Barry Arrington

Yesterday in response to one of my more outrageous “dad jokes,” my son said that I was “cra-cra” (pronounced Cray Cray).  I hastened to the internet to look the term up.  It means “Crazy.” The term put me in mind of a recent exchange I had with frequent commenter MatSpirit.  We were discussing President Trump’s reaction to New York Governor Cuomo’s call for more ventilators.  For those who did not follow the story, on March 27 Cuomo said New York needed 40,000 ventilators.  The state had 12,000 already, so Cuomo was calling for an additional 28,000.  On that same day Trump said that he believed the request was inflated, that New York did not need that many ventilators. Fast forward Read More ›

I have never been an advocate of conspiracy theories, because they violate the rule of parsimony known as Occam’s Razor — loosely, “the simplest explanation that accounts for all of the data should be preferred.” Too often conspiracy mavens advance “enormously complex coordinated malfeasance” as an explanation for that which is far more easily explained by simple stupidity. Take the 2008 fiscal crisis as an example. There is no need to invoke a vast government conspiracy to explain it. The crisis had its roots in the cratering of the subprime mortgage industry, which in turn was caused by the government dictating lending policies to achieve goals the government deemed more important than sound lending practices. Stupid? Of course. Nefarious? Probably Read More ›

As we have discussed in these pages, the CFR (case fatality rate) for COVID-19 is extremely difficult to calculate. We have a rough estimate of the numerator (deaths). But even that may be off, because of the difference between dying “with” COVID-19 and dying “of” COVID-19. In other words, if a person who was going to die of cancer today anyway gets COVID-19 an hour before he dies, is it correct to say he died of the virus just because he had it when he died. This is not theoretical. The Health Minister of Italy said the virus fatality number in his country is certainly overstated for this reason. For all the problems the numerator has, they pale in comparison Read More ›

Trump’s plan calls for protecting vulnerable age cohorts while letting the less vulnerable get back to work. The two charts below demonstrate why opposition to this proposal borders on the insane. The first chart is from CDC’s website showing COVID-19 deaths by age cohort as of April 17. The total is only 13,130, because CDC is behind in sorting this data. According to Worldmeter, total US deaths as of April 17 are 37,230. The second chart assumes the rates stay the same as the data is compiled (and I see no reason we should not assume that). Then I calculate total deaths as of today by age cohort. One number should jump out at you. 3,315. That is the total number Read More ›

From this article: It’s important to note that HCQ, zinc, and azithromycin are very well understood drugs with clear safety profiles; they are widely available, generic, inexpensive, and can be scaled rapidly, including to the developing world… Our primary strategic objective must be to prevent ICU overwhelm, which on our current course is imminent in most states. It is an axiom of infectious diseases that treatment in earlier stages is more effective than treating advanced stages. Early COVID-19 treatment is more likely to prevent disease progression to critical status, radically lowering hospitalizations and CFR than inaction. Current clinical drug trials are mostly focused on treating late stages of disease, when immunologic damage is a dominant threat. We believe that trials Read More ›

Yesterday a United States District Court entered an order barring the enforcement of a mayor’s order banning a “drive in” church service. Here are the first four paragraphs of the court’s opinion: On Holy Thursday, an American mayor criminalized the communal celebration of Easter. That sentence is one that this Court never expected to see outside the pages of a dystopian novel, or perhaps the pages of The Onion. But two days ago, citing the need for social distancing during the current pandemic, Louisville’s Mayor Greg Fischer ordered Christians not to attend Sunday services, even if they remained in their cars to worship – and even though it’s Easter. The Mayor’s decision is stunning. And it is, “beyond all reason,” Read More ›

This article makes a tremendous amount of sense. Academic credentials are important, if only because they provide a useful heuristic to learn more about a topic. Since you have to start somewhere, it makes sense to listen first to the people who are paid to teach and research that topic. Ultimately, however, the validity of scientific claims depends on the arguments and evidence in their favor. Thus, if someone makes a claim he can’t substantiate with good arguments and evidence, his credentials should not matter. Conversely, even if someone has no credentials, without evidence of substantive incompetence, this is not a reason to reject his claims.

Jerry and I are having a constructive exchange on the problem of evil.  My argument starts when Jerry asks me to define “good.” Jerry, the issue is not how one would define “good” in any particular situation.  The issue is whether it is possible to define good in a way that is not grounded in subjective preferences.  The only way to do that is if there is some objective standard of good.  Such an objective standard would necessarily stand over and above all men’s subjective preferences.  The character of God is advanced as the source of that objective standard.  The argument goes like this: The good is that which is consistent with the objective transcendent standard grounded in the character Read More ›

VB sums his chain of reasoning below. And very nicely done reasoning it is too. And then comes this: The problem of evil is more of a problem for the atheist than for the theist. He is right of course. But can anyone tell me why his is right. EVERYTHING THAT FOLLOWS IS VB’S: I am somewhat of an obsessive compulsive after a few months I started to ask uncomfortable questions. I know what I experienced but the mind is a funny thing and I recognized hey you are basing your life on this belief which is a serious commitment maybe I am deceiving myself “Am I sure?” and of course I was not sure I needed more.One of my Read More ›

The comments to the original Pass me a Corona! post are closed. Additional comments on that topic should be posted below. I will start this post with PaV’s last comments to the prior post [i.e., everything that follows is PaV, not Barry]. Today the paywall for a Spectator USA article has been lifted. The article is by a retired pathologist who worked as a pathologist for the NHS in the UK, Dr. John Lee. I mentioned his article yesterday. Every point he makes parallels arguments I’ve made here, though not so much the time period of death–though this, too, parallels a concern over “excess deaths.” Here are some relevant comments: The distinction between dying ‘with’ COVID-19 and dying ‘due to’ Read More ›

In bygone days the news media enjoyed a great deal of prestige and was trusted by nearly everyone.  Walter Cronkite was called “the most trusted man in America.”  Those days are gone.* A poll last week indicated that the news media are viewed least favorably of 16 major institutions.  It is no wonder.  Vicious partisanship is now the order of the day (see here for the latest on this).  CNN, for example, seems to have given up even the pretense of being a news organization and now serves as the propaganda wing of the Democratic party. And the nation suffers as a result. When I first heard the hysterical news reports in late February and early March, I received them Read More ›

The comment edit function. We listen. HT to our wonderful webmaster.

Here is a story from US News about German’s COVID-19 death rate that demonstrates how one should hesitate to draw conclusions from the face of a statistic.  First, some basic math.  The death rate for COVID-19 (indeed any rate) is based on a fraction.  We all learned in grammar school that fractions have two parts:  a numerator (the number on top), which is divided by the denominator (the number on bottom).  The fraction for the death rate is [total deaths]/[total cases]. Now, it should be obvious that there are two ways for the rate to go down.  (1) hold the line on total deaths in proportion to total cases  OR  (2)  pump the number of total cases in proportion to Read More ›

Our interlocutors in the comment thread to Leading Scientist Walks Back Doomsday Claim suggest that the doomsday scientist (Neil Ferguson) who panicked the world did not walk back his claims. They say his new statement is the same as his old statement, so “there is nothing to see here; move along.” Let’s test that claim. In the original report* Ferguson said “we would predict approximately 510,000 deaths in GB and 2.2 million in the US” if there is no mitigation effort. That is what grabbed headlines and motivated politicians. Ferguson then discusses some intervention strategies, and on page 8 he writes that the “most optimal” combination of strategies “is predicted to reduce peak critical care demand by two-thirds and halve Read More ›

The Scientist who panicked the world with predictions of up to 2.2 million American deaths now says “never mind.” See here.