cannot. It means you have a
reasonably stable hypothesis.
If your hypothesis survives this scientific trial by fire, you have an
explanation. But even then you haven’t achieved total certainty. In science, no
answer is ever complete because after your “Why?” is answered, it breeds an
infinite number of “Whys.” There is more research to be done, new discoveries
to make.
These principles—facts, hypothesis, test—can be your guideposts to bring
science into your questioning. They will apply in different ways as you connect
your observations and facts to your experiments, trying to determine whether
your answers hold up to scrutiny. Be prepared to think differently because you
have to go into the process embracing uncertainty, reaching into the unknown,
knowing answers will take time.
Stretch Yourself
Let’s say you had a bad car accident. You came out of it with three broken ribs,
whiplash, bad bruises, and persistent pain. You know you’re lucky to be alive
and still able to move at all, but you hurt like hell. You go to physical therapy
and that seems to help, but the pain doesn’t go away. Your doctor prescribes
pain meds, but you hate them. They send you into orbit, and they don’t relieve
all the pain anyway. Some friends tell you to try yoga. You read up on it and
decide to give it a go. You’re desperate, so it’s worth the effort. It’s not exactly
fun and it wipes you out, but after a couple of months, you think you’re feeling a
little less pain.