4 ms·

The Hoover Institution is really a stain on Stanford’s reputation. Full of pseudo-scholars who start with their conclusions and then hunt around for cherry-pick

The Hoover Institution is really a stain on Stanford’s reputation. Full of pseudo-scholars who start with their conclusions and then hunt around for cherry-picked evidence, but don’t spend too much effort worrying about the details, and never bother to admit when they were wrong. It’s fitting that Condoleeza “we don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud” Rice is now the director. The example of the day is Scott Atlas, Trump’s new darling “anti-Fauci” who (without any particular expertise in epidemiology or public health, and without any kind of convincing evidence or reasoning) has concluded that we should just give up against Covid19, and disclaim any responsibility for the results.

rayiner 6y ago
Dr. Atlas had some bad judgment getting involved with the Trump administration, which has a unique ability to snap defeat from the jaws of victory. But you’re misrepresenting his policy recommendation, which is actually not that different than what has been tried in other countries: > Dr. Scott Atlas is the Robert Wesson Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, an accomplished physician, and a scholar of public health. For several weeks, Dr. Atlas has been making the case in print and in other media that we as a society have overreacted in imposing draconian restrictions on movement, gatherings, schools, sports, and other activities. He is not a COVID-19 denier—he believes the virus is a real threat and should be managed as such. But, as Dr. Atlas argues, there are some age groups and activities that are subject to very low risk. The one-size-fits-all approach we are currently using is overly authoritarian, inefficient, and not based in science. Dr. Atlas’s prescription includes more protection for people in nursing homes, two weeks of strict self-isolation for those with mild symptoms, and most importantly, the opening of all K–12 schools. Other countries had relatively brief shut downs, and had targeted reopenings based on risk profile. Schools have been reopened in Europe since May: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/10/world/europe/reopen-schools-germany.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/10/world/europe/reopen-schoo... His view is probably the correct one, at least if anybody was competent enough to implement it. We should isolate high risk patients, quarantine the sick (real quarantine, like they do in Asia, not just “go home and infect your family” we do here), and let everyone else get herd immunity.
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  > Other countries had relatively brief shut downs, And if the US had actually ever done a shutdown right (or, on a smaller scale, if the few states that did do that on a state level had the legal and practical ability to impose the kind of travel restrictions against the rest of the US that almost every country in the world has against the US because of COVID), it (or those states, in the smaller scale case) might have started to recover after a relatively brief shutdown.
- jjeaff 6y ago
  I'm not seeing this one size fits all policy anywhere. Many schools are in session. Many are not. Some types of businesses are shit down and other types are not. As for heard immunity, the high r value of this virus indicates that we would need as much as 50-60% of the population to get infected before heard immunity starts working.
guscost 6y ago
You make it sound like it is uncommon for a think tank to publish research that helps its backers and allies. “The example of the day” (provided by NPR?) is just one small feature of a much larger landscape.
- jacobolus 6y ago
  No, it’s not uncommon at all. There is a whole industry of billionaire-funded GOP “think tanks” whose business is laundering bullshit. It still reflects very poorly on Stanford though.
  - guscost 6y ago
    You really think that this phenomenon only happens on one side of the political aisle? I can’t relate to any worldview where that situation is possible.
    - jacobolus 6y ago
      It’s not really comparable. The difference is that scholars who aren’t GOP operatives generally live in what one senior Bush-administration official derisively called the “reality-based community.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reality-based_community https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reality-based_community Of the people who work for CAP, Brookings, or the like, which ones do you think are hack pseudo-scholars?
      - guscost 6y ago
        This world of yours where there are presumably only “real intellectuals” in one camp, and a plague of “hack pseudo-scholars” in the other, is simply absurd. It makes no sense to me so I cannot comment on it. I could go into how I feel about the whole cult of NPR news-announcers going after their enemies day in and day out, but you probably wouldn’t want to hear it.
        jjeaff 6y ago
Guthur 6y ago
Starting with a hypothesis (conclusion) is pretty standard, otherwise you are just poking around blindly. The current "strategies" have only been sustainable because our economies had grown enough to sustain the blow, for now. Many countries don't have that luxury and eventually the West will feel it as well. The strategies are based on a hope that a meaningful vaccine can be found in a timely fashion, and that is no where near guaranteed. So no matter which way you slice it it's all gambling with our lives.
- jjeaff 6y ago
  There is a big difference between a hypothesis and a conclusion. You start with your hypothesis, then, after your research and study, you formulate your conclusion as to whether your hypothesis was correct or not. If you start with the conclusion that your hypothesis is correct and only look for supporting evidence, that's bias.

rayiner 6y ago

Dr. Atlas had some bad judgment getting involved with the Trump administration, which has a unique ability to snap defeat from the jaws of victory. But you’re misrepresenting his policy recommendation, which is actually not that different than what has been tried in other countries: > Dr. Scott Atlas is the Robert Wesson Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, an accomplished physician, and a scholar of public health. For several weeks, Dr. Atlas has been making the case in print and in other media that we as a society have overreacted in imposing draconian restrictions on movement, gatherings, schools, sports, and other activities. He is not a COVID-19 denier—he believes the virus is a real threat and should be managed as such. But, as Dr. Atlas argues, there are some age groups and activities that are subject to very low risk. The one-size-fits-all approach we are currently using is overly authoritarian, inefficient, and not based in science. Dr. Atlas’s prescription includes more protection for people in nursing homes, two weeks of strict self-isolation for those with mild symptoms, and most importantly, the opening of all K–12 schools. Other countries had relatively brief shut downs, and had targeted reopenings based on risk profile. Schools have been reopened in Europe since May: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/10/world/europe/reopen-schools-germany.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/10/world/europe/reopen-schoo... His view is probably the correct one, at least if anybody was competent enough to implement it. We should isolate high risk patients, quarantine the sick (real quarantine, like they do in Asia, not just “go home and infect your family” we do here), and let everyone else get herd immunity.

dragonwriter 6y ago
> Other countries had relatively brief shut downs, And if the US had actually ever done a shutdown right (or, on a smaller scale, if the few states that did do that on a state level had the legal and practical ability to impose the kind of travel restrictions against the rest of the US that almost every country in the world has against the US because of COVID), it (or those states, in the smaller scale case) might have started to recover after a relatively brief shutdown.
jjeaff 6y ago
I'm not seeing this one size fits all policy anywhere. Many schools are in session. Many are not. Some types of businesses are shit down and other types are not. As for heard immunity, the high r value of this virus indicates that we would need as much as 50-60% of the population to get infected before heard immunity starts working.

guscost 6y ago

You make it sound like it is uncommon for a think tank to publish research that helps its backers and allies. “The example of the day” (provided by NPR?) is just one small feature of a much larger landscape.

jacobolus 6y ago
No, it’s not uncommon at all. There is a whole industry of billionaire-funded GOP “think tanks” whose business is laundering bullshit. It still reflects very poorly on Stanford though.
- guscost 6y ago
  You really think that this phenomenon only happens on one side of the political aisle? I can’t relate to any worldview where that situation is possible.
  - jacobolus 6y ago
    It’s not really comparable. The difference is that scholars who aren’t GOP operatives generally live in what one senior Bush-administration official derisively called the “reality-based community.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reality-based_community https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reality-based_community Of the people who work for CAP, Brookings, or the like, which ones do you think are hack pseudo-scholars?
    - guscost 6y ago
      This world of yours where there are presumably only “real intellectuals” in one camp, and a plague of “hack pseudo-scholars” in the other, is simply absurd. It makes no sense to me so I cannot comment on it. I could go into how I feel about the whole cult of NPR news-announcers going after their enemies day in and day out, but you probably wouldn’t want to hear it.
      - jjeaff 6y ago

Guthur 6y ago

Starting with a hypothesis (conclusion) is pretty standard, otherwise you are just poking around blindly. The current "strategies" have only been sustainable because our economies had grown enough to sustain the blow, for now. Many countries don't have that luxury and eventually the West will feel it as well. The strategies are based on a hope that a meaningful vaccine can be found in a timely fashion, and that is no where near guaranteed. So no matter which way you slice it it's all gambling with our lives.

jjeaff 6y ago
There is a big difference between a hypothesis and a conclusion. You start with your hypothesis, then, after your research and study, you formulate your conclusion as to whether your hypothesis was correct or not. If you start with the conclusion that your hypothesis is correct and only look for supporting evidence, that's bias.