The crackpot spectrum was unusually broad during the pandemic, far from the realm of vaccine deniers and flat earthers.
One professor of virology from a world renowned institution was soft banned on twitter behind some sort of click-though warning for pointing to public data about what we knew at the time that closing schools would lead to. Apparently because it fed into some bizarre American debate which was going on at the time.
Another is a professor of immunology that was heavily criticized for explaining why and how thoroughly a vaccine must be tested before mass vaccinations can occur, even if every day it can be deployed will save lives and labelled a "vaccine skeptic". Which is more than one kind of weird. Of course, the vaccine was tested exactly as described, and came out even better than most had expected.
But that makes it more than clear that many people who demands us to "follow science" more often than not could not be bothered to actually find out what science has to say. It is the new "think of the children". Science exists on its own merits, and we should be careful when the mob demands otherwise.
The society does not operate in the same way in the time of an acute crisis as during peacetime.
During a war, telling the truth to the wrong audience or in the wrong way may end up aiding the enemy, even if the speaker did not intend it. People generally agree that such people can be silenced, even if that violates their freedom of speech.
In a pandemic, the adversary is the nature, but the situation is similar. Speaking the truth the wrong way may kill people, because the audience may make incorrect conclusions from it. The society may decide that preserving those lives is more important than preserving someone's freedom of speech. After all, the situation may be dire enough that you must sacrifice one fundamental freedom anyway to preserve another.
Your rhetoric, and the practices you're advocating for, rightfully hurt the public's trust in scientific and public health institutions. As a layperson, I don't trust someone who lies to me, no matter that they say it's "for your own good!!". Their interests aren't aligned with mine.
"It's an emergency, so surrender your rights and give us more power over you!" Huh. Looks like Covid was a great opportunity for hedge funds and the expansion of government control. Never let a good crisis go to waste.
It wasn't rhetoric, and I wasn't advocating for anything. I was just explaining what actually happened in many places in early to mid-2020. There was a genuine emergency, societies switched to "war mode", and governments used similar (and sometimes even the same) emergency powers as during an actual war. And people generally supported it.
I remember being mildly amused how the early lockdowns in the US were often instituted by mid-level administrators such as county health officials. Similar measures would have required a constitutional amendment in Finland. It was like the aftermath of 9/11: when a crisis hits home, Americans don't care so much about freedom anymore.
Same in Norway, no lockdown because the constitution forbids it. There was a half hearted attempt to drum up support for an amendment but it didn't get any real support.
It's very sad that some people were keen to lump the denialists, antimaskers, or the Chloroquine people, with valid concerns about lockdowns or school closures.
> One professor of virology from a world renowned institution was soft banned on twitter
Reference?
> a professor of immunology that was heavily criticized for explaining why and how thoroughly a vaccine must be tested before mass vaccinations can occur
Reference?
> that makes it more than clear
The only thing this makes clear is that you have no compunctions about advancing an unsubstantiated argument as a response to someone who just explained to you that you can't do that if you want to be taken seriously. You may well be right, but that is beside the point. There is no way for someone reading your claims to verify them. You expect people to just take you at your word and accept your unsubstantiated claims and innuendo as fact simply because you have made the claims. And that is exactly the problem with all of the people who grouse about "settled science".
I do agree with you that it would be nice to have references here.
> There is no way for someone reading your claims to verify them. You expect people to just take you at your word and accept your unsubstantiated claims and innuendo as fact simply because you have made the claims.
Don't we all? The amount of people, myself included, that have 0% knowledge of the intimate details of Covid and virology, and how it spreads, and anything remotely close to scientific knowledge of this, have to be less than 1% of the world. This statistic is completely pulled out of my rectum, but intuition tells me that in a world of 70 billion people, you would be very hard pressed to find 70 million people who have studied this virus in depth and actually understand the details.
Sometimes, you have to accept that people will hold beliefs about stuff without knowing the implementation details, and that's OK. How many of us can hold a modern CPU's architecture in our mind at once? I would wager, nobody in the world has that capability. But we can build abstractions that help us reason at a higher level. How much scientific rigor is necessary for general conversation? How much is necessary for a debate? How much is necessary for a belief? These are tough questions and it doesn't do anybody any good to say:
> And that is exactly the problem with all of the people who grouse about "settled science".
The problem is we have to build abstractions about our infinitely complex universe at some point. How much abstraction is deemed too much abstraction to make an informed opinion?
> Sometimes, you have to accept that people will hold beliefs about stuff without knowing the implementation details, and that's OK.
That depends on what those beliefs are. Not all unfounded beliefs are false, and not all false beliefs are harmful. But some are. False beliefs about vaccines, climate change, and the 2020 U.S. presidential election (to cite but a few noteworthy examples) are particularly harmful. IMHO it is unwise to respond by throwing up your hands and saying, "What are you gonna do? Sometimes you just have to accept things like this."
> False beliefs about vaccines, climate change, and the 2020 U.S. presidential election (to cite but a few noteworthy examples)
Any statistics to back this claim? These are all heavily politicized topics. The truth is not being sought on either side of the spectrum. Both sides are seeking the narrative that will promote their political agenda.
> IMHO it is unwise to respond by throwing up your hands and saying, "What are you gonna do? Sometimes you just have to accept things like this."
I'm not. I'm saying it's stupid to go berate somebody on HN for not knowing exactly how the science behind Covid works, while at the same time, you possessing equally limited knowledge about the science.
You can find "experts" on both sides of the spectrums saying different things. IMHO it's unwise to accuse anybody who disagrees with you of being ignorant. When, the reality of the situation is, both sides are arguing based off of equally limited knowledge of the actual scientific details on hand. Both sides find the experts that agree with their presuppositions. I find it difficult to trust any political actor, because they are not seeking truth, they are looking to advance their own career.
I'm not berating anyone for not knowing exactly how science works. What I berate people for is casting doubt on the science while at the same time being profoundly ignorant of how science works, and in many cases acting as if this ignorance were actually a virtue, as if being ignorant made one somehow more authoritative than someone who actually makes their living doing scientific research.
> Any statistics to back this claim?
What claim? What I said was:
> False beliefs about vaccines, climate change, and the 2020 U.S. presidential election (to cite but a few noteworthy examples) are particularly harmful.
That's not a factual claim, that is a statement about what I personally consider harmful.
> You can find "experts" on both sides of the spectrums saying different things.
Yes, if you put "experts" in scare quotes. But if you are talking about experts rather than "experts" then there is an overwhelming consensus with regards to vaccines, climate change, and the election.
One professor of virology from a world renowned institution was soft banned on twitter behind some sort of click-though warning for pointing to public data about what we knew at the time that closing schools would lead to. Apparently because it fed into some bizarre American debate which was going on at the time.
Another is a professor of immunology that was heavily criticized for explaining why and how thoroughly a vaccine must be tested before mass vaccinations can occur, even if every day it can be deployed will save lives and labelled a "vaccine skeptic". Which is more than one kind of weird. Of course, the vaccine was tested exactly as described, and came out even better than most had expected.
But that makes it more than clear that many people who demands us to "follow science" more often than not could not be bothered to actually find out what science has to say. It is the new "think of the children". Science exists on its own merits, and we should be careful when the mob demands otherwise.