Positive Biology in the COVID-era

For the past 2.5 years the world's governments, media and most of science and medicine have been consumed by negative biology and the proximate causation of one specific disease.  I post here a snippet from my chapter published last year on the importance of transcending our fixation on disease research, something that seems even more challenging to achieve now: 

Historically it made sense for human populations to conceive well-ordered science through the lens of negative biology. Prioritizing the question “What causes disease?” in a world dominated by extreme poverty and infectious diseases (like smallpox) was both a rational and sensible prescription. But now positive biology deserves to take its rightful place within an account of well-ordered science for the twenty-first century. Positive biology encourages us to explore both the proximate and evolutionary causes of exemplary positive phenotypes. Rather than fixating solely on the causation of pathology, positive biology encourages the study of the biology of centenarians, the emotional resilience of those who experience growth and development from adversity (vs. those who become depressed or develop addiction), and the genetic and environmental factors that contribute to self-esteem, healthy relationships, and secure attachment, etc.

What steps need to be taken to ensure that positive biology plays a prominent role in science today? I believe many different courses of action are needed. Conceptually we must overcome the observational bias implicit in (p.213) negative biology; that is, the assumption that the most important things to explain are the negative outcomes of morbidity and mortality. Science should celebrate a “curiosity-driven” mindset rather than one that predominantly focuses on the prevention and treatment of specific diseases. The success stories of positive biology (e.g., healthy aging, high IQ, emotional resilience, etc.) also deserve serious scientific attention. Elsewhere (Farrelly, 2012b), I argued that the NIH should create a new Institute of Positive Biology, which would help researchers facilitate the novel interdisciplinary research that positive biology can offer. The creation of such an innovative institute would also ensure that research on positive phenotypes can compete on a more level playing field against research on disease. The latter currently enjoys the lion’s share of research support. By transcending negative biology’s fixation on negative phenotypes, positive biology may be able to yield significant insights and technological advances that help the human populations of the twenty-first century flourish in spite of the fact that we face a potentially precarious and uncertain future.

When I published this article 10 years ago I sent a copy to the NIH director Francis Collins, encouraging him to consider creating an Institute of Positive Biology at the NIH.  This has not happened yet, but hopefully it will one day soon!  

Progress is not always linear, it is often a case of "1 step forward, 2 steps back".  

Cheers,

Colin