National Academy of Sciences attempts to grapple with “misinformation” and “disinformation”

William Briggs, who consistently claimed the covid pandemic would be less deadly than recent flu seasons, wrote a book about what others got wrong? That's some brass neck. orthomyxo

Also note - the person who is most accused of spreading disinformation/misinformation - Trump - is also the *reason* the regulatory environment was alleviated sufficiently to allow fast vaccine production. And he is neither a philosopher nor an epidemiologist. So, in other words, from a leadership perspective, a layperson (Trump) stopped the virus, while the expert (Fauci) caused us to do permanent damage to ourselves for no reasonable gain. johnnyb

Seversky: "we don’t need philosophers, statisticians or biologists so much as ll the virologists, microbiologists and epidemiologists we can lay our hands on" Actually, we *needed* the philosophers more than anything. Philosophers are the ones that tell you if your thinking is good or bad, and if there are other considerations to be had. The problem is that the national policy was run by epidemiologists who didn't have the philosophical insight to understand how their actions affected anybody else, for anything else. And, it turns out, the epidemiologists were generally wrong about the epidemiology as well. I can forgive the epidemiologists for being wrong about their own subject - aren't we all wrong sometimes? But what was ghastly was the refusal to consider any other aspect of the problem. That's a philosophy problem, and that's what was fundamentally missing. johnnyb

The fact that the media has not been promoting the medically recommended and scientifically backed prophylaxis says it all, really. It is beyond pathetic that no one is promoting it. ET

How many understand just how this virus works or how the various treatments and vaccines work? It they did the scientists and politicians would be standing in lines for their turn at the gallows. They have been the purveyors of the misinformation that has led millions to die while others are making billions as vast numbers slip into poverty. Don’t expect the educated to lead the path to understanding. They are the ones most easily misinformed and they don’t care. The callousness of our advanced world indicates somethings actually deteriorate as we advance technologically. We are certainly not better human beings. Is the cause the scientists themselves? But why do they feel the need to misinform? Always look to money and power. jerry

I'm glad to see Briggs getting into the act. He has been a beacon of sanity against bad uses of stats in all subjects, long before the current genocide. He sees the problems more clearly than most. polistra

Doctors and scientists are no more perfect than the rest of us but when we are faced with a pandemic of a novel virus, which we're trying to identify, characterize and treat on the fly, we don't need philosophers, statisticians or biologists so much as ll the virologists, microbiologists and epidemiologists we can lay our hands on. Politicians who are trying to turn this to their political advantage or journalists who, like politicians, push conspiracy theories that pander to their readers prejudices are not going to save your loved one when they get sick. Seversky