“If you thought that science was certain – well, that is just an error on your part.”
“I would rather have questions that can’t be answered than answers that can’t be questioned.”
-Richard Feynman
One thing we learned from the CCP virus is that we have unelected, credentialist politicians passing themselves off as scientists: Sinecurists for whom the scientific method is something “more honoured in the breach than in the observance.”
The consequences are predictable:
Misplaced trust: When trust in science fosters belief in pseudoscience and the benefits of critical evaluation
“We identify two critical determinants of vulnerability to pseudoscience. First, participants who trust science are more likely to believe and disseminate false claims that contain scientific references than false claims that do not. Second, reminding participants of the value of critical evaluation reduces belief in false claims, whereas reminders of the value of trusting science do not.”
You might think that means it is easier to persuade those with more education to apply critical thinking than to convince less credentialed people to do so. The rubes in flyover country are therefore more likely to qualify as domestic terrorists, by DHS definition, than the anointed.
Apparently it doesn’t work quite that way:
Americans with PhDs are the most reluctant to get vaccinated against COVID, study finds
Maybe that Carnegie Mellon University/University of Pittsburg study is bogus. Maybe the 10,000 PhDs in that study have their degrees in Education or ________ Studies, and see CCP virus vaccination as a plot against oppressed minorities.
Our President agrees with the plot theory. He sees the Tuskegee Experiment (not to be confused with the Tuskegee Airmen, Mr. President) as a reason blacks are vaccination hesitant.
Really? Joe, you’re this ‘ ‘ close to forcing every American to be vaccinated. Somehow resistance to that is comparable to an immoral government experiment on a handful of black men? 70 years ago? Under a Democrat President? … Actually, you would absolutely correct about the immorality in both cases. Too bad that you can’t understand the point. Because, if you did, you would have told the DHS that people who object to forced vaccination are not to be called terrorists.
All you accomplished was to remind blacks of something deserving an abject apology. Which has already been made, but it couldn’t have hurt to do it again instead of re-politicizing it.
You promoted racial discord for current political gain. You discouraged blacks from getting the protection you advertised. I know that is straight out of the Democrat Playbook… but SHAME! While it does reprise the theory that AIDS was developed by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to kill off African Americans and gays, it is unworthy of Hunter’s legacy.
OK. To atone for the Tuskegee Experiment atrocity, what could we do to encourage CCP virus vaccination? Make White people go first! Been there. Done that.
Back to the thinking of those of PhDs. Maybe they did apply critical thinking – noted the government positions change frequently by 180 degrees, have been worse than ineffective, and claim ‘science’ is being attacked when any diktat is questioned.
Is it possible those PhDs consider basing conclusions on pictures in the New York Times to be unscientific?:
CDC Took Mistaken Data on Delta Variant Transmissibility From a New York Times Infographic
The CDC makes national economic policy based on incorrect data in NYT pictures, and bases its disease prevention advice on CNN chyrons:
The Gay Festival Behind the CDC’s New Mask Guidelines
…instead of the Random Controlled Trials, which they insist on when evaluating everything else.
The word “method” is no longer to be inferred when the apparatchiks tell us to ‘follow the science.’