Barry Arrington

Renaissance astrology, in other words, was a premodern form of scientism, if we take scientism in its broadest sense of unwarranted reliance on science, or a predisposition to believe opinions that present themselves illicitly as scientific facts. It differed from our contemporary forms of scientism largely relative to its intellectual prestige. In the modern world scientism is parasitic on an enormous body of valid ­scientific achievements as well as on the dominance of materialism and utilitarianism in public philosophy. In the Renaissance, by contrast, the scientistic practice of astrology had to share the intellectual ecosystem with powerful traditions of practical reasoning that challenged its premises in fundamental ways: the moral theology of the Catholic Church and the moral philosophy of Read More ›

The Colorado Department of Health has been caught inflating COVID 19 deaths. A state lawmaker has requested a criminal investigation. He also provided another letter dated April 17 from the Someren Glen senior care center to its staff, residents, and residents’ families. The Centennial facility’s letter said CPDHE had overruled the cause of death findings by attending physicians in order to list seven deaths as being caused by COVID-19. This will come as a surprise to absolutely no one. In March, the scientific advisor to the Italian Minister of Health stated: “On re-evaluation by the National Institute of Health, only 12 per cent of death certificates have shown a direct causality from coronavirus, while 88 per cent of patients who have Read More ›

Every time we run a series of articles on the genetic code, our combox gets stuffed with comments from materialists claiming the idea that the genetic code is an actual code is fallacious, an error committed only by those ID rubes with an agenda. But, of course, not only is this untrue, it is easily shown to be untrue. There are numerous examples of materialists insisting that the “code” part of “genetic code” refers to a real code; it is not an analogy nor the sloppy use of language. To his credit Larry Moran is one such: The Real Genetic Code This is the genetic code. It shows the relationship between a sequence of nucleotides in messenger RNA (mRNA), or Read More ›

Did you ever notice how materialists like to have it both ways on the probable exist of other intelligences?  Consider a recent exchange between Kairosfocus and that fount of materialist hypocrisy Ed George in the context of a discussion of the semiotic code instantiated in every living cell: KF:  It is noteworthy that algorithmic, alphanumeric code — a linguistic phenomenon — remains stubbornly as only the product of intelligence. EG:  [T]o the best of our knowledge, it remains stubbornly as only the product of human intelligence. Ed reasons as follows:  KF has no warrant to infer that the staggeringly complex, sophisticated and elegant genetic code – a semiotic code far beyond our present ability to replicate – is the product Read More ›

Astoundingly, even after my last post (Orthomyxo’s Hero May be the Worst Scientist of All Time), Orthomyxo continues to defend disgraced scientist Neil Ferguson and the debunked Imperial College Model (ICM) that touched off worldwide panic and the tragic waste of trillions of dollars. For further reading on the debunked model, the American Institute of Economic Research has issued: Imperial College Model Applied to Sweden Yields Preposterous Results. The article details two of the main flaws with the ICM — the inexcusable secrecy surrounding its source code and the “preposterous” predictions the model makes in the case of Sweden. The entire article is must reading. First — and I found this to be utterly astounding — is the total lack Read More ›

Frequent commenter Orthomoyxo often cites the Imperial College model that touched off the worldwide panic. Now that the author of that model has resigned in disgrace, NR reports on how awful his record truly is. The whole article bears reading. Highlights: Indeed, Ferguson’s Imperial College model has been proven wildly inaccurate. To cite just one example, it saw Sweden paying a huge price for no lockdown, with 40,000 COVID deaths by May 1, and 100,000 by June. Sweden now has 2,854 deaths and peaked two weeks ago. As Fraser Nelson, editor of Britain’s Spectator, notes: “Imperial College’s model is wrong by an order of magnitude.” Indeed, Ferguson has been wrong so often that some of his fellow modelers call him “The Master of Read More ›

The appalling depths to which materialists will sink in attempting to insulate themselves from the conclusions compelled by the evidence were demonstrated in this exchange between Orthomyxo and Upright Biped regarding the genetic code: UB: There is a point in time and space where an association is made between a codon and an anticodon. There is also a point in time and space when there is an association made between an anticodon and an amino acid. UB: the association between the codon and the amino acid is a discontinuous association. It is not established by dynamics, but by a) a specific type of organization, and b) simultaneous coordination between two independent sets of multiple sequences Note that the nothing UB said is the least bit controversial. Read More ›

ID critic Ed George was asked the following question: “Are you suggesting that the genetic code works through a series of chemical reactions?” His response: “Duh!” When asked to elucidate, he wrote the following comment: DNA is a chemical (deoxyribonucleic acid). It interacts with other chemicals (e.g., transcriptase) to form yet other chemicals (e.g., RNA) that reacts with other chemicals (e.g., amino acids) to form other chemicals (e.g., proteins). This is admittedly overly simplified, but there is nowhere in this process that does not involve chemical reactions. It is astonishing that someone who purports to be able to describe how DNA works (even on a simplified basis) would display such ignorance. Every educated person — theist, atheist, materialist, monist, dualist, Read More ›

This news article reports the death of an Ohio resident who was skeptical of the efficacy of lockdowns. The liberal media never seems to tire of celebrating the death or misfortune of those who disagree with them. It is tragic that they have sunk to new lows. Is it any wonder that the media is the most distrusted institution in the country (even lower than Congress for goodness sake)? Let’s take a look at the logic implicit in this story. This guy was a skeptic of lockdowns. He died. Therefore, his skepticism was unwarranted. **face palm** As a matter of logic, this man’s death is one data point. We do not extrapolate from a single data point to a population Read More ›

Yet another study, this one out of Germany, confirms what was reported in Palo Alto, Los Angeles, Boston and New York. This one arrives at an infection rate of 15% (10X the previously thought number) and a CFR of .37%. One wonders how orthomyxo will spin this (either “don’t believe it” or “it is what I have always been saying” is my guess).

Much has been written about In this article, Keith Carlson compares California (first in the nation with drastic lockdown measures that are not yet lifted) with Florida (lockdown started two weeks later and is already easing). This is the summary: California’s population is 39.5 million, Florida’s is 21.5 million. The average age in each state is: California, 36, Florida, 42—Floridians an average of six years older. As of April 23, California had 33,261 one cases and 1,268 COVID-19 deaths; Florida had 27,869 cases and 867 deaths. Meaning, 0.08 percent and 0.1 percent of those states’ populations were infected. California’s death-per-infected rate: 3.8 percent, Florida’s: 3.1 percent, with an equally small percentage of each state’s population having died, less than 0.005 percent. California’s 39.5 million people are spread out Read More ›

“There is no point in keeping grocery stores open if the meat packers are closed due to the virus.” Commenter Ed George

To our progressive interlocutors: When even Newsweek bails on you, it is time to abandon your narrative. MOST U.S. HOSPITALS ARE EMPTY. SOON THEY MIGHT BE CLOSED FOR GOOD instead of merely preserving hospital beds and other resources, this heavy-handed injunction has created a burden of its own design: a historic number of empty beds in systems left untouched by the pandemic. Those hospitals have resorted to unprecedented levels of furloughs to stave off temporary budget shortfalls, but industry and economic trends point to more lasting outcomes unless immediate action is taken.

In response to my last post (The Data Are in: A Nationwide Lockdown Was Never Necessary) Bob O’H got red in the face, stamped his feet, and apparently insisted that a nationwide lockdown was necessary. Was it? Here is an analysis performed by a friend: To put US COVID19 cases into perspective, it helps to separate the terrible outbreak in the five-state region of New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Rhode Island and Massachusetts from the other 45 states. (Stats as of April 25.) Total PopulationNY-NJ-CT-RI-MA – 39.8 millionRest of US – 288 million COVID Cases – Total (per million people)NY-NJ-CT-RI-MA – 490,675 (12,312)Rest of US – 496,657 (1,722) COVID Deaths – Total (per million people)NY-NJ-CT-RI-MA – 33,262 (835)Rest of US Read More ›

According to a study discussed today in the Wall Street Journal (behind a paywall), the nationwide lockdown was never necessary. The vast majority of states should have followed Sweden’s example: We ran a simple one-variable correlation of deaths per million and days to shutdown, which ranged from minus-10 days (some states shut down before any sign of Covid-19) to 35 days for South Dakota, one of seven states with limited or no shutdown. The correlation coefficient was 5.5%—so low that the engineers I used to employ would have summarized it as “no correlation” and moved on to find the real cause of the problem. . . . Sweden is fighting coronavirus with common-sense guidelines that are much less economically destructive than Read More ›