The beginning of the 21st century has brought many positive things, but it has also brought some alarming trends. One of the worst is the Politicization of Everything, from the Oscars to the NFL to the COVID-19 panic. We are seeing horrific evidence that the scientific method, which has caused so many wonderful inventions and technological and medical breakthroughs, is now on its way out.
As readers should know, the scientific method is this:
In our time, when it comes to the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, the scientific method has been replaced with this:
And of course when actual science takes place, it is censored by Big Tech and the corporate media. If we cite science that does not agree with the medical establishment/big government narrative, we are told that this is “misinformation,” which is really just another word for “inconvenient facts that challenge the propaganda we are being fed via social media and the media.”
Let me be as clear as possible about this: the scientific method that has brought the world so much prosperity and miraculous new medical advancements is based on CHALLENGING THE EXISTING NARRATIVES. For science to advance, we need to accept that people will be outside of the establishment coming up with new approaches and new ideas. Obviously many of these new approaches and new ideas will fail, but failure is part of the scientific method itself. It is the energy of constantly challenging the existing assumptions that brings progress.
What is happening today is instead a massive, worldwide attempt to silence any scientific advancement that does not exactly fit the narrative of the medical establishment, most government leaders, Big Tech and the corporate media. Any data that does not fit the narrative is ignored and squelched. Today’s Unpersons are the doctors and scientists who come to any conclusions that are Not Approved by the ruling class. This is extremely dangerous, and I am sorry to say that many, many Latter-day Saint scientists are actively participating in this attempt to repress medical innovation. If there is one thing most (not all, thankfullly) Latter-day Saint scientists believe these days, it is that the medical establishment must be defended at all costs. It is shameful that so many prominent LDS scientists cannot, at the very least, bring themselves to condemn the obvious censorship taking place, but the response from so many sources is crickets. Note to these LDS scientists: if you accept the scientific authoritarianism taking place today, it is only a matter of time until they come after you.
I have already shown very clearly on M* that the lockdowns and mask mandates do not work. Please also look at this post. To understand very clearly why this is important, let’s go back and review the scientific method and how it should apply to public policy regarding pandemics.
Any restrictions on normal societal activities during a pandemic have costs. If you close schools and force kids to attend school on-line, you will have negative effects on the children who can no longer socialize and learn in person. If you make children and teachers wear masks, there will be negative effects on kids who are trying to learn how to read because they cannot see how words are pronounced by watching peoples’ lips. (Not to mention, of course, the horrendous costs for children with hearing disabilities). If you make millions of small business close down, many of these businesses will go bankrupt.
So, it is obvious that such policies should only be implemented if there is overwhelming, incontrovertible evidence that lockdowns, school closings and mask mandates will work. In other words, there must be overwhelming, incontrovertible evidence that places that do not follow these policies will have always have devastatingly negative results, and there must be overwhelming, incontrovertible evidence that places that do follow these policies will always have positive results.
We have had lockdowns and mandates for nearly 18 months now, and what are the results? What scientific conclusion can we reach based on the “experiments” and the data?
The only reasonable conclusion we can reach is that there does not appear to be any scientific evidence that there is a consistent link between lockdowns and mandates and positive results. It is true that lockdowns and mandates do appear to partially work, at least temporarily, in places that are geographically isolated and happen to be islands like Hawaii, New Zealand and Australia. But there is simply no other evidence supporting lockdowns in other situations.
The worst results in the United States are all states that had the most tyrannical lockdowns:
I have written extensively on Sweden and Nicaragua, two countries that never locked down and did not have mandates. It turns out Sweden is moving to be one of the safer countries with a lower death rate than most European countries. Sweden has been virtually unaffected by the delta variant, unlike other European countries.
Meanwhile, Nicaragua has the lowest per capita death rate in Central America, even though it is the only Central American country that never instituted any kind of lockdown or mask mandate.
What about the delta variant in the U.S? I have already shown that there is no positive correlation between the death rate in the U.S. and lockdowns, and in fact there appears to be a negative correlation, ie, some of the most locked down states have the worst results. Isn’t there a surge of death going on in open states these days? Actually, no. Let’s look at South Dakota:
I should mention my state, Colorado, which has always been one of the safer states. And these days almost nobody wears masks in Colorado, despite the delta variant. Are we all dying in Colorado? No.
Now, it is true that Florida, which is an open state, is going through an unfortunate surge in cases and deaths right now. But so is Nevada, which has been locked down through most of the pandemic.
I need to drive home this point, because unfortunately many people with advanced science degrees have forgotten how science works. If you want to prove that lockdowns and mandates, which have social costs, are worthwhile, they must be overwhelmingly effective in almost all cases. It is not enough to sputter, “what about Florida…” like an ignorant talking head on MSNBC and CNN. You must be able to prove that places that do not lockdown will almost always turn into killing fields and places that do lockdown will almost always be safer. If the scientific hypothesis is “lockdowns and mandates will save a huge amount of lives and are necessary public policies,” I have already proven that hypothesis false.
The truth is that SARS-CoV-2, like many viruses, acts in unpredictable ways. During the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918-1919, it was extremely common for a large family to lose an infant girl, a 12-year-old boy and a parent and grandparent, but for other members of the family to be immune. It is worth pointing out that the death rate of the Spanish flu was much higher than SARS-CoV-2 will ever be, but we can look at history to see that viruses are unpredictable.
We also can look at history to see that viruses, once they are introduced, are with us for many years, and the real solution is natural herd immunity and, yes, effective non-experimental vaccines. Scientists used to know this as recently as February and early March of 2020, but now for some reason the medical establishment is telling us that COVID must somehow be eradicated before we can ever have normal life again. Every once in a while, an expert lets the truth slip out, so in a celebration of the truth let’s hear from an actual scientist.
Neuzil’s comment is perfect common sense, right? And it also is supported by the history of viruses. But somehow the medical establishment keeps on telling us to be freaked out by a virus with an extremely high survival rate compared to many viruses of the past.
Speaking of freaking out, let’s discuss the delta variant, which is the new excuse the medical establishment and various tyrannical politicians are using to force upon us new mandates and vaccine passports.
Have you noticed that India has somehow fallen out of the news these days? That was the country worst affected by the delta variant, and of course just a few months ago the corporate media was reporting that tens of millions of people were going to die in India. What happened?
What? I thought we were going to see millions of bodies in the streets in India! How disappointing for the ghouls who make their money and achieve power by ginning up fear. Only 7 percent of people in India are vaccinated, compared to about half of the population of the U.S., so how did India recover from the delta variant?
It turns out that natural immunity does work. And it turns out that the delta variant is much less deadly than other variants. And it turns out that there is a cheap medicine called ivermectin that has prevented millions of Indians from getting sick.
The British science establishment, just like the U.S. science establishment, has virtually ignored the positive results from India. Many Britons I respect are doing their best to fight off yet another harsh lockdown and the imposition of vaccine passports, despite the fact that the panic over the delta variant in the UK has been completely overblown.
I am sure we will be discussing the totalitarian vaccine passports in the days to come, so I will not spend too much time on that subject here. I need to make this point, which should be obvious but needs to emphasized in these days of politicized science: I am not an anti-vaxxer. As I have written many times, I am very thankful for the vaccines I have taken over the years. I am open to eventually taking a vaccine against COVID, but not an experimental vaccine that has resulted in thousands of deaths and hundreds of thousands of serious side effects.
But let’s think a second about what we are being told by the medical establishment these days. Let’s use some basic logic. Here we have the director of the CDC saying that even if you have been vaccinated you can transmit the virus, and she emphasized that the vaccines do not stop the transmission of the delta variant. So, according to the director of the CDC, the only real benefit of the vaccine is that the symptoms from the virus will not be as bad.
Why in the world would anybody get a vaccine that does not stop the most recent variant and does not stop transmission of the virus, especially when there is significant evidence that the vaccine is resulting in thousands of deaths and hundreds of thousands of serious side effects? And what possible reason could there be for a vaccine passport for vaccines that are ineffective and will not protect you?
You see what I mean by the death of science?
In conclusion, I am urging all people reading this to take 20 minutes to watch this talk regarding the mRNA vaccines. This is the opinion of a real expert who is going against the medical establishment, which I am sure will mean he is eventually turned into an Unperson. Youtube has already banned this talk, so you know it must have pissed off the medical establishment goons. In the interests of real science, as opposed to political science, I urge you to watch his talk.
In regards to the death of science, this recent MIT study could be the tombstone.
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3411764.3445211
Pay special attention to the IMPLICATIONS AND CONCLUSION section.
Thanks for your analysis, and be grateful that you aren’t a scientist that could be cancelled for opposing the orthodoxy…
Modern society writ large has come to place an outsize emphasis on outlawing/combating/eliminating fear and discomfort. Willful failure to accept that feeling “bad” about something needs to happen so we know what it’s like to feel “good” about other things leads to these calls for totalitarianism.
Best summary I’ve seen. Period.
https://youtu.be/_9KnhUu7Ba4
Paul M, good video. I understand that Youtube is deleting versions of the video, but people keep on putting up new ones, and they go viral. (For those who cannot see the video linked above, it makes many of the same points I make in the OP and adds many other good points in a relatively short talk). It is encouraging to see the few honest medical professionals and scientists stand up to the medical establishment, but we need a lot more of this.
Also he points out that most masks are not effective against viruses, which was what most of the scientific literature said up until March 2020.
So here’s my question. Take me. I am a 40-something individual who is not scientifically minded. I watched Dr. Cole and the doctor with the school board and listening to them, I wouldn’t get the vaccine at this point. But if I talk to my family doctor or my friend who is a PA; if I read the local KSL news reports and the doctors quoted there; if I listen to my governor; if I listen to my president, I should have gotten it yesterday and I am, at the very least uninformed and, at the worst, selfish for not getting the Covid vaccine yet. These positions are so opposite from each other, I’m not sure if a compromise can even be found. Either Dr. Cole is lying or my doctor is lying. Or one is ignorant and the other informed. So what is it? That is my conundrum. What is lacking is conversation. There is none. My choice about this vaccine (so far) has NOTHING to do with politics yet my friend was venting to me just the other day about the unvaccinated people who are “Fox News junkies”. (She assumed I have taken it I guess-she never asked and I just let her vent) Both President Biden and former President Trump have taken the vaccine. Bill o’Reilly and Sean Hannity have encouraged people to take the vaccine. My church leaders have encouraged it. My list of people that I know who have received it is long. My hesitation lies in the lack of transparency and conversation. It lies in the unwillingness to address the adverse effects and deaths that have resulted from the vaccine no matter how small. I understand most people have been fine with it. But what about those who aren’t? What if these two doctors are correct? Then what?
Kristin, that is exactly why I wrote this post. It seems like, when it comes to SARS-CoV-2 people have stopped caring about science and mostly seem to care about virtue signaling and politics. And the fact that people like Dr. Cole cannot give a talk about concerns about the virus without his video being scrubbed from the major platforms is extremely alarming. Let’s take another subject, say, creationism. Personally, I believe evolution exists in biology, and I think 99 percent of biologists agree. But let’s say there is a biologist with real credentials who raises questions as to many of the aspects of the “consensus” on evolution and biology. Should we automatically turn him into an Unperson and scrub his ideas from the internet? Obviously not, because even if he is wrong, the whole point of the scientific method is to let people put forward their ideas, many of which will be crazy, and let the process move forward. The scientific method depends entirely on freedom of expression. The fact that so many people are blithely accepting the censorship of people who don’t accept the consensus on the virus should be very concerning to us.
Who is right, Dr. Cole or your doctor? I don’t know. But I have studied this subject in depth, and for me getting the mRNA vaccine makes no sense at all. I already got COVID last year, and I probably still have antibodies, and in fact when I got COVID I was mildly ill for a few days. Why would I ever take a chance on an experimental vaccine to protect me from a disease that is not a risk for me? Now having said that, this could easily change in the months and years ahead as I grow older and as the vaccines against COVID improve. Who knows, maybe in a few months I do decide to get vaccinated, but this will be my decision, not the decision of the medical establishment.
I have found that most people are not very good at doing their own due diligence. They hear Dr. Fauci say you should get vaccinated, so they get vaccinated. But you know the group that has the greatest vaccine hesitancy? It is not white trash Trump supporters. It is people of color who look back at the US government’s history of carrying out medical experiments like the Tuskegee Syphilis Study and decide (wisely) not to believe anything the government says. White people, including Trump supporters, are overwhelmingly vaccinated. People of color, not so much.
Most doctors are going to tell you to get vaccinated for the simple reason that there is no risk telling you to get vaccinated and some risk telling you not to get vaccinated. The entire establishment wants you to get vaccinated. If a doctor becomes known as a “anti-vaxxer,” the establishment and the public is certain to turn against her. If she works for a hospital, she might lose her job, and if she works in private practice she might lose patients. So, most doctors will take the lower risk route. This is basic human nature. (Note to doctors: there are valid reasons for some people to take the COVID vaccine, and I am not discounting that. So, yes, if you tell people to get vaccinated, you personally are not necessarily doing anything wrong. I am just talking about the general trend that we face in society today where it is easier to go along with the consensus than to try to buck the consensus.)
The harder somebody tries to sell me something, the less likely I am to buy it.
In regard to the doctor on the video speaking to the Mt Vernon Indiana school board.
His personal experience with 15 patients is virtually meaningless in the big picture. Only a small % of people with covid need hospitalization, so it is more than likely that no one in a random sample of 15 people need to be hospitalized.
We also don’t know the ages or possible comorbid conditions of those 15. Were any obese? Did any have diabetes?
Here is a book that illustrates Geoff’s thesis:
“Not even trying: the corruption of real science”
Br Dr. Bruce G Charlton
University of Buckingham Press: Buckingham, UK. 2012
Available in Kindle format on Amazon. And as a free online version at:
http://corruption-of-science.blogspot.com/