Is There Any "Science" Behind Covid Mask Mandates?

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  • I spend a lot of time at this site ridiculing the unfalsifiable hyperbole and altered data that pass for “science” in the field of climate change. But climate change is just one of many areas where people who have little idea what real science consists of nevertheless claim the mantle of science to order others around.

  • Right now the response to Covid-19, the Chinese Virus, competes with the response to climate change for the most egregious misuse of the imprimatur of “science” to justify political goals.

  • As background for this post, I refer to the Manhattan Contrarian definition of “science,” which appeared, among other places, in this post of September 12, 2020: “Science is a process for understanding reality through using experiment or data to attempt to falsify falsifiable hypotheses.” Under this definition, the classic example of real science at work is the randomized controlled drug trial, best understood as an attempt to falsify the falsifiable hypothesis that the drug at issue is effective, through proving that a placebo works just as well. When the attempt at falsification fails, then the drug has been shown, at least provisionally, to be effective.

  • The Manhattan Contrarian definition of “science” is what I seem to remember learning on the subject back in junior high school, and that I have since confirmed by reading up on the work of philosopher Karl Popper and others.

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Checking In With The "Smart" People At Harvard

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Checking In With The "Smart" People At Harvard

  • Are the “smart” people really very smart? That is, do the people who score at the top on standardized tests and then turn up at the fancy universities actually have a superior level of reasoning and rationality that they can apply to solving the problems of the world? Or are they instead just trapped in the same sorts of groupthink and mass irrationality as everyone else?

  • Well, let’s consider the latest information coming out of Harvard University.

  • Harvard — you can’t get any “smarter” than that. This is America’s premier institution of higher learning. You don’t get to go there unless you are at the very top of the top of intelligence. And the people who run the place have to be even smarter still. If you want to see what “smart” really is, this is where to look.

  • About a week ago Harvard President Larry Bacow decided it was time to send out one of those occasional missives addressed to all “Members of the Harvard Community.”

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Chinese Virus Retrospective: The Shame Of Our Public Health "Experts"

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  • It’s been over a year since I’ve commented on the question of whether the response to the Chinese Virus has been appropriate versus overblown. (See this post from July 6, 2020.). Now, with most of the population vaccinated, and the pandemic hopefully winding down, it’s time to take stock of where we are.

  • During the year and a half since the cases of Covid-19 began to emerge, we have endured seemingly interminable stay-at-home orders and recommendations, “lockdowns,” business closures, millions thrown out of work, school closures, “social distancing,” mask mandates, the cancelation of all in-person social events, concerts, theater, and on and on. And we’re not done even yet.

  • Just today I rode the subway in New York, where the mask mandate is still in place (although the compliance rate is finally dropping significantly). Even now, most office workers in New York have not returned to the office. The business districts remain semi-deserted, although they are beginning to awaken.

  • All this has come about by the edicts of our public health authorities and “experts,” who have done everything in their power to scare the bejeezus out of us.

  • Was all that appropriate? Absolutely not.

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“No Evidence Covid-19 Came From a Lab”: The Media Blow Another Hole in Their Credibility

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  • For a full year, the official media narrative was that there was “‘Exactly Zero’ Evidence Covid-19 Came From a Lab.” (That from the University of Minnesota’s Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy in May 2020) To suggest any such evidence might exist was a pure conspiracy theory. The scientific community had come to a consensus on the subject, one that had been fact checked by multiple independent news sources such as the Washington Post and Politifact.

  • It’s funny how many big news stories, especially those that may be politically sensitive, get framed with this type of hyperbolic language: “Fact-checked. We are absolutely certain, without a doubt, that there’s nothing more to see here.” That’s especially true if the story might lead a remotely curious person to question the official narrative.

  • But that makes it more important than ever that we keep paying attention. In the case of the Covid-19 lab leak, there is an abundance of articles from last year to this year that show the media’s 180 degree pivot.

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Lessons In Woke "Science": Covid-19 And Climate

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Lessons In Woke "Science": Covid-19 And Climate

  • Over time, I have had many posts on the scientific method, most recently in January 2021 here. You posit a falsifiable hypothesis. Then you collect and examine the evidence. If the evidence contradicts your hypothesis you must abandon it and move on. Really, that’s the whole thing.

  • Then there is woke “science,” most visible these days in the arenas of response to the Covid-19 virus and of climate change. Here the principles are a little different.

  • In woke “science” there is no falsifiable hypothesis. In place of that, we have the official orthodox consensus view. The official orthodox consensus view has been arrived at by all the smartest people, because it just seems like it must be right. The official orthodox consensus view must not be contradicted, particularly by the little people like you. Based on the official orthodox consensus view, those in power can take away all your freedom (Covid) and/or transform the entire economy (climate). After all, it’s the “science.”

  • But what if evidence seems to contradict the official orthodox consensus view? I’m sorry, but as I said the official orthodox consensus view must not be contradicted.

  • Today’s news brings a couple of extreme examples of that, one on the virus front, and the other relating to climate.

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Big Tech "Deplatforming" Becomes Ever More Audacious

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  • In case your memory doesn’t go back that far, the “deplatforming” thing did not just start in the past couple of months.

  • It was way back in 2016 that Twitter first banned right-wing provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos; Facebook followed in 2019. Others getting the same or similar treatment from Twitter, Facebook, and/or Google two or more years ago include Alex Jones of InfoWars and Congressional candidate Laura Loomer.

  • Then, few on the serious right pushed back. After all, these people are not really our type. Often, they say outrageous things just to provoke a reaction.

  • But there is a reason why the ACLU, at least in its heyday, thought it was important to defend the rights of avowed neo-Nazis to march in heavily-Jewish Skokie, Illinois. Once the speech-suppression thing gets even a little toe-hold, it can quickly go from seeming insignificance to bold audacity.

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