Blind Faith in Lab Coats

[ecosophia]

I've mentioned before that being a satirist is one of the toughest jobs in existence just now. Day after day, the world parodies itself ever more outrageously, and somehow you have to keep on topping it!  Well, the satirists of the world now have another good reason to hang their heads in despair, thanks to UNESCO and a clutch of scientific institutions. On May 16 of this year these latter launched a new project -- they're trying to get people to sign a pledge to trust science. 

I'm not making this up, I swear. You can find the project's website here. They really are asking people to take a loyalty oath committing themselves to blind faith in whatever gets officially labeled as science. 

Now I suppose it's a good sign that UNESCO and the other supporters of this project have noticed that a growing number of people these days no longer assume, when somebody who claims to be a scientist makes a public statement, that the statement can be trusted. It would be a better sign if they noticed that the people who no longer trust science have ample reason for their doubts. Shall we talk about the way that approved scientific opinion about what counts as a healthy diet swings around with every gust of wind like a well-oiled weathervane? Shall we talk about the number of recent scientific studies that cannot be replicated, and therefore fail the most basic test of scientific validity, but are still being used to guide public policy?  Or the number of soi-disant wonder drugs approved by the authorities and cheered on by science that had to be withdrawn in a hurry because they turned out to have horrific side effects? Or -- but I could go on along these same lines for a week. 

The reason so many people no longer trust scientists to tell them the truth is that too many times, scientists haven't told them the truth. A glossy and impressively vacuous website isn't going to change that. A shortage of scientists willing to say whatever corporate and political interests tell them to say might help, but I'm not holding my breath. It's an appalling situation:  one of the half dozen or so greatest intellectual creations of our species, the scientific method, is facing a rising wall of distrust because too many people who claim to speak for science have told too many lies. 

The fascinating thing is that even within the science-and-tech field this does not seem to be going over well.  For a case in point, check out this article in the online issue of Spectrum, the magazine of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers. The article itself is a typically uncritical display of bootlicking, but the comments are lethal -- precise, mordant, and thoughtful rebuttals of the article's claims. (Sample:  "Seriously? A loyalty oath? No. You need to have somebody read TS Kuhn to you and explain him to you using very small words.") It's indicative that the journal closed comments very quickly -- and also indicative that so far, at least, the loyalty pledge in question has a remarkably small number of signatories. 

You don't need to be a meteorologist to know which way the wind blows.  Modern corporate science's crisis of legitimacy may just be about to hit critical mass. 

Comments

Re: That poster is priceless

[(Anonymous)]

The sweeping is getting furious and the rug is starting to get lumpy already.
Aside from ignoring reported side-effects, the CDC has apparently decided on a new definition of what constitutes a COVID case, so that there is one (very broad) definition for un-vaccinated people, and another (much more narrow) definition for people who have had one of the vaccines. That not only makes the drugs seem effective even if they aren't, it will also help to hide any ADE that may crop up.

Re: That poster is priceless

[lunarapprentice]

Exactly. The DCD says to run the RT-PCR with 28 (or fewer) cycles for people who have had the injection, and 35 for those who have not. The higher cycles yields a huge false positive rate, approaching 100% for the asymptomatic. This phenomenon is, shall we say, problematic for the PTB regarding those who have been been vaccinated, as it implies the vaccines don't "work" and may lead some to have second thoughts about getting vaccinated with the attendant risks, and NO benefit. So the CDC doesn't want false positives for the vaccinated. But they clearly don't mind tacitly admitting false positives are just fine for everyone else.

I understand the CDC recently shortened the window for reporting (to VAERS) vaccine-associated events (e.g. deaths) from 2 weeks to 1 week for adults, and from 1 week to 2 days for children ('sigh',I didn't save my source). Even then, I've seen at least scattered reports that people who die right after getting vaccinated got it "too late", even though they were not sick, and many vaccine deaths are, as a result, getting mis-classified as Covid-19 deaths.

What disturbs me is that in my circles, people overwhelmingly accept the official narrative on all of the above. A friend of mine says the official line has to be true, because otherwise we'd need a conspiracy theory.

-- Lunar Apprentice