The women with whom I debated the merits of the flu vaccine possessed a technical vocabulary that was entirely unfamiliar to me at the time. They used words like adjuvant and conjugate, and they knew which vaccines were live virus vaccines and which were acellular. They were familiar with the intricacies of the vaccine schedules of other countries, and literate in an array of vaccine additives. Many of them were, like me, writers. And so it is not surprising that I began to hear metaphors behind the technical language and information we traded.
“Data wins debates, but empathy wins trust; metaphors speak” — Professor X
