1999 Articles

Wisdom versus knowledge: an agenda for a more humane medical science

Pollack, Robert

Why is there not more wisdom in the application of scientific discoveries to the lives of sick and suffering people? Why is there not more wisdom in plans for the future of both medical science and medical practice? I have come to the conclusion that the major impediment to the emergence of wisdom from knowledge in today’s medicine is the simple fact of human mortality. Mortality, the common fate that links us all, erects a wall of silence and blankness at the outer edges of scientific understanding.