I'm sure that any Republican would give the same fair shake to a pandemic inquiry that they gave to an inquiry into Iraq's nuclear program 20 years ago.
A really fair pandemic inquiry into the efficacy of lockdowns and masks and vaccines would compare different polities with different polices, and see if the restrictions correlate to death rate at the end.
The reference to this opinion is reasonable and person without deep knowledge on the topic should respect that opinion when most of the experts in the field have an agreed consensus on the matter.
If another expert disagrees with such opinion he would be probably wrong, If non-expert disagrees then he would be certainly wrong. We should take into account that scientific knowledge is evolving and improving.
Another aspect - it’s best to trust not the opinions but the facts. A bright person is distinguished not by what he believes, but how and why he believes it. His faith is built on experience and therefore not dogmatic; it is based on evidence, not authority or intuition.
Additional requirement to the expert is to be independent. The government can not reference the ministry official, they should do the scientist or other opinions leader.
================
By these standards, Neal is appealing to "legitimate" authority, the "I'm a cardiologist" guys are not.
I think you're entirely right. I 100% expect that a real, thorough inquiry — one that hears from both the credentialed cardiologist with zero insight into epidemiology, and from the respected virologists who actually understand pandemic response — will make quick work of the "herd immunity" and hydroxychloroquine crew. I think the bulk of the work will focus on what style of lockdown, or what shape of mandates, are really the most effective.
So I'm really arguing, here, for an incidental benefit: A chance to get these frustrated and alienated folks to the table.
But the core benefit of such an inquiry, of course, is to figure out how we deal with the next pandemic.
Yeah, we have to bring them to the table, we're all stuck on the same planet.
But, #$@#%()#)(#$)(#$*%, do we ever need logic, fallacies, How We Know What We Know, and all that, to become a school subject like math and English. Nobody even gets taught how to spot a phone-scam, much less how to spot bullshit herbal medicine; valuable skills when there's no pandemic.
I would have liked to have seen the precautionary principle put more front and center over the past 3 years. I mostly got behind the public health message but I think and even better message from our Public Health officials would have been "We don't know for certain but we have a strong inclination in this direction so let's all do this until we get data that suggests a different strategy". To me, one of the most infuriating messages happened right at the beginning of the pandemic when they told us that masks didn't help. I'm pretty certain they were putting that message out because they were trying to save masks for people on the front lines but it really blew up in their face later.
Justin, I was pretty surprised to see you identify yourself as leaning libertarian. I always assumed you were mainly left. That whole bit about cross-cutting was really interesting. I think there's another layer as well. For me anyways, I make a distinction between my ideological leanings and my practical leanings. Inside my head I'm pretty ideologically left. Outside my head there's a lot of cross-cutting happening. I'm curious where you lean, aside from libertarian. I think the whole idea of objective, unbiased reporting is ridiculous. I feel it would be a lot more useful to understand where people are coming from as a lens to filter what they are saying.
I think there's really two core philosophies underpinning public health responses.
One is that populations are like cats, and trying to herd them with appeals to reason is a fool's game — so you need to engage in some emotional appeals and social engineering to get them to behave in such a way that keeps everyone safe.
The other is that you come out and be very blunt and transparent with people. You tell them exactly how risky and bad things are. You show them the science and try and bring them along, and build a sense of solidarity for the necessary sacrifices that everyone needs to take.
I think, through the pandemic, we oscillated between both. I'm partial to Door Number Two, but I recognize you've got to user Option One, too. But I think we're now dealing with the externalities of 1, and it makes you think that 2 might've informed more of our response.
And I'm sort of politically everything everywhere all of the time. I'm skeptical of state power, but recognize it seems to be the only way to drive good social development and right systemic inequalities. But I think it's healthy to come at government with an innate and healthy skepticism. So I'm libertarian-ish. Libertarian-light. (If you want to stick me on the political compass, I trend slightly to the left of the centre, but waaay towards the bottom.)
That political compass you refer to has become utterly binary at this point though so never mind "cross-cutting;" it has never been more CLEAR-cut, the pandemic foreshadowing the grisly bottom line of our survival as a species. This looming reality certainly should have sharpened the focus of anyone who doesn't have their head up their own ass, because one side does not get it AT ALL, and even the side that DOES keeps veering away due to the daunting "nature" of this reality before us.
And speaking of bottom lines, the far more "libertarian" American response also really should have put paid to that definitively juvenile philosophy once and for all that truly begs the question, "have you MET people?" A million dead weirdly didn't even make a dent.
On one end of the spectrum (depending on education, as usual) there are the knee-jerk rebel-without-a pause guys but the more "erudite" end attracts the "everything-everywhere-all-of-the-time" guys who just resist labelling, preferring to imagine themselves as "beyond the fray."
I'm sure that any Republican would give the same fair shake to a pandemic inquiry that they gave to an inquiry into Iraq's nuclear program 20 years ago.
A really fair pandemic inquiry into the efficacy of lockdowns and masks and vaccines would compare different polities with different polices, and see if the restrictions correlate to death rate at the end.
https://www.npr.org/2022/05/19/1098543849/pro-trump-counties-continue-to-suffer-far-higher-covid-death-tolls ... note graph at the bottom. Death on the Y, your politics on the X.
Or, just at extremes, 5400 in BC died of COVID (so far). If we'd been Floridians, an additional 15,000 would lie in their graves.
The numbers are just slap-in-your-face obvious when you compare different places.
The discussion at this site could have been made for the question of who is really making the logical mistake of "Appeal to Authority":
https://www.logical-fallacy.com/articles/appeal-to-authority/
==================
Legitimate Reference to Authority
The reference to this opinion is reasonable and person without deep knowledge on the topic should respect that opinion when most of the experts in the field have an agreed consensus on the matter.
If another expert disagrees with such opinion he would be probably wrong, If non-expert disagrees then he would be certainly wrong. We should take into account that scientific knowledge is evolving and improving.
Another aspect - it’s best to trust not the opinions but the facts. A bright person is distinguished not by what he believes, but how and why he believes it. His faith is built on experience and therefore not dogmatic; it is based on evidence, not authority or intuition.
Additional requirement to the expert is to be independent. The government can not reference the ministry official, they should do the scientist or other opinions leader.
================
By these standards, Neal is appealing to "legitimate" authority, the "I'm a cardiologist" guys are not.
I think you're entirely right. I 100% expect that a real, thorough inquiry — one that hears from both the credentialed cardiologist with zero insight into epidemiology, and from the respected virologists who actually understand pandemic response — will make quick work of the "herd immunity" and hydroxychloroquine crew. I think the bulk of the work will focus on what style of lockdown, or what shape of mandates, are really the most effective.
So I'm really arguing, here, for an incidental benefit: A chance to get these frustrated and alienated folks to the table.
But the core benefit of such an inquiry, of course, is to figure out how we deal with the next pandemic.
<shoulders slump>
Yeah, we have to bring them to the table, we're all stuck on the same planet.
But, #$@#%()#)(#$)(#$*%, do we ever need logic, fallacies, How We Know What We Know, and all that, to become a school subject like math and English. Nobody even gets taught how to spot a phone-scam, much less how to spot bullshit herbal medicine; valuable skills when there's no pandemic.
Succinct piece on a very broad topic. Cross-cutting calm is a much needed salve in our divided culture(s). Quick shout out to the latest by Michael Lewis on the Pandemic. Well worth a trip to the library. https://www.npr.org/2021/05/03/991570372/michael-lewis-the-premonition-is-a-sweeping-indictment-of-the-cdc
So much to chew on here.
I would have liked to have seen the precautionary principle put more front and center over the past 3 years. I mostly got behind the public health message but I think and even better message from our Public Health officials would have been "We don't know for certain but we have a strong inclination in this direction so let's all do this until we get data that suggests a different strategy". To me, one of the most infuriating messages happened right at the beginning of the pandemic when they told us that masks didn't help. I'm pretty certain they were putting that message out because they were trying to save masks for people on the front lines but it really blew up in their face later.
Justin, I was pretty surprised to see you identify yourself as leaning libertarian. I always assumed you were mainly left. That whole bit about cross-cutting was really interesting. I think there's another layer as well. For me anyways, I make a distinction between my ideological leanings and my practical leanings. Inside my head I'm pretty ideologically left. Outside my head there's a lot of cross-cutting happening. I'm curious where you lean, aside from libertarian. I think the whole idea of objective, unbiased reporting is ridiculous. I feel it would be a lot more useful to understand where people are coming from as a lens to filter what they are saying.
I think there's really two core philosophies underpinning public health responses.
One is that populations are like cats, and trying to herd them with appeals to reason is a fool's game — so you need to engage in some emotional appeals and social engineering to get them to behave in such a way that keeps everyone safe.
The other is that you come out and be very blunt and transparent with people. You tell them exactly how risky and bad things are. You show them the science and try and bring them along, and build a sense of solidarity for the necessary sacrifices that everyone needs to take.
I think, through the pandemic, we oscillated between both. I'm partial to Door Number Two, but I recognize you've got to user Option One, too. But I think we're now dealing with the externalities of 1, and it makes you think that 2 might've informed more of our response.
And I'm sort of politically everything everywhere all of the time. I'm skeptical of state power, but recognize it seems to be the only way to drive good social development and right systemic inequalities. But I think it's healthy to come at government with an innate and healthy skepticism. So I'm libertarian-ish. Libertarian-light. (If you want to stick me on the political compass, I trend slightly to the left of the centre, but waaay towards the bottom.)
That political compass you refer to has become utterly binary at this point though so never mind "cross-cutting;" it has never been more CLEAR-cut, the pandemic foreshadowing the grisly bottom line of our survival as a species. This looming reality certainly should have sharpened the focus of anyone who doesn't have their head up their own ass, because one side does not get it AT ALL, and even the side that DOES keeps veering away due to the daunting "nature" of this reality before us.
And speaking of bottom lines, the far more "libertarian" American response also really should have put paid to that definitively juvenile philosophy once and for all that truly begs the question, "have you MET people?" A million dead weirdly didn't even make a dent.
On one end of the spectrum (depending on education, as usual) there are the knee-jerk rebel-without-a pause guys but the more "erudite" end attracts the "everything-everywhere-all-of-the-time" guys who just resist labelling, preferring to imagine themselves as "beyond the fray."
Both need to grow up I'm afraid.