Barry Arrington

I do not think of myself as an optimist. I am way more Eeyore than Pollyanna. Recently, however, I declared there was reason to trust China’s “no new cases” data out of Wuhan. Maybe I was wrong. A friend points me to this article. “EBC News, a Taiwan cable news network, broadcast two such photographs dated March 20, which is two days after China reported there were no new local Wuhan infections. One of the notices, after announcing the new cases, read: “Do not go out, or gather, wash your hands, be careful, hold on, hold on, and hold on some more.”  EBC also broadcast video of a hospital in Wuhan that it says was taken on March 19 and Read More ›

Are the numbers from Wuhan too good to be true? Or has the medical community missed that elephant sitting in the corner? This article explores the question. Since the lockdown occurred later than it should have, travellers attending the Chinese Lunar New Year celebrations transmitted the infection wherever they went. Most countries have focussed on identifying infections brought by travellers from such high-risk countries but the majority with COVID-19 infections now are showing increasing rates of local transmission. The signal from the Chinese puzzle could be that widespread infection is not inevitable and with stringent public health measures infection rate could be brought down to zero. That scenario does not make epidemiological sense. We have to conclude that China does Read More ›

I am using this website as a resource for working out my position on COVID 19. Thank you to everyone who has participated including those who push back at me. The dialectic in play on this site has been very helpful to me and I hope it has been helpful to other participants and to the lurkers. Yes, inevitably, some exchanges have been heated. Emotions are running high. But let us keep it up. Iron sharpens iron a wise man once said.

This short read on the balance between shutting down the economy and efforts to fight COVID 19 seems right to me. Yes, continue suppression for another couple weeks. But use this time to prepare for a shift to mitigation, meaning the resumption of normalcy for most Americans. We simply can’t go on living like this forever.

JVL: If we take the CFR for COVID-19 to be 2% . . . it’s a low estimate . . . in order to exceed Barry‘s limit* of 200,000 deaths in the US there would have to be over 10 million cases in the US. Wikipedia says the 2019 estimated population of the US is about 328 million so that means about 3% of the population would have to be diagnosed. It’s impossible to say, now, of course, but I’d be inclined to think that it’s fairly likely that 3% of the US population will get infected. We’ll see . . . . JVL says “it’s fairly likely that” around 3% of the US population of 328,000,000 will contract COVID Read More ›

JStanley’s comment here put me in mind of this photograph I took in a Xian market some years ago.

As is his wont, national treasure Upright Biped took materialist Bob O’H to school: Bob @ 63, we can replicate the process without having to resort to adding anything immaterial” Is that right Bob? Okay, let us make you the Director of a research team with unlimited personnel, unlimited time, and unlimited funding. And let us say that with this extraordinary intellectual and research power, it is not long before you can control, manipulate, and bind together whatever molecules you wish, and not only can you do that, but you can also successfully predict the results of that manipulation. So, if you need a replacement for the extant ribosome, you got it. If you need a de novo tRNA, you Read More ›

“The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction (i.e., the reality of experience) and the distinction between true and false (i.e., the standards of thought) no longer exist.” ― Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism Think about this the next time a progressive tells you that a man who says he is a woman is in fact a woman, or that there are 50+ genders. Think about it and be very afraid. Scratch a progressive and you will find a fascist underneath.

Some years ago I spent a couple of weeks in Malindi, Kenya.  Early the first morning of my stay, I walked down to the shore to watch the sun rise over the Indian Ocean.  As I stood on the beach taking in the breathtaking beauty, a steady stream of men, most barefoot, ran by.  They ran and ran and ran and kept on running until they disappeared over the horizon.  I asked a member of the hotel staff what was going on, and she told me nothing special was going on.  The men were running that day for the same reason they ran every day – for the sheer joy of running.  It is no wonder to me that Kenyans Read More ›

My favorite statistics joke: Student talking to his friend:  I used to think correlation implied causation. Then I took a statistics class.  Now I don’t. Friend:  Sounds like the class helped you understand that field. Student:  Well, maybe. I was reminded of that joke last night while watching the game between the Seattle Seahawks and the Philadelphia Eagles.  The network posted this statistic:  When two teams both of which have birds as a mascot play, the home team’s record is 10-0.  A stunning statistical proof (well beyond two standard deviations) that home bird teams are far superior to visiting bird teams?  Needless to say that statistic predicted with near perfect accuracy the outcome of the game (not). 

As I have mentioned before, an “aglet” is that little plastic sheath at the end of a shoestring.  And here at UD, our budget is so small we say we get by on an “aglet budget.” We would have to have a lot more money to say we are getting by on a shoestring budget. Which brings me to our annual holiday fundraising drive.  If you have benefited from our News Desk’s tireless chasing of the latest ID-related happenings, or KF’s in-depth analysis of the fundamentals, or gpuccio’s scientific insights, or any of our other UD features, please consider a donation to help fund our efforts.  The Donate button is there on the right of the homepage under the search Read More ›

Ed George asserted that morality is based on societal consensus.  Upright Biped utterly demolished that argument.  See here.  Seversky and Ed tried to respond to UB’s arguments.  Let’s start with Sev:  I, like everyone else here, would also want [the rape] to stop. Why? I should not have to say this but it is because we can imagine her suffering and know that it is not something we would like to experience nor would we want to see it inflicted on anyone else. It’s called empathy and its derived principle of the Golden Rule which, in my view, is more than sufficient grounds for morality. This is a muddled mashup of two of the materialists’ favorite dodges.  First Sev appeals Read More ›

Everything below is from a comment posted by UB: Ed at 34, [re: Ed on telling the truth]It is just one of the rules we have to follow if we want to be welcome in society. If I chose to live by myself in a cabin in the hills I would have no obligation to be honest to the rare person that stumbled upon me. Yes, you’ve been very concise on this feature of your belief system, and we understand you. If you live in a society then you have to tell the truth as a moral obligation to the consensus of that society (who collectively believe that people should tell the truth). But if you live out on your own, then Read More ›

Claims about what ought to be can’t be tested so they are not capable of being either true or false. Thus spoke Sev Let’s test Sev’s assertion. Genocide ought not to happen. Is this claim capable of being false? If it is capable of being false, under what circumstances would you approve of genocide? If it is not capable of being false, then admit your statement is wrong. Prediction: Sev will either ignore this or he will engage in mealy-mouthed “it is not capable for me to believe it is false, but damned if I am able to say the same to the next Hitler who comes along.” Sev, when your metaphysics force you to say stupid things, you should Read More ›

Sung to the tune of Fortunate Son (with apologies to CCR) Some people are born to get a job For which they have no qualification Making fifty thousand dollars a month To lie on the beach in the sun It ain’t me It ain’t me I ain’t no fortunate one It ain’t me It ain’t me I ain’t no VP’s son