Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I’m not sure about the universe. – Albert Einstein
When I saw the news Donald was sick, my first thought was, what’s new?
I actually am friends with a retired ‘deep state’ scientist. Known the good doctor some fifty-five years. He is honest and smart and particularly thoughtful. So I asked him, why don’t the people believe the scientists?
Two hundred thousand Americans are dead from the virus. 200,000 bodies is not a hoax.
The doctors say be afraid and take care, while a reality TV star preaches it’ll go away like a miracle, there’s nothing to worry about, and they believe him.
They make a conscious choice not to believe science.
What’s up with that? He agreed to toss out an idea if his identity could be masked. – JDW
One Reason Scientists Are Not Being Believed. A Theory.
Scientists tend to be literal people and they answer the questions as asked.
They are unaccustomed to lawyers manipulating the questions.
It really depends on how the question is asked.
I think a lot of the incredulity of science started with the effects of smoking.
Does smoking cause lung cancer? Scientific evidence does not support that theory!
Is smoking unhealthy? Yes, it is!
Your lungs are being constantly assailed by chemicals, radiation and even diet. Your body has natural mechanisms that work to repair any such damage. Smoking interferes with these repair mechanisms. So, if you smoke, you are giving up your defenses. Technically speaking, smoking does not “cause” lung cancer but, if you smoke, you are much more likely to develop lung cancer. So when a tobacco company lawyer asks a scientist “does smoking cause lung cancer,” the scientist has to answer “no”.
More recently, scientists are being asked if all these forest fires and hurricanes are a result of climate change. Scientific evidence does not show that climate change is “causing” these events. Evidence is clear warmer air can contain more moisture and more moisture is related to more energy in the atmosphere. Warmer ocean water feeds more energy into the atmosphere. A warming climate means we may not have more storms but those storms that do occur will be more severe.
Climate change deniers say the earth goes through natural climate cycles and we are just on a normal rise. There does appear to be cycles but ice core measures from thousands of years have suggested we were actually on a long-term cooling trend.
One of the first causes for alarm came from a graph called “the hockey stick.” The long term, nearly horizontal, line is the handle of the stick. A more recent trend is the blade of the stick rising very rapidly. Our atmosphere is evidently warming at a much faster rate than would be predicted as a natural cycle.
Why? The best theory is greenhouse gasses. Non-scientific experts (i.e., Fox News and Rush Limbaugh) are encouraged to present their own theories, and they do. Also, be aware that a climatologist and a weatherman are not the same thing. Weather is local and short in time. Climate is global and long term.
Global warming does not mean our daily temperatures will just be a couple of degrees higher. Small changes can have large long term effects. For example, climatologists are trying to predict effects on jet streams and ocean conveyors. Will a warmer Arctic push jet streams to the south? Will they drag colder air with them and actually make the American Midwest winters colder?
Look at a globe. Europe is north, about the same level as Canada. The ocean conveyors keep it temperate. Climatologists don’t know what will be the effect of melting glaciers dumping cold fresh water in the north Atlantic. One model predicts Europe will get cold and it will start raining in North Africa.
But that doesn’t explain it really, does it?
Everybody knows somebody who smoked and lived to be real old.
The anti-anti-smoking campaign by Big Tobacco ended up being an attack on science. The right’s attacks on abortion rights seems like another battle which pitted doctor against doctor and again diminished science.
So, science was politicized, incrementally diminished with each conflict, until a cult leader could convince his followers not to believe the experts.
Wow, just like the old days!!!
https://www.nytimes.com/video/us/politics/100000007344183/redfield-cdc-masks.html?src=vidm
‘They Are Our Best Defense’: Redfield Renews Call to Wear Masks
Dr. Robert R. Redfield, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told senators that if all Americans wore masks, the coronavirus could be controlled in six to 12 weeks.
Trump contradicts the C.D.C. chief’s testimony on masks and vaccines.
President Trump on Wednesday rejected the professional scientific conclusions of his own government about the prospects for a widely available coronavirus vaccine and the effectiveness of masks in curbing the spread of the virus as the death toll in the United States from the disease neared 200,000.
In a remarkable display even for him, Mr. Trump publicly slapped down Dr. Robert R. Redfield, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as the president promised that a vaccine could be available in weeks and go “immediately” to the general public while diminishing the usefulness of wearing masks despite evidence to the contrary.
The president’s comments put him at odds with the C.D.C., the world’s premier public health agency, over the course of a pandemic that he keeps insisting is “rounding the corner” to an end. Mr. Trump lashed out just hours after Dr. Redfield told a Senate committee that a vaccine would not be widely available until the middle of next year.
“I think he made a mistake when he said that,” Mr. Trump told reporters. “It’s just incorrect information.” A vaccine would go “to the general public immediately,” the president insisted, and “under no circumstance will it be as late as the doctor said.”
Mr. Trump also said Dr. Redfield “made a mistake” when he told senators that masks were so vital in fighting the disease caused by the coronavirus, Covid-19, that they might be even more important than a vaccine. “The mask is not as important as the vaccine,” Mr. Trump said.
The president has repeatedly claimed that a vaccine could be available before Election Day on Nov. 3, a timeline that most health experts say is unrealistic, prompting concerns that the Food and Drug Administration might give emergency authorization to a vaccine before it has been fully vetted for safety and effectiveness. Nine pharmaceutical companies have pledged to “stand with science” and to not push through any product that didn’t stand up to scientific scrutiny.