A lot of posts about hope sprouted in the northern hemisphere spring this year. Ordinarily, I would soak all this up, and feel energized. But it felt more alienating than inspiring in this moment. I needed something stronger.

I found it by dipping into conceptualizations of hope in political philosophy. Descriptions of hope can feel naïve, when so much in the world is clearly getting worse. What I needed, I discovered, is “militant optimism.” This concept was elaborated by the 20th century philosopher, Ernst Bloch, and it has been an influence on protest and liberation movements. Optimism isn’t enough. You need the militant part – concrete social actions – to counteract pessimism.

Bloch wrote a 3-volume book on hope, and framed utopian thinking not as idealism, but as a call to action. Hope, he said, can disappoint: “However, hope still nails a flag on the mast, even in decline, in that the decline is not accepted, even when this decline is still very strong. Hope is not confidence. Hope is surrounded by dangers, and it is the consciousness of danger and at the same time the determined negation of that which continually makes the opposite of the hoped-for object possible.”

Below as usual are links to what I’ve been writing lately – including encouraging progress on next generation Covid vaccines – and other things that caught my eye. This month, that includes an interesting look at anti-science attitudes across the last 50 years.

Wishing you strength and solidarity,

Hilda

Image source: The photo of flowers from my garden is my own (CC BY-NC-ND license).

• Lots of next generation next generation Covid vax news in my latest monthly update at Absolutely Maybe : More Progress in Vaccines to Reduce Covid Transmission.
• My belated annual roundup of things we learned about peer review in 2024 at Absolutely Maybe. Including structured peer review, reviewers’ uncertainty, and “uselessly elongated review bias”: 5 Things We Learned About Peer Review in 2024.
• From Annabelle South and colleagues, 8 principles for sharing clinical trial results with participants. (Unfortunately, my 2016 post on the everyday betrayal of not letting participants know what happened is still relevant.)
• Natascha Chtena and colleagues analyzed 52 open science policies and concluded that they “overwhelmingly focus on making research outputs publicly accessible, neglecting to advance the two aspects of OS that hold the key to achieving an equitable and inclusive scientific culture.”
• Emiliano Grossman analyzed responses to the French Image of Science Survey across 50 years to explore trends and demographic changes in anti-science / science-skepticism. These attitudes, he wrote, “used to be associated with ignorance and religious beliefs, [but have] become more complex and multi-faceted.” Now, though, these attitudes have been growing among the better educated, for a variety of reasons. For example, Grossman concludes, “We may be witnessing growing critical distance to science and its commercial uses.”
• News from Mastodon: They have begun their transition away from private ownership to ownership by a foundation in Europe, with a vow to never go down the for-profit route. This is so exciting!