“We do not believe any group of men adequate enough or wise enough to operate without scrutiny or without criticism. We know that the only way to avoid error is to detect it, that the only way to detect it is to be free to inquire. We know that in secrecy error undetected will flourish and subvertâ€. – J Robert Oppenheimer.
Bowing Down To The Science
December 27, 2020
By Paul Homewood
There’s a highly pertinent article in Canada’s Financial Post. It is inevitable about COVID in Canada, where the lockdowns seem to be just as draconian as here.
But every word could have been written about climate change as well:
In 2020, lockdown diktats from our chief medical officers reminded me of an old joke. A woman has died and is waiting in a long lineup at the Pearly Gates. When an old, bearded gentleman wearing a lab coat and stethoscope skips the line and gets ushered right in, the woman marches up to Saint Peter and demands an explanation. “Oh, that was God,†Peter tells her, “Sometimes he likes to play doctor.â€
During this panic-demic, medical authority has become God-like. “Obey the science†has come to mean “Believe what we tell you and do as you are told.†Pronouncements from medical officials deserve skepticism, not because they are bad doctors or scientists, but because they have lost sight of the limits of their own expertise. They insist that because of COVID-19, you must not visit your family for Christmas and small businesses and restaurants must close. Yet these are not medical or scientific questions. Instead, they involve trade-offs: social, economic, psychological and political. Trade-offs reflect values, and values are not scientific. Scientific evidence may be relevant but never
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2020/12/27/bowing-down-to-the-science/
