Eugyippus: “During the pandemic, Germany closed schools on a wider scale and for a longer duration than most other places in the civilised world. “
Tag: COVID-19
Is “Trust the Science!” beginning to take a beating?
So a recent Pew opinion poll would suggest.
A scare from New Scientist: Melting permafrost could release ancient viruses that cause the next pandemic
The basis for such panic marketing is usually a correct science observation — in this case, that microscopic life forms (and viruses) may hibernate for long periods in ice. However, as the New Scientist article notes, “bacteria that infect humans are adapted to live at our body temperatures, so it is highly unlikely that they would survive for long periods below zero.”
Truckers to government: We are not your lab rats any more
The last word in elite cluelessness belongs to Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson: “It’s disturbing when you see the protest turning into what looks like some kind of a fun carnival, where they’ve got bouncy castles and hot tubs and saunas, a complete insult to the people who are putting up with this nonsense for the last seven days, and it shows a great deal of insensitivity,” … Mr. Watson, kids – who are not at significant risk via COVID – have been in elite progressive COVID-19 jail for years. Soon, other parents are also going to get red-pilled and start liberating their kids from Trust the Science! jail. And trust them to think they have the right to ask some hard questions.
Washington, DC Mayor’s Office: Let Darwinism take care of the unvaccinated
Darwinism? Just when we thought we were veering off-topic, our issues all collide.
A characteristic of our times: Anarchy from above: Canadian truckers edition
Here’s what resistance to the anarchy means in Canada: The Convoy was peaceful compared to most demos. We just want to COVID Crazy to end. It’s not doing anything but harm. But GoFundMe has now seized the $10 million dollars Canadians contributed to the support of those camped in Ottawa aiming to end the destructive lockdowns and will give it to charities instead.
Why people don’t trust science any more
As we enter the new year, full of cranks, quacks, and crackpots with huge power, here is a powerful statement on why people don’t trust Big Science any more (and shouldn’t)
Why we shouldn’t “follow the science”
Graboyes: The history of medicine offers ample reasons to avoid smug certitude which, unfortunately, is abundant on social and traditional media. Science is always about likelihood and never about certainty, though word apparently hasn’t reached Twitter and TV news.
Does a culture reach a point where a rebirth of science is not even possible?
Anyone who lives in an aging society will be aware of this problem: Old ladies demanding endless lockdowns and crackdowns to fight COVID-19 who don’t even know what viruses are. Or care. But they don’t need to know — or care — because viruses are “science.” Once science replaced religion in some people’s lives, science became a superstition. And it shows.
More on why people don’t “trust science” the way we used to
To what extent, today, does “trust science” mean no more than “sign on to whatever an increasingly clueless elite thinks?” Worth asking.
Would it be better if more scientists studied philosophy?
Lehewych: “Consider public health messaging during the pandemic, which consisted of a pattern of revelation and back-peddling. Worse, this pattern wasn’t even cohesive among scientists and medical experts: different experts in the same fields were simultaneously saying things about the pandemic that were contradictory and inconsistent. This only served to confuse the public and aggravate hyperpartisanship.” He suggests that scientists study philosophy so as to avoid sounding like “sanctimonious know-it-alls.”
An interesting take on how science splutters out amid cries of “Trust the Science!”
Curiously, “Trust the Science” echoes across the landscape at about the same time as Cancel Culture has started going after prominent historical scientists. There may be a connection in the sense that the slogan relates to a state of mind in which Correct scientists are identified and given implicit obedience — for now — and Incorrect ones are destroyed.
At The Ness: Science is not Just Philosophy
Wait. If atheist neurologist blogger Steven Novella is right, the science presenters in media must be speaking a different language from the rest of us. The impression that he says they don’t convey (“insight into the ultimate nature of reality”), they in fact do — by a variety of means. That’s okay, of course, until the whipped cream hits the fan.
When people claim that “the science” says this or that…
Discussing the recent essay by medical statistician John Ioannidis on the was politicization and shoddy research around COVID-19 are corrupting science, philosopher Edward Feser focuses on a couple of his points, including this one, “the deleterious role that social media have played.”
Statistician Ioannidis on how COVID wrecked science
Readers may remember John Ioannidis. His point here is that getting more people involved with science doesn’t always work: “A lack of sharing and openness allowed a top medical journal to publish an article in which 671 hospitals allegedly contributed data that did not exist, and no one noticed this outright fabrication before publication.”