Not to discourage discussing the facts, but a brief search reveals criticism of Swiss Policy Research for spreading conspiracy and false claims. Whether that is true or not would take its own investigation.
I have been studying up on viruses and epidemiology since the pandemic began. I still find it fascinating despite COVID fatigue. Many claims are independently verifiable. You can make predictions that validate your theories. You can look at past claims and compare them to the present.
Part of the overall problem seems to be epistomological, another part is failure to learn from othersâ mistakes.
Yikes! You Keep Having Things to Say | Blog & Mablog. Pastor Wilson really does believe that the church has no authority over what goes on in the sanctuary. And not even over the sacraments, it sounds like. And he doesnât think Communion requires community? Maybe Iâm misinterpreting, but this sounds seriously weird, like the Roman Catholic practice of taking the bread to sick people to eat by themselves.
Iâve noticed a lot of similarities between the debate over COVID-19 and the debate over global warming, and my guess is that views on both are highly correlated. Commonalities between COVID-19 and global warming include the substantial possibility of serious harm to people (although not equally shared), the substantial cost of actions to prevent possible harm (again not equally shared), substantial uncertainty about the real risks, and the need to make a decision about what actions to take (or not) before the actual outcome is obvious. Itâs very difficult to develop a response that obtains widespread social agreement under such circumstances, especially when the potential benefits and obvious costs are unequally shared from one person to another. So instead various factions shoehorn COVID-19 or global warming into their various narratives for whatâs wrong with the world, and the debate devolves to symbol rather than fact.
For example, many hardcore small-government conservatives do not approach the global warming debate as a matter of getting the right balance in undertaking current actions that will be costly to prevent future dangers that are not completely certain. Instead, they view global warming to be nothing more than a hoax and scam put forth by the money-grubbing and power-hungry (Doug Wilson appears to be in this camp). But why abandon facts, however uncertain they may be, for conspiracy theory? My hypothesis is that global warming simply cannot fit into the worldview of the hardcore small-government conservative because if global warming were truly a problem, it would have no small-government solution. To engage in a fact-based debate (while taking uncertainty into account) over the right balance of policies to undertake regarding global warming would be to concede that small government is not the answer for everything.
Now COVID-19 comes along, in which it appears that people with little or no symptoms can sometimes widely spread the disease through the air. Engaging in a fact-based debate (while taking uncertainty into account) over the right balance between preventing death and not destroying peopleâs livelihoods would be to concede that the government has the authority to substantially limit conventional liberties during an epidemic. Instead, itâs easier to make COVID-19 into a story about fake news and power-grabs in which refusing to wear a mask becomes a vital symbol that one is fighting for God.
About the SPR site: apparently they put up some wrong information and âconspiracyâ stuff. (whatâs that anyway? Btw almost no liberal sites got labelled âconspiracy siteâ ever), and I donât know if one can trust them, but many links are to normal external sites, like bloomberg, arvix, telegraph.co.uk, so I would recommend following the links and not taking the text at face value.
The thing with âfactsâ is that it is easy to leave out other âfactsâ. That is our main problem. On the conservative and on the liberal site. We are so bad with ambiguity, and our worldview kicks in to tries to resolve it one way or another.
I believe that the scientific method is not the only way to attain knowledge, and it has limits. These limits become more and more visible, especially when dealing with complexity.
Yeah, Iâd say donât be hoodwinked by the increasing amount of spurious âfact-checkingâ websites. Itâs becoming a boringly predictable response against places that question the narrative. Letâs focus on discussing the evidence on itâs own merits.
Yes indeed, Henry. Masks are less economically ruinous than lockdowns, but still lead to decreased output.
The other day I was out on a construction site and a framing contractor informed me that there have been massive shortages of lumber and other materials because whenever an employee at a lumber yard (or similar place) tests positive for Covid, the place is shut down for a period of time. Even though in many states (mostly the âredâ states) lockdowns have mercifully ended, various government controls and central planning remain. Or just plain old fear, leading companies to impose hurtful measures upon themselves.
I realize that is only anecdotal evidence, not scientific evidence.
There has not been, and five months in there still has not been, a rational evaluation of the risks of the virus vs the risks of economic Depression and the unintended consequences of lockdowns. I would argue much of the rioting we have seen in major US cities is partially due to the fact that many people are anxious and uncertain, and wanted something to do besides be cooped up at home. I would not say the lockdowns caused the riots, but they helped to create a heated environment where riots became possible.
We will be living with the long term consequences of these policies for many years. God help us.
I would also recommend both of Alex Berensonâs booklets on Covid 19. You can buy them on Amazon for a low price. They can both be read in just a few hours.
Youâve nailed it. I was sympathetic to Doug Wilsonâs climate change skepticism because it is a threat that is nearly impossible to independently verify. Then the pandemic came around and it was like a veil was lifted from my eyes. I could see right though Wilsonâs arguments. When presented with a clear and present threat there was no way out but through denial. Rather than making me more skeptical of the coronavirus threat, Wilsonâs diatribes led me to question whether his climate change skepticism comes from a similar impulse to deny the existence of threats that canât be mitigated on an individual basis. It has also caused me to question libertarianism which seems to lack a good solution to the tragedy of the commons.
Whatâs the concern level with masks in relation to the âsafety-firstâ, risk-averse culture we currently live in? This has been a concern weâve discussed during this entire COVID season. We live in a day where the more motherly ethic of security and safety is overly dominant. Isnât masking and some of the other responses to COVID just more of this?
Itâs been stated that in early March, when the reports out of China, Iran, and Italy were awful, the projections of deaths were terrifying, and we didnât yet know what we were dealing with that being overly cautious was right and good. But, since then, since weâve seen that this virus isnât the plague it was thought to be, shouldnât there be a concern for the effeminacy of risk-aversion and safety-first as the dominant ethic be part of this discussion? Whatâs the level of concern that masking (and other measures to try and mitigate the effects of the virus) are part of the overall cultural obsession with safety and protection and helicopter-parenting and nanny-stating?
Doing my own fact-checking on just one chart you shared, âCoronavirus in Sweden: Predictions vs. Realityâ, I immediately found several issues. First, the Imperial College predictions did not even mention Sweden. The paper only examined US and UK. Second, the chart misleadingly simplifies the paper. There is no âModerate-mitigation (no Lockdown) scenarioâ presented in the paper. Instead, they look at combinations of several mitigation strategies and their effect on peak ICU usage. Third, the paper does not make an estimate 25x too high. If I try to compare the closest prediction from the paper to Swedenâs response, I see the prediction wasnât far off (I am looking at Figure 2ââcase isolation, home quarantine and social distancing of those aged over 70ââa blue line). It predicted a peak utilization of 90 ICU beds per 100,000 population. I couldnât find the actual figure but ICU beds were indeed insufficient. With a total of 58 deaths per 100,000 the blue line prediction seems not far off from the reality. Whether Swedenâs mitigations line up with the definitions in the paper is another matter subject to interpretation. But I canât find support for the claims in the chart.
Thank you so much for bringing this up. It really deserves its own thread.
I have been wondering why Warhorn has not addressed this aspect of the crisis. Wilsonâs camp has been silent on it as well. But if sexuality is your wheelhouse, you cannot neglect it.
I actually already said this in my post and explained it was scaled. Not sure why you think it is a big problem? Others have run the Imperial code and come out with numbers proportional to Swedenâs population, as you would expect. Scaling to population is reasonable - in fact it is roughly the case for the US and UK numbers given in the paper. Take the UK case, 66.5million population / 0.5 million deaths gives ratio of 133. This is not too far off US figure of 328milion population / 2million ratio of 164. You need a substantial reason to think that the Swedish prediction should be radically different than US and UK in relation to their population. And as far as Iâm aware, this has never been a defense Neil Ferguson or his cohorts have made.
If I have time later Iâll take a look at your other fact checks.
Apparently you were supposed to call him and ask for help to âparametrizeâ the model.
Imperial College model applied to Sweden (linked in the article above)
Sweden vs UK
Review of Fergusonâs modell:
I think you probably made up your mind already. No amount of links or facts will ever change that.
Itâs not a problem to extrapolate inferences from a set of predictions and apply to another situation. Just want to be sure itâs done fairly. I havenât looked at results generated from the Imperial code.
Far from it. I appreciate the links and will review them. I am slow to make up my mind. My first reaction to any claim is to look for glaring problems. Thatâs what I was applying to the Swiss Policy Research information. I am not invested in the conclusions of either the Imperial study or Swiss Policy Research.
Even though our argument shows that the question is not about numbers, Pastor Wilsonâs entire argument depends on his claim about how astronomically wrong they have been about every last thing. Iâve demonstrated that even if we granted the validity of his logic, his position is still wrong, because they have not been nearly as wrong as he constantly makes them out to be.
It is not irrelevant that Pastor Wilson gives an unsupported false definition of binding the conscience and also depends on his readers believing unsupported false claims about the facts while lambasting others for believing falsehoods.
It is simply not the case that it is irrelevant to the average person in the pew, and many people are believing whoppers of lies and conspiracy theories right now. These people should have somebody bold enough to tell them plainly that many of the things they are hearing from the left and right are false. Doug Wilson is depending on them hearing and believing lies from the right in order to continue his claim that this is simply a âshamdemic,â which then bolsters his position that other elders are cowards for complying. For the person that unfortunately still buys the idea that because itâs all fake, we can simply disregard them, pointing out that actually itâs not just all fake is quite helpful in and of itself.
To put it plainly, Doug Wilson should say, âI was wrong. They said over 100,000 people would die, and they were right. I didnât believe them. Itâs real. Itâs not a shamdemic. Itâs not fake. However, I still think itâs not nearly as big a deal as people are or were claiming, and the press is still doing what they always do and sensationalizing it causing people to be much more afraid than they need to be, and the solution has still been worse than the problem.â
We have examples of such integrity in this very community.
Still, perhaps we should have put it in a separate piece, which we debated doing.
Perhaps a bit here and a bit there, but to be honest, I think you and @henrybish are missing the point and the context. This isnât Germany or the UK. This is the right-wing politics side of America.
You say that I âkeep going back to end of March, but the knowledge about this sickness increased since then a lot. None of the models can take that into account.â I agree. The models will always be behind. But thatâs really beside the point. Iâm not trying to say that the current models are right about the future. Iâm trying to say that those who claim the models were so far off that the entire thing is fake news are not being honest with themselves. They scoffed at the idea that 100,000 people could die. It was outrageous to them. Yes, the models could have been right for the wrong reasons. Total deaths in NY may well have been much lower if the leaders there had actually read the Imperial Report, looked at the models and charts, and given half of a second thought to the implications. But weâd still be way over 100,000 dead even if nobody at all in NY died. I donât use that number to prove how bad it is. I use that number to prove that itâs real to an audience that literally doesnât believe that it is real.
@henrybish, Iâd say the same thing to you. You simply donât understand. You think I was âneedlessly stating the opposition in a way that frames them as idiots.â Not at all. It was the furthest thing from my mind. Thatâs just what many people are saying and believing here. Itâs quite a normal sentiment along with many other conspiracy theories that I didnât mention. Then you say
But thatâs not at all my point. I never said it, and Iâm not in the slightest trying to argue that. Iâm talking to people who believe that the death numbers were manipulated so badly that they are wrong by an order of magnitude. I successfully disproved that. Normal numbers of people were still reported dead of all the other things. âTheyâ didnât just start counting every death in every hospital as âCovidâ in order to collect a bunch of federal money or in order to scare all of us or in order to prove their models right.
Youâre right that I should not have said: âIt also accurately predicted the second spike of cases being much larger after we decreased our mitigation efforts.â I should have simply said that they accurately predicted the inverse corollary between level of mitigation effort and number of deaths on an ongoing basis. Obviously we did not do away with mitigation entirely, and even if we had, people would not be acting exactly as they were before, which is something the Imperial study actually mentions IIRC not being accounted for in their model.
Iâm sure some of your other criticisms are correct as well, along with some of your arguments, but they are mostly irrelevant. It comes down to this misunderstanding:
Only insofar as whether the whole thing is huge scam, a fake crisis that somehow people with power generated worldwide in order to prevent Trump from being re-elected.
All across the world the various countriesâ civil magistrates and public health officers have been the ones to decide what their country is going to do in response to this virus. Swedenâs government may well have been the wisest country in this regard. But for some reason weâve decided that we were right when we (on the right in the US) claimed this was going to be a non-event, so we feel justified in saying that we donât need to listen to our public health experts. Itâs not a non-event made up for the suppression of the right and a conspiracy for the establishment of a single world government.
Itâs a real thing. It might only compare to a flu season in the UK or Europe, but certainly not in the US, as @FaithAlone has pointed out. And even if it is âonlyâ as bad as a new strain of flu in the end, thatâs precisely the kind of thing that we have health departments for. Another flu is a big deal, not fake news.
Then too, anybody who repeats objection 2 is bearing false witness. Period. Whether intentionally or not. And thatâs precisely what Berenson did back in March and what Pastor Sumpter was still doing last I checked.
Now, I would prefer not to get into the armchair expert territory. I believe you men are quite able to do that and we could have fun with it and thereâs even a point to questioning the experts and their decisions and voting accordingly, but I donât think either of you is willing to argue that Iâm wrong about in the theological case we made that Wilson is wrong, or in the basic fact that this is a real enough âthingâ that falls within the purview of the civil magistrate to respond to, wrong though we may believe their response to be.
[quote=âJoel, post:36, topic:2031â]
In the American polity, the people (collectively) are sovereign, and the majority of voters are women.
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Iâm not sure how this relates to my point? The point being that we are crazy about safety and how this relates to the reaction and steps in light of COVID.
