Follow the science is the drumbeat of the mainstream media and the political pundits regarding the so-called COVID pandemic and the need for the shutdown. Everyone throws the term science around very loosely as if they know what is meant by that term.
The only thing wrong with this dictum is that there is no science to be followed in this instance. I will offer one simple quote regarding science and its character: “If it cannot be expressed in numbers, it is not science, it is opinion.”*
Opinion is what we are seeing in our constant debate at the national level on the pandemic and the shutdown to constrain it. Informed opinion, yes, but opinion nevertheless. We are a long way from science. Science requires setting forth hypotheses, conducting experiments, testing the validity of those hypotheses, and revising those hypotheses as a result.
I believe that the shutdown that has been forced upon America is wrongheaded and misguided. The social and economic cost of the shutdown far outweighs, by several orders of magnitude, the deaths resulting from the virus.
The deaths are certainly horrific and those fatalities can be easily counted. However, on the other side of the ledger, we cannot even begin to understand the total cost of the shutdown. Only with the clarity of hindsight and some months, even years, to reflect, will we be able to comprehend what we have wrought. From my vantage point, I believe history will not be kind to those who were so cocksure regarding the necessity for shutting down America.
Links
Internal: https://whitebeardwisdom.com/the-lessons-of-the-lockdown/
External: https://theasianantiquarian.com/
Quotes
*This quote is a paraphrase of a quote that I borrowed from Robert A. Heinlein, the science fiction writer and author of “Stranger in a Strange Land.”
“There must be no barriers to freedom of inquiry . . . There is no place for dogma in science. The scientist is free, and must be free, to ask any question, to seek for any evidence, to correct any errors.”—J. Robert Oppenheimer, the Scientific Director of the Manhattan Project
Thank you for your ability to think and then put those thoughts on paper! I agree completely. When it comes to this nonsense of virus response (and so many other things) science has apparently, left the building.
Much love,
Layne
Dear Layne,
Thank you for your kind words. Yes, sadly, science has been politicized as has medicine, education, and culture. I hope that most Americans, regardless of what side of the political spectrum they are on, come to see that we must become again the common sense nation. At 77, I will not live to see what is coming. We must change course and soon, or the destination we find ourselves at, may not be to our liking.
Warmest regards,
Andrew
Where’s this terrifying “pandemic” we’ve all heard so much about? Where are the “215,000” [claimed] US corona deaths?
2020 Total US Deaths INCLUDING an estimated death count for 2020 Q4: 2,130,000 + (236,000/month x 3) [Oct, Nov, Dec] = 2,838,000 [assumption on monthly avg]
Total US Deaths from all causes, by year:
2017: 2,814,000
2018: 2,839,000
2019: 2,855,000
2020: 2,838,000
[incl. 2020 Q4 estimate]
(CDC data):
2017 Total US Deaths: 2,813,503 (234,000/month)
https://lnkd.in/gmK3TqV
(load the PDF and search for “Summary”)
2018 Total US Deaths: 2,839,205 (237,000/month)
https://lnkd.in/gy45QAe
(load the PDF and search for “Summary”)
2019 Total US Deaths: 2,855,000 (238,000/month)
https://lnkd.in/gYFzKcS
(Note: data is formatted differently than in the 2017/2018 PDFs, filter the table for 2019, then look at the column, “12 Month-ending Number of Deaths.”)
2020 Total US Deaths (jan – week 9/26): 2,130,000 (236,000/month)
https://lnkd.in/gY-aUSb
(Note: data is formatted differently than in the 2017/2018 PDFs, filter the table for 2020, then look at the column, “12 Month-ending Number of Deaths.”)
Bud,
Good information. I have a blog topic that I have titled: “The Numbers Tell Us The Whole Story.” Sadly, the numeracy skills of most Americans are less than acceptable. The media pushes the number of cases but is silent on the fatality rate.
The bureaucratic medical establishment (the CDC, the NIH, and the organization that Dr. Fauci works for) snookered President Trump. President Trump reminds me of John Galt and Howard Roark in Ayn Rand’s novels. He is an outlier, a disrupter of the status quo, and a non-conformist. And, he has broken the “rice bowls” of the ruling elite. For all of that, he is anathema and must be destroyed. If President Trump is not re-elected, I believe he will move forward strategically and establish a third political party, create a new television network to counter the bias of the MSM, fund a new search platform to compete with Google, and fund a new social media network to compete with Facebook. There are alternatives there already in those spaces and he might just back them financially.
Regards,
Andrew