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> Those claiming that "the science is settled" are trying to manipulate the public. No, they aren't. Settled != correct. But what most crackpots fail to take

by lisper 4y ago

> Those claiming that "the science is settled" are trying to manipulate the public. No, they aren't. Settled != correct. But what most crackpots fail to take into account is that if you want to challenge the scientific status quo you need an actual argument, i.e. you need propose a better alternative to the current-best explanation, one that either accounts for data that the current-best explanation does not, or one that has fewer free parameters. You can't just say, "Science has gotten it wrong in the past so it probably has got it wrong now, and therefore you should pay attention to my crackpot theory." The status quo is the result of a lot of hard work. It may not be right, but you have to at the very least understand how it became the status quo before you can seriously challenge it.

aynsof 4y ago
This isn't what I saw happening during the pandemic. The (to use your word) 'crackpots' were proposing alternative solutions like Ivermectin and Chloroquine. The people who were shouting 'believe science' were trying to silence the debate. I offer no opinion on either of those two alternatives, I merely point out that 'believe' isn't the verb that goes with 'science'.
- xorcist 4y ago
  The crackpot spectrum was unusually broad during the pandemic, far from the realm of vaccine deniers and flat earthers. One professor of virology from a world renowned institution was soft banned on twitter behind some sort of click-though warning for pointing to public data about what we knew at the time that closing schools would lead to. Apparently because it fed into some bizarre American debate which was going on at the time. Another is a professor of immunology that was heavily criticized for explaining why and how thoroughly a vaccine must be tested before mass vaccinations can occur, even if every day it can be deployed will save lives and labelled a "vaccine skeptic". Which is more than one kind of weird. Of course, the vaccine was tested exactly as described, and came out even better than most had expected. But that makes it more than clear that many people who demands us to "follow science" more often than not could not be bothered to actually find out what science has to say. It is the new "think of the children". Science exists on its own merits, and we should be careful when the mob demands otherwise.
  - andrepd 4y ago
    It's very sad that some people were keen to lump the denialists, antimaskers, or the Chloroquine people, with valid concerns about lockdowns or school closures.
  - lisper 4y ago
    > One professor of virology from a world renowned institution was soft banned on twitter Reference? > a professor of immunology that was heavily criticized for explaining why and how thoroughly a vaccine must be tested before mass vaccinations can occur Reference? > that makes it more than clear The only thing this makes clear is that you have no compunctions about advancing an unsubstantiated argument as a response to someone who just explained to you that you can't do that if you want to be taken seriously. You may well be right, but that is beside the point. There is no way for someone reading your claims to verify them. You expect people to just take you at your word and accept your unsubstantiated claims and innuendo as fact simply because you have made the claims. And that is exactly the problem with all of the people who grouse about "settled science".
    - _gabe_ 4y ago
      I do agree with you that it would be nice to have references here. > There is no way for someone reading your claims to verify them. You expect people to just take you at your word and accept your unsubstantiated claims and innuendo as fact simply because you have made the claims. Don't we all? The amount of people, myself included, that have 0% knowledge of the intimate details of Covid and virology, and how it spreads, and anything remotely close to scientific knowledge of this, have to be less than 1% of the world. This statistic is completely pulled out of my rectum, but intuition tells me that in a world of 70 billion people, you would be very hard pressed to find 70 million people who have studied this virus in depth and actually understand the details. Sometimes, you have to accept that people will hold beliefs about stuff without knowing the implementation details, and that's OK. How many of us can hold a modern CPU's architecture in our mind at once? I would wager, nobody in the world has that capability. But we can build abstractions that help us reason at a higher level. How much scientific rigor is necessary for general conversation? How much is necessary for a debate? How much is necessary for a belief? These are tough questions and it doesn't do anybody any good to say: > And that is exactly the problem with all of the people who grouse about "settled science". The problem is we have to build abstractions about our infinitely complex universe at some point. How much abstraction is deemed too much abstraction to make an informed opinion?
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- andrepd 4y ago
  Why would a person untrained in science declare that Chloroquine is a cure to covid? That is a definition of crackpot: you are not offering an explanation or a minimally reasonable argument, you're just contradicting current scientific knowledge for the sake of it.
  - swayvil 4y ago
    Maybe one of his favorite authorities said so. That's generally how people arrive at their "facts" these days
- ryandrake 4y ago
  > The (to use your word) 'crackpots' were proposing alternative solutions like Ivermectin and Chloroquine. People can "propose" all they want. They were also proposing bleach, vitamin D, UV sunlight, and probably much more. It takes more than a bare proposal--you need to be able to show (with data) that your proposal is better than the current best theory. In hindsight, the so-called crackpots were not all that invested in any particular alternative. They were invested in a general, vague contrariness: If the mainstream agreed with it, they were against it, for all definitions of "it". If, for instance, Chloroquine actually was found to be effective and Dr. Fauci got on stage and recommended it, the crackpots would have instantly abandoned it and pivoted over to a different proposal. They were more interested in simply being contrary to "the other side".
- lisper 4y ago
  > proposing alternative solutions Proposing an alternative is not enough. Re-read what I wrote: "... if you want to challenge the scientific status quo you need an actual argument, i.e. you need propose a better alternative to the current-best explanation, one that either accounts for data that the current-best explanation does not, or one that has fewer free parameters ..." Ivermectin met none of those criteria and was therefore never worthy of serious consideration. It got some serious consideration nonetheless in the form of actual controlled studies, which it failed spectacularly and predictably.
- atleta 4y ago
  Well, they weren't really proposing solutions, Ivermectin and Hydroxychloroquine were really just suggestions, candidates. I.e. ideas for what might work. Now in both both cases there were no reasons why anyone would think they could work, but as far as I know, in both cases there were multiple trials. And those trials didn't show effectiveness (hence these were not solutions) and despite this, the crackpots did continue to push both for a while and then they silently dropped Hydroxychloroquine but the ivermectin delusion is still strong. (At least where I live, before most discussion was washed away by the war in Ukraine a few months ago, it was still being brought up.) Now the thing about believing and science is that it's being told to people who don't do science (so most of us!) but have strong opinion and minimal knowledge about a specific topic. If you ask them, most of them will say they don't believe science or scientists. But what it means is not what you suggest, i.e. a lack of blind faith, but an active rejection of what science has to say about this topic without having the alternative explanations/solutions you're talking about. And I mean scientifically proven ones, of course. So suggesting that laymen should believe (i.e. trust) science is actually a pretty adequate and reasonable advice. Since you basically have to sane options: - believe/trust science (the knowledge gathered by those who work on a specific topic) - work on that specific topic yourself (scientifically)
- moistly 4y ago
  Thank god the (to use your word) ‘crackpots’ didn’t get away with such behaviours, back when polio was being eradicated. We once had a society that pulled together in tough times. Victory gardens, inoculations, charity. Kicking ass by uniting in our efforts. We couldn’t beat polio today.
blfr 4y ago
The point about providing a better alternative and not just poking holes is very good and I actually agree with you but still, the people saying "the science is settled" are almost always trying to manipulate the public. In fact, I cannot recall hearing someone saying that when they weren't trying to manipulate the public.
- lisper 4y ago
  And how do you know that these people were "trying to manipulate the public"? Do you draw a distinction between "trying to manipulate the public" and "trying to persuade the public of the truth"? What is it? And if you don't, what exactly is the problem? The fact of the matter is that people who use the phrase "settled science" are almost always trying to persuade someone not to pursue a course of action that is almost certainly doomed to fail, either individually, or as a matter of public policy. You can call that "trying to manipulate the public" if you like, but this is disingenuous because it implies there is something sinister going on. There is nothing wrong with "trying to manipulate the public" to steer them away from charlatans and crackpots.
  - calsy 4y ago
    These people? as in those in authority. Those who have both the platform and power to manipulate the public. Why are you so willing to vigorously defend them and deride opposing views as charlatans and crackpots? What have these politicians and media personalities done to deserve your undying loyalty and trust?
    - lisper 4y ago
      > These people? as in those in authority. No, as in: the people saying "the science is settled". > Why are you so willing to vigorously defend them and deride opposing views as charlatans and crackpots? Because the vast majority of people who challenge established science are charlatans and crackpots. There are legitimate challenges to established science. All scientific progress starts that way. But mounting a legitimate challenge to established science is hard. It takes a lot of work. And most people I see doing it are just lazy bums who are not willing to put in the hours. They aren't even willing to put in the effort to learn what a legitimate challenge to established science even looks like, let alone actually mount one themselves. They just latch on to some fad and then bitch and moan about how "those in authority" are repressing them or some such bullshit. In the meantime, there are a lot of hard-working actual scientists toiling away in labs around the world to do the research that actually advances human knowledge. That's why.
atleta 4y ago
I mostly agree, but I think you are confounding two things here. The actual argument doesn't have to contain a better alternative than the current best explanation. It's enough to show the errors of the current explanation - as long as you are doing it using the scientific method. I.e. it's enough to point out flaws in a scientific theory even if you don't have a better one yet. E.g. if talking about covid, it's indeed valuable to prove that the virus does not use the receptor, suggested by the status quo, to get into the cells. One could do this without identifying the actual receptor it does use (by showing that it can infect cells that lack the said receptors). Another example would be showing that a specific medication that is thought to work, actually does not. (Say hydroxychloroquine...) > You can't just say, "Science has gotten it wrong in the past so it probably has got it wrong now, and therefore you should pay attention to my crackpot theory." Now I fully agree with this. But where these guys go completely off the rail is that they try to discredit the scientific method by saying that it's wrong, because it provided erronous results in the past. And try to use this as an argument for why their suggested alternative solution doesn't need to pass the test of science. And here is where they can be challenged with having to come up with a proven better alternative to the scientific method. (Which is kind of nonsense, because science is a self-improving/self-correcting system anyway.)
- lisper 4y ago
  > It's enough to show the errors of the current explanation Not if you want to argue in favor of a specific alternative. I can point out the discrepancies between theory and observation, for example, with regards to the orbital velocities of the outer arms of galaxies. But that does not give me license to hypothesize that this is caused by leprechauns and expect to be taken seriously. > it's indeed valuable to prove that the virus does not use the receptor, suggested by the status quo, to get into the cells That's true. But again, you have to show some actual evidence that the current-best-explanation is wrong. You can't just proclaim it.
  - atleta 4y ago
    >> It's enough to show the errors of the current explanation > Not if you want to argue in favor of a specific alternative. Sure, but this is not what you actually said in your original comment. You said "if you want to challenge the scientific status quo you need an actual argument, i.e. you need propose a better alternative to the current-best explanation" and that's different. You can challenge the status quo by proving it wrong and that doesn't mean that you have to propose a better alternative. Now what was happening with covid and the crakcpots you mentioned is where you would be right to say that they need to prove they have a better alternative. Because they did claim that but all they had was criticism for the existing solutions. E.g. "vaccines cause side effects, so let's use ivermectin". (Without proving that ivermectin works better than vaccines for preventing e.g. deaths.) But in theory someone could come around and prove that vaccines "don't work" (i.e. not worth using) without suggesting a better alternative. They would just need to show the data/supporting evidence. And actually that's exactly what real scientists did with Ivermectin and Hydroxychloroquine: they have proven that neither of them work for any sensible endpoint. > But again, you have to show some actual evidence that the current-best-explanation is wrong. You can't just proclaim it. Sure. That's what I said too. (I even included it in the example how you would do it ;) )
roenxi 4y ago
> ...is that if you want to challenge the scientific status quo... That is a bit of a straw man though, people who care to challenge the scientific consensus are extremely rare. The people claiming "the science is settled" are also adding in an unspoken and-therefore-we-can-overrule-your-choices rider on the end. In Australia I have been appalled by the treatment of my anti-vax neighbours. As far as I can tell they had their human rights suspended for an extended period for reasons that were totally wrong - them getting the vaccine doesn't protect others, everyone I know who had COVID was vaccinated. I still expect to get COVID eventually, nothing that has been done in the last 2 years has changed the basic calculus. It turns out that all we could do in hindsight was vaccinate the people who want to be vaccinated then let the virus go wild. I don't particularly care what the science is, as far as I can tell there were no scientists involved in the decisions made that I disagreed with. The people claiming "the science is settled" and then pushing their agenda were just trying to short circuit the political process, overturn long established traditions of liberty and get the result they wanted. They weren't being intellectually honest. They may have been trying to help, but the damage they've done has been pretty extreme - a lot of Pandora's boxes have been opened politically, the economic damage is breathtaking and the world seems to be facing "unexpected" inflation, famine and war that is probably linked to the (global) knee jerk. We'd have been better off ignoring them and sticking to old-established political norms that are well tested.
- lisper 4y ago
  > them getting the vaccine doesn't protect others Of course it does. The more people are vaccinated the fewer hosts are available for the virus to spread through. > I don't particularly care what the science is Why does that not surprise me.
  - roenxi 4y ago
    > Of course it does. What statistics are you basing this on? NSW in Australia has a vaccination rate of somewhere in the mid 90%s [0] before opening up from lockdown. It did absolutely nothing to slow the spread of COVID [1], anyone who has an active social life got vaccinated, had a short break, then got COVID. The evidence is pretty overwhelming at this point - vaccinations provided personal protection but failed to control the risk of infection. Most people I talk to had COVID and caught it off a vaccinated individual. The R value for the January outbreaks got to about 5. The vaccinations did nothing to even slow that down. The case numbers were high enough that it was physically impossible for the unvaccinated to be the main issue in the story, it was clear vaccinated->vaccinated transmission. In 2020 pre-vaccine it was obvious that everyone was going to get COVID sooner or later. Now, in 2022 post-vaccine, it remains clear that everyone is going to get COVID sooner rather than later and the vaccine didn't change that. The unclear part is whether suspending all those basic political freedoms on the way through made sense. [0] https://www.nsw.gov.au/covid-19/stay-safe/data-and-statistics https://www.nsw.gov.au/covid-19/stay-safe/data-and-statistic... [1] https://chrisbillington.net/COVID_NSW.html https://chrisbillington.net/COVID_NSW.html - State population of around 8 million, the case number records broke down sometime in January and has probably gotten progressively less reliable as time goes on as people get sick of reporting it.

by lisper 4y ago

aynsof 4y ago

This isn't what I saw happening during the pandemic. The (to use your word) 'crackpots' were proposing alternative solutions like Ivermectin and Chloroquine. The people who were shouting 'believe science' were trying to silence the debate. I offer no opinion on either of those two alternatives, I merely point out that 'believe' isn't the verb that goes with 'science'.

xorcist 4y ago
The crackpot spectrum was unusually broad during the pandemic, far from the realm of vaccine deniers and flat earthers. One professor of virology from a world renowned institution was soft banned on twitter behind some sort of click-though warning for pointing to public data about what we knew at the time that closing schools would lead to. Apparently because it fed into some bizarre American debate which was going on at the time. Another is a professor of immunology that was heavily criticized for explaining why and how thoroughly a vaccine must be tested before mass vaccinations can occur, even if every day it can be deployed will save lives and labelled a "vaccine skeptic". Which is more than one kind of weird. Of course, the vaccine was tested exactly as described, and came out even better than most had expected. But that makes it more than clear that many people who demands us to "follow science" more often than not could not be bothered to actually find out what science has to say. It is the new "think of the children". Science exists on its own merits, and we should be careful when the mob demands otherwise.
- andrepd 4y ago
  It's very sad that some people were keen to lump the denialists, antimaskers, or the Chloroquine people, with valid concerns about lockdowns or school closures.
- lisper 4y ago
  > One professor of virology from a world renowned institution was soft banned on twitter Reference? > a professor of immunology that was heavily criticized for explaining why and how thoroughly a vaccine must be tested before mass vaccinations can occur Reference? > that makes it more than clear The only thing this makes clear is that you have no compunctions about advancing an unsubstantiated argument as a response to someone who just explained to you that you can't do that if you want to be taken seriously. You may well be right, but that is beside the point. There is no way for someone reading your claims to verify them. You expect people to just take you at your word and accept your unsubstantiated claims and innuendo as fact simply because you have made the claims. And that is exactly the problem with all of the people who grouse about "settled science".
  - _gabe_ 4y ago
    I do agree with you that it would be nice to have references here. > There is no way for someone reading your claims to verify them. You expect people to just take you at your word and accept your unsubstantiated claims and innuendo as fact simply because you have made the claims. Don't we all? The amount of people, myself included, that have 0% knowledge of the intimate details of Covid and virology, and how it spreads, and anything remotely close to scientific knowledge of this, have to be less than 1% of the world. This statistic is completely pulled out of my rectum, but intuition tells me that in a world of 70 billion people, you would be very hard pressed to find 70 million people who have studied this virus in depth and actually understand the details. Sometimes, you have to accept that people will hold beliefs about stuff without knowing the implementation details, and that's OK. How many of us can hold a modern CPU's architecture in our mind at once? I would wager, nobody in the world has that capability. But we can build abstractions that help us reason at a higher level. How much scientific rigor is necessary for general conversation? How much is necessary for a debate? How much is necessary for a belief? These are tough questions and it doesn't do anybody any good to say: > And that is exactly the problem with all of the people who grouse about "settled science". The problem is we have to build abstractions about our infinitely complex universe at some point. How much abstraction is deemed too much abstraction to make an informed opinion?
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
andrepd 4y ago
Why would a person untrained in science declare that Chloroquine is a cure to covid? That is a definition of crackpot: you are not offering an explanation or a minimally reasonable argument, you're just contradicting current scientific knowledge for the sake of it.
- swayvil 4y ago
  Maybe one of his favorite authorities said so. That's generally how people arrive at their "facts" these days
ryandrake 4y ago
> The (to use your word) 'crackpots' were proposing alternative solutions like Ivermectin and Chloroquine. People can "propose" all they want. They were also proposing bleach, vitamin D, UV sunlight, and probably much more. It takes more than a bare proposal--you need to be able to show (with data) that your proposal is better than the current best theory. In hindsight, the so-called crackpots were not all that invested in any particular alternative. They were invested in a general, vague contrariness: If the mainstream agreed with it, they were against it, for all definitions of "it". If, for instance, Chloroquine actually was found to be effective and Dr. Fauci got on stage and recommended it, the crackpots would have instantly abandoned it and pivoted over to a different proposal. They were more interested in simply being contrary to "the other side".
lisper 4y ago
> proposing alternative solutions Proposing an alternative is not enough. Re-read what I wrote: "... if you want to challenge the scientific status quo you need an actual argument, i.e. you need propose a better alternative to the current-best explanation, one that either accounts for data that the current-best explanation does not, or one that has fewer free parameters ..." Ivermectin met none of those criteria and was therefore never worthy of serious consideration. It got some serious consideration nonetheless in the form of actual controlled studies, which it failed spectacularly and predictably.
atleta 4y ago
Well, they weren't really proposing solutions, Ivermectin and Hydroxychloroquine were really just suggestions, candidates. I.e. ideas for what might work. Now in both both cases there were no reasons why anyone would think they could work, but as far as I know, in both cases there were multiple trials. And those trials didn't show effectiveness (hence these were not solutions) and despite this, the crackpots did continue to push both for a while and then they silently dropped Hydroxychloroquine but the ivermectin delusion is still strong. (At least where I live, before most discussion was washed away by the war in Ukraine a few months ago, it was still being brought up.) Now the thing about believing and science is that it's being told to people who don't do science (so most of us!) but have strong opinion and minimal knowledge about a specific topic. If you ask them, most of them will say they don't believe science or scientists. But what it means is not what you suggest, i.e. a lack of blind faith, but an active rejection of what science has to say about this topic without having the alternative explanations/solutions you're talking about. And I mean scientifically proven ones, of course. So suggesting that laymen should believe (i.e. trust) science is actually a pretty adequate and reasonable advice. Since you basically have to sane options: - believe/trust science (the knowledge gathered by those who work on a specific topic) - work on that specific topic yourself (scientifically)
moistly 4y ago
Thank god the (to use your word) ‘crackpots’ didn’t get away with such behaviours, back when polio was being eradicated. We once had a society that pulled together in tough times. Victory gardens, inoculations, charity. Kicking ass by uniting in our efforts. We couldn’t beat polio today.

blfr 4y ago

The point about providing a better alternative and not just poking holes is very good and I actually agree with you but still, the people saying "the science is settled" are almost always trying to manipulate the public. In fact, I cannot recall hearing someone saying that when they weren't trying to manipulate the public.

lisper 4y ago
And how do you know that these people were "trying to manipulate the public"? Do you draw a distinction between "trying to manipulate the public" and "trying to persuade the public of the truth"? What is it? And if you don't, what exactly is the problem? The fact of the matter is that people who use the phrase "settled science" are almost always trying to persuade someone not to pursue a course of action that is almost certainly doomed to fail, either individually, or as a matter of public policy. You can call that "trying to manipulate the public" if you like, but this is disingenuous because it implies there is something sinister going on. There is nothing wrong with "trying to manipulate the public" to steer them away from charlatans and crackpots.
- calsy 4y ago
  These people? as in those in authority. Those who have both the platform and power to manipulate the public. Why are you so willing to vigorously defend them and deride opposing views as charlatans and crackpots? What have these politicians and media personalities done to deserve your undying loyalty and trust?
  - lisper 4y ago
    > These people? as in those in authority. No, as in: the people saying "the science is settled". > Why are you so willing to vigorously defend them and deride opposing views as charlatans and crackpots? Because the vast majority of people who challenge established science are charlatans and crackpots. There are legitimate challenges to established science. All scientific progress starts that way. But mounting a legitimate challenge to established science is hard. It takes a lot of work. And most people I see doing it are just lazy bums who are not willing to put in the hours. They aren't even willing to put in the effort to learn what a legitimate challenge to established science even looks like, let alone actually mount one themselves. They just latch on to some fad and then bitch and moan about how "those in authority" are repressing them or some such bullshit. In the meantime, there are a lot of hard-working actual scientists toiling away in labs around the world to do the research that actually advances human knowledge. That's why.

atleta 4y ago

I mostly agree, but I think you are confounding two things here. The actual argument doesn't have to contain a better alternative than the current best explanation. It's enough to show the errors of the current explanation - as long as you are doing it using the scientific method. I.e. it's enough to point out flaws in a scientific theory even if you don't have a better one yet. E.g. if talking about covid, it's indeed valuable to prove that the virus does not use the receptor, suggested by the status quo, to get into the cells. One could do this without identifying the actual receptor it does use (by showing that it can infect cells that lack the said receptors). Another example would be showing that a specific medication that is thought to work, actually does not. (Say hydroxychloroquine...) > You can't just say, "Science has gotten it wrong in the past so it probably has got it wrong now, and therefore you should pay attention to my crackpot theory." Now I fully agree with this. But where these guys go completely off the rail is that they try to discredit the scientific method by saying that it's wrong, because it provided erronous results in the past. And try to use this as an argument for why their suggested alternative solution doesn't need to pass the test of science. And here is where they can be challenged with having to come up with a proven better alternative to the scientific method. (Which is kind of nonsense, because science is a self-improving/self-correcting system anyway.)

lisper 4y ago
> It's enough to show the errors of the current explanation Not if you want to argue in favor of a specific alternative. I can point out the discrepancies between theory and observation, for example, with regards to the orbital velocities of the outer arms of galaxies. But that does not give me license to hypothesize that this is caused by leprechauns and expect to be taken seriously. > it's indeed valuable to prove that the virus does not use the receptor, suggested by the status quo, to get into the cells That's true. But again, you have to show some actual evidence that the current-best-explanation is wrong. You can't just proclaim it.
- atleta 4y ago
  >> It's enough to show the errors of the current explanation > Not if you want to argue in favor of a specific alternative. Sure, but this is not what you actually said in your original comment. You said "if you want to challenge the scientific status quo you need an actual argument, i.e. you need propose a better alternative to the current-best explanation" and that's different. You can challenge the status quo by proving it wrong and that doesn't mean that you have to propose a better alternative. Now what was happening with covid and the crakcpots you mentioned is where you would be right to say that they need to prove they have a better alternative. Because they did claim that but all they had was criticism for the existing solutions. E.g. "vaccines cause side effects, so let's use ivermectin". (Without proving that ivermectin works better than vaccines for preventing e.g. deaths.) But in theory someone could come around and prove that vaccines "don't work" (i.e. not worth using) without suggesting a better alternative. They would just need to show the data/supporting evidence. And actually that's exactly what real scientists did with Ivermectin and Hydroxychloroquine: they have proven that neither of them work for any sensible endpoint. > But again, you have to show some actual evidence that the current-best-explanation is wrong. You can't just proclaim it. Sure. That's what I said too. (I even included it in the example how you would do it ;) )

roenxi 4y ago

> ...is that if you want to challenge the scientific status quo... That is a bit of a straw man though, people who care to challenge the scientific consensus are extremely rare. The people claiming "the science is settled" are also adding in an unspoken and-therefore-we-can-overrule-your-choices rider on the end. In Australia I have been appalled by the treatment of my anti-vax neighbours. As far as I can tell they had their human rights suspended for an extended period for reasons that were totally wrong - them getting the vaccine doesn't protect others, everyone I know who had COVID was vaccinated. I still expect to get COVID eventually, nothing that has been done in the last 2 years has changed the basic calculus. It turns out that all we could do in hindsight was vaccinate the people who want to be vaccinated then let the virus go wild. I don't particularly care what the science is, as far as I can tell there were no scientists involved in the decisions made that I disagreed with. The people claiming "the science is settled" and then pushing their agenda were just trying to short circuit the political process, overturn long established traditions of liberty and get the result they wanted. They weren't being intellectually honest. They may have been trying to help, but the damage they've done has been pretty extreme - a lot of Pandora's boxes have been opened politically, the economic damage is breathtaking and the world seems to be facing "unexpected" inflation, famine and war that is probably linked to the (global) knee jerk. We'd have been better off ignoring them and sticking to old-established political norms that are well tested.

lisper 4y ago
> them getting the vaccine doesn't protect others Of course it does. The more people are vaccinated the fewer hosts are available for the virus to spread through. > I don't particularly care what the science is Why does that not surprise me.
- roenxi 4y ago
  > Of course it does. What statistics are you basing this on? NSW in Australia has a vaccination rate of somewhere in the mid 90%s [0] before opening up from lockdown. It did absolutely nothing to slow the spread of COVID [1], anyone who has an active social life got vaccinated, had a short break, then got COVID. The evidence is pretty overwhelming at this point - vaccinations provided personal protection but failed to control the risk of infection. Most people I talk to had COVID and caught it off a vaccinated individual. The R value for the January outbreaks got to about 5. The vaccinations did nothing to even slow that down. The case numbers were high enough that it was physically impossible for the unvaccinated to be the main issue in the story, it was clear vaccinated->vaccinated transmission. In 2020 pre-vaccine it was obvious that everyone was going to get COVID sooner or later. Now, in 2022 post-vaccine, it remains clear that everyone is going to get COVID sooner rather than later and the vaccine didn't change that. The unclear part is whether suspending all those basic political freedoms on the way through made sense. [0] https://www.nsw.gov.au/covid-19/stay-safe/data-and-statistics https://www.nsw.gov.au/covid-19/stay-safe/data-and-statistic... [1] https://chrisbillington.net/COVID_NSW.html https://chrisbillington.net/COVID_NSW.html - State population of around 8 million, the case number records broke down sometime in January and has probably gotten progressively less reliable as time goes on as people get sick of reporting it.