So much for posting in the morning. Can I use the excuse that I had therapy at 11 AM? I could. It’s true that I did. What is not demonstrated is that I would have if I hadn’t had therapy. If everyone understood that without effort the world would be a better place. Does that mean I’m writing about hypothesis testing and weighing evidence? It does and I’ll hold off for the fun anecdotes till I’m finished with that.
Since COVID-19 started we have been exposed to a torrent of misinformation, so much that many people have difficulty separating the wheat from the chaff. There is more chaff than wheat. What makes it more difficult for many is that those using evidence have had to change their recommendations and predictions based on new evidence. That’s perfectly normal. It’s a sign of intellectual honesty. First we were told to not wear masks, then we were told that we should. At first they thought that masks were of limited efficacy outside of clinical settings but were absolutely vital to healthcare workers. They were afraid that everyone would hoard masks as if it were toilet paper and there would be none left for those that most need them. Then they discovered that simple cloth masks help a significant amount in decreasing the spread of SARS-CoV-2 and the recommendation changed to reflect that. The population could be protected and those most at risk could have the virus-proof masks they need. Even with the initial recommendation there have not been enough masks for healthcare workers. They don’t need better equipment than us because they are more important than the rest of us, even though in a health crisis they are, they need them because they are exposed to the virus in ways the rest of us aren’t. If you were intubating patients, putting tubes down their throats, and getting sprayed with fluids from their lungs you would need one too. You aren’t. All you need is something to catch the droplets coming from your own mouth and nose and keeping them off of others. Masks are essentially handkerchiefs that are permanently covering your mouth and nose. That is their purpose.
What I said there was true but not the point I most want to make. The lesson I want to teach is that when someone makes an assertion then the onus is on them to provide the evidence that it is true. The best case I know of people not getting that was the death of Jeffrey Epstein. People were asserting that he was murdered with no evidence. When I would point that out the response was, “You find it so hard to believe that powerful people would want to kill him?” That’s is exactly the wrong way to look at it. You need evidence to believe an assertion, not just the mere possibility. Yet people will believe things that fit their prejudices without evidence, and they don’t know that its wrong to. Might I do it? Yes, I’m human, but I’m aware of the possibility and try to minimize it. I don’t say, “you can’t prove I’m wrong therefore I’m right.”
All assertions aren’t created equal. Saying that SARS-CoV-2 is an animal virus that spread to humans requires evidence, which was gathered, but there was already priori evidence, that’s a well-known process we’ve seen many times before. Saying that it was an animal virus that escaped from the virus lab in Wuhan was as likely as these installations have tremendous controls, but it was a possibility that needed to be investigated. Mistakes happen. They discovered that the virus is more closely related to viruses found in the wild than to anything found in the lab. The research was done. It wasn’t dismissed. Asserting that it was the result of deliberate genetic engineering to create a weapon is far less likely. We are nowhere near having the capability of doing that. There are genetic researchers all over the world trying to create custom viruses for benign purposes, but we can’t. The government doesn’t have a magic potion to make secret research work better than open research. Once Otto Hahn and Lisa Meitner reported nuclear fission everyone in the physics world knew an atom bomb was possible. All that was needed was to work out the details. Working out those details required gathering all the top scientists in the US and Britain to work on it All the top Chinese microbiologist didn’t disappear to work on a secret project somewhere.
Blaming COVID-19 on 5G requires a whole other level of evidence. There is no known mechanism for radio waves to cause disease. All harmful radiation is ionizing radiation, radiation with shorter wavelengths, and therefore more energetic photons, that light. They can knock the electrons out of molecules and so make chemical changes. That’s why UV, X-Rays, and Gamma Rays are dangerous. Radio waves including microwaves are less energetic than not just light but infrared. The heat generated by your body or the radiator in your house put at far more energy than any cell phone. Is it possible that they work through some previously unknown mechanism? Yes, but we’ve been working with radio wavs for well over 100 years and nothing has come up. The harmful effects of x-rays were discovered in far less time even though there was far less exposure to them.
We can’t expect everyone to be as well-informed as the experts in a field. That’s what makes them experts. When there’s a consensus those in disagreement are the ones that need to supply the proof. That’s how science advances. It’s what all the greatest scientists did. They were not scorned for being unorthodox they were lionized for transforming the field. Einstein was just a patent clerk, not even in academia, when he wrote the papers that overthrew the old order, Special Relativity and explaining the photoelectric effect with the revolutionary idea that light was made of particles. Nobody said, “don’t listen to him, he’s a patent clerk.” They said, “Wow this guy’s great, let’s fight to get him to come to our University.”
When someone on YouTube says that Dr. Fauci as well as all the doctors at the CDC, WHO, and experts in the rest of the world, are wrong or lying to you. The first thing you should be asking yourself is why isn’t this person publishing it in a medical journal. Why isn’t the person making his or her research available online for evaluation by other doctors? The answer is the person is a huckster.
When eminent doctors come up with a promising line of research, that doesn’t mean it’s true. Most promising lines of research never pan out. There’s no superhighway to scientific knowledge. There are intersections, stop signs, and red lights, all along the way. When the research is done, and vetted, then you can get excited. There are some very promising lines of research now, in particular RNA vaccines. We’ve never made one before but if we can get them to work they’ll revolutionize medicine. The key word is “if.”
We all have to learn the difference between, could be true, is likely true, is probably true, and is true. When it fosters your preferred narrative of how the world works, be extra skeptical.
Damn, Deni Bonet is on in five minutes so no time for fun anecdotes. That will have to wait until tomorrow. A miracle, I wrote over 1200 words and spell/grammar check did not find a single error. I’ve lost all faith in the laws of probability.
Wise Madness 