How Politics Hijacked Science and Religion

Status
Not open for further replies.

probinson

Legend
Aug 16, 2005
22,247
2,921
46
PA
Visit site
✟132,584.00
Country
United States
Faith
Word of Faith
Marital Status
Married
Politics
US-Others
But the salient fact remains. Even though our politically-correct governor "opened up" the state before the pandemic ended, about 80% of Texans paid him no mind and went with the science, instead.

The pollster you quoted said he didn't feel that his poll was accurately representative of the entire state. Period.
 
Upvote 0

The Barbarian

Crabby Old White Guy
Apr 3, 2003
25,918
11,305
76
✟363,350.00
Country
United States
Faith
Catholic
Marital Status
Married
Politics
US-Libertarian
But the salient fact remains. Even though our politically-correct governor "opened up" the state before the pandemic ended, about 80% of Texans paid him no mind and went with the science, instead.

The pollster you quoted said he didn't feel that his poll was accurately representative of the entire state.

That's not what he wrote. Would you like me to show you, again? Bottom line, 80% of Texans ignored the Governor's foolish orders and went on wearing masks in public. If you think 80% of Texans don't represent Texas, then you've got a math problem.
 
Upvote 0

The Barbarian

Crabby Old White Guy
Apr 3, 2003
25,918
11,305
76
✟363,350.00
Country
United States
Faith
Catholic
Marital Status
Married
Politics
US-Libertarian
These observational studies become even more useless when you realize that NOT ONE of them included the time period of October 2020 - January 2021, when cases were spiking all over the United States. If you apply the same methodology in these studies but change the time period that was studied, you get COMPLETELY different results. Yet NO ONE has deemed it necessary to study this time period. Why? I mean, just look at this graph again;

It's easy to remove your cherry-picking. Just take data from all states over the entire period. And as you learned, the average infection rate for states with mask mandates was significantly lower than for states without them. Should I show you again?

Why do you just accept the results of this study, given that it ignores confounders, and it cherry-picks data to arrive and a desired conclusion?

I think I see your confusion. "Cherry-picking" is using selected data to make your case. Using data from the entire pandemic is the opposite of cherry-picking. You got it backwards.
 
Upvote 0

The Barbarian

Crabby Old White Guy
Apr 3, 2003
25,918
11,305
76
✟363,350.00
Country
United States
Faith
Catholic
Marital Status
Married
Politics
US-Libertarian
Which is why there are outliers in the data. But with fifty states, we have a pretty good data set. Your attempt to cherry-pick the states you want to talk about, fall apart when we compare all states, over the entire pandemic.

As you know, the average infection rate for states with mask mandates is significantly lower than the average for states without them, using all the data, not a small period within the pandemic.

When you start subordinating the truth to your idea of what's good or bad, you've lost your grip on reality.

True. That's why you're gaslighting us so much.

See above. It's time to accept the reality and move on.
 
Upvote 0

probinson

Legend
Aug 16, 2005
22,247
2,921
46
PA
Visit site
✟132,584.00
Country
United States
Faith
Word of Faith
Marital Status
Married
Politics
US-Others
So, your turn. What do you think is acceptable collateral, whether using qualitative or quantitative measures, and why?

This is the million dollar question, and one that I honestly don't believe anyone wants to find the real answer to. Governments don't want people to think their policies were anything less than absolutely perfect, so I don't suspect there's anyone commissioning any study to find all the collateral costs of their mitigation measures.

The answer to your question to me is both incredibly simply and impossibly complex. Of course the answer is, the cost cannot exceed the benefit. But it's hard to quantify what the "cost" was. We are, however, beginning to see some costs, and I suspect it will take years, perhaps decades, to fully understand the collateral damage of the mitigation measures.

Here is an article that illustrates some of that cost;
mental-health-experts-our-youth-experiencing-crisis-from-covid

Some highlights;
  • 24% increase in mental health emergency visits in children ages 5 to 11.
  • 31% increase in mental health emergency visits in children ages 12 to 17.
  • 334% increase in pediatric intentional self harm cases in the Northeast
  • 80% increase in pediatric mental health visits at Newton-Wellesly Hospital.
  • 3x increase in patient consults age 8-18 after suicide attempts at Newton-Wellesly Hospital.
I would say these are pretty significant "costs" to the mitigation measures. How do we quantify this? I don't know, but I do know that this is not just a natural result of the pandemic, but it is a result of the response to the pandemic.

So do you really think that the government wants a legit study to show that the mitigation measures cost was higher than the benefit?
 
Upvote 0

The Barbarian

Crabby Old White Guy
Apr 3, 2003
25,918
11,305
76
✟363,350.00
Country
United States
Faith
Catholic
Marital Status
Married
Politics
US-Libertarian
This is the million dollar question, and one that I honestly don't believe anyone wants to find the real answer to. Governments don't want people to think their policies were anything less than absolutely perfect, so I don't suspect there's anyone commissioning any study to find all the collateral costs of their mitigation measures.

You're assuming that science is government. In fact, there are many studies with facts and accurate predictions about these things. Government was, from the beginning of the pandemic, conflicted by government scientists on one hand, relying on data, and politicians desperately trying to "downplay" the data.

In a society with a free press, the truth always eventually comes out, which is what's got the deniers so angry. All the stories about the pandemic being a "hoax" or "ending like a miracle" fell apart when the truth came out.

Here is an article that illustrates some of that cost;
mental-health-experts-our-youth-experiencing-crisis-from-covid

Yes, the pandemic was much worse than it might have been, if our leaders had taken effective steps to control it from the start. The damage goes far beyond the hundred thousand or so deaths that didn't have to happen, if Trump had acted quickly, instead of "downplaying to avoid panic."

Panic is more likely when people realize the government is lying to them, as the Trump administration did.

The statist notion that the truth is harmful to the public actually does a great deal of harm, as you have found.
 
Upvote 0

The Barbarian

Crabby Old White Guy
Apr 3, 2003
25,918
11,305
76
✟363,350.00
Country
United States
Faith
Catholic
Marital Status
Married
Politics
US-Libertarian
So do you really think that the government wants a legit study to show that the mitigation measures cost was higher than the benefit?

Many politicians still do. The governor of Texas, for example, wouldn't like a study of the cost of "opening up" before it was safe. Donald Trump is still in denial. The governor of Florida actually stepped in and hid the data that showed the cost of his bungling.

Despite criticism and calls for him to stop heavily censoring records, Gov. Ron DeSantis has decided to keep the public in the dark about several coronavirus public interest issues. It’s a misguided move designed to control information — and the messaging on how the pandemic is impacting the state.
...
The Miami Herald’s investigative reporters have already done that, revealing inconsistent statistics on deaths between the Florida Department of Health and the county medical examiners.
...
He also has refused to release, or only partially released under the threat of a media lawsuit, information on the extent of COVID-19 infections in nursing homes and assisted living facilities.

The state’s data on nursing homes has been so unreliable that Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez issued an executive order this week requiring nursing homes and assisted living facilities to disclose coronavirus cases and deaths to the county.

Likewise for prisons, where the highly contagious disease has rapidly spread because confinement in tight quarters keeps inmates from being able to practice the required isolation and social distancing, and testing has been lacking. Five Florida inmates had died as of this writing.

Withholding names in a public health crisis of epic proportions is particularly galling because Florida law provides for their release.

https://www.miamiherald.com/news/lo...-santiago/article242561781.html#storylink=cpy
 
Upvote 0

probinson

Legend
Aug 16, 2005
22,247
2,921
46
PA
Visit site
✟132,584.00
Country
United States
Faith
Word of Faith
Marital Status
Married
Politics
US-Others
The statist notion that the truth is harmful to the public actually does a great deal of harm, as you have found.

True. This is why public health must be honest at all times. They have not been.

Their dishonesty and inconsistency has cost them the trust of half of Americans.
 
Upvote 0
This site stays free and accessible to all because of donations from people like you.
Consider making a one-time or monthly donation. We appreciate your support!
- Dan Doughty and Team Christian Forums

probinson

Legend
Aug 16, 2005
22,247
2,921
46
PA
Visit site
✟132,584.00
Country
United States
Faith
Word of Faith
Marital Status
Married
Politics
US-Others
So does anyone want to explain why none of the studies of mask efficacy include the time period of October 2020 - January 2021? Why is that such a taboo time to "study"?

The gaslighters would like you to pretend like there wasn't an out-of-control surge of infections, hospitalizations and deaths, even though there was masking, social distancing and lockdowns during this time period. This is all somehow irrelevant to them. And then they want to pretend like they represent "reality".
 
Upvote 0

probinson

Legend
Aug 16, 2005
22,247
2,921
46
PA
Visit site
✟132,584.00
Country
United States
Faith
Word of Faith
Marital Status
Married
Politics
US-Others
Many politicians still do. The governor of Texas, for example, wouldn't like a study of the cost of "opening up" before it was safe. Donald Trump is still in denial. The governor of Florida actually stepped in and hid the data that showed the cost of his bungling.

That's probably true.

But neither do the politicians want a study showing that their imposed mitigation measures were an abject failure.

And that's the whole subject of the thread; politics perverting science. Whether on the right or the left, it doesn't matter, or at least it shouldn't. But it clearly does, as you just unwittingly admitted.
 
Upvote 0

The Barbarian

Crabby Old White Guy
Apr 3, 2003
25,918
11,305
76
✟363,350.00
Country
United States
Faith
Catholic
Marital Status
Married
Politics
US-Libertarian
But neither do the politicians want a study showing that their imposed mitigation measures were an abject failure.

Trump, for example. He didn't pay attention to what scientists were telling him, and totally botched this pandemic.

But the studies go on anyway; and he couldn't control the information...

By October, it was plain to everyone who knew anything about it:

A new report from Columbia University on COVID-19 deaths estimates that hundreds of thousands of Americans died because the United States’ response to the pandemic was an “abject failure,” particularly the actions of President Donald Trump. With an adequate response, the United States could have avoided tens of thousands of deaths and an incalculable amount of suffering, the researchers said.

Dr. Irwin Redlener, the lead author on the study and the founding director of the National Center for Disaster Preparedness, laid the blame at the feet of the White House in an interview with The Daily Beast: “We believe that this was a monumental, lethal screwup by an administration that didn’t want to deal with reality.”

In the report, titled “130,000–210,000 Avoidable COVID-19 Deaths—and Counting—in the U.S.”, researchers at Columbia’s NCDP studied “the staggering and disproportionate nature of COVID-19 fatalities in the United States.”

The researchers compared the coronavirus response of the U.S. to that of six other countries— South Korea, Japan, Australia, Germany, Canada, and France—and found that the American government’s response to the pandemic rated unfavorably against them all. The U.S. has suffered a COVID-19 fatality rate more than double that of Canada and 50 times that of Japan. Extrapolating from the deaths per 100,000 people in each country, the researchers estimated how the U.S. might have fared had it followed the example of a more robust response. The answer: always better than it did in reality.

“If the U.S. had followed Canadian policies and protocols, there might have only been 85,192 U.S. deaths—making more than 132,500 American deaths ‘avoidable.’ If the U.S. response had mirrored that of Germany, the U.S. may have only had 38,457 deaths—leaving 179,260 avoidable deaths,” the researchers wrote.
New Columbia Study Blames the White House for at Least 130,000 ‘Avoidable’ COVID Deaths

And there's no question that he knew that it would be a disaster...


Trump Admitted on Tape That He Knew COVID-19 Was Deadly
Trump knew how deadly the virus was all the way back in February — but chose to play down the risk.

Trump admitted on tape that he knew COVID-19 was deadly

Trump, DeSantis, etc. don't want people to know. But because they don't control the media, people do know.
 
Upvote 0

The Barbarian

Crabby Old White Guy
Apr 3, 2003
25,918
11,305
76
✟363,350.00
Country
United States
Faith
Catholic
Marital Status
Married
Politics
US-Libertarian
True. This is why public health must be honest at all times. They have not been.

Top officials at the White House pressured leaders at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to downplay the risk of the coronavirus to children as President Trump's administration pushed to reopen schools this fall, according to a new report.

Citing documents and interviews with current and former government officials, The New York Times reported Tuesday the push included an effort to find data suggesting the pandemic was weakening and the coronavirus did not threaten children.

A former member of Vice President Pence's staff, who has since resigned, told the Times she was asked on more than one occasion by Marc Short, Pence's chief of staff, to convince CDC leaders to find and present proof that the virus has little effect on children.

Trump administration pressured CDC to play down risks of reopening schools: report

Their dishonesty and inconsistency has cost them the trust of half of Americans.

That's being addressed, now. There's no longer any pressure to waffle or even downplay the truth. But this is yet another example of how America became weaker in the previous four years.
 
Upvote 0

The Barbarian

Crabby Old White Guy
Apr 3, 2003
25,918
11,305
76
✟363,350.00
Country
United States
Faith
Catholic
Marital Status
Married
Politics
US-Libertarian
The gaslighters don't like DeSantis. That much is true.

The families of all those people who died unnecessarily because DeSantis bungled his job of protecting them, dislike him even more.

Why Ron DeSantis’ popularity has taken a hit since the pandemic started
The approval ratings of most governors have soared during the crisis. DeSantis has seen his support plummet amid a confusing, conflicting response.
Unlike other governors, DeSantis doesn’t hold regular public briefings. He has ceded the biggest decisions, like whether to close beaches, to city and county officials, yet he hasn’t talked to many of them. Early on, he clashed with federal officials over whether Florida had community spread of the virus.

DeSantis’ uneven response has made him an outlier among his counterparts across the country. The approval ratings of most governors have soared during the crisis. DeSantis, one of America’s most popular governors a few months ago, has seen his support plummet. One poll found him the third-worst rated governor at handling the coronavirus in the country.
Why Ron DeSantis’ popularity has taken a hit since the pandemic started

More...
Poll shows vast majority of Floridians disagree on DeSantis policy, think it’s OK to require COVID-19 vaccinations for cruise passengers

As the pandemic comes to an end, he's recovered a little. But he's still well under his pre-covid numbers.
 
Upvote 0
This site stays free and accessible to all because of donations from people like you.
Consider making a one-time or monthly donation. We appreciate your support!
- Dan Doughty and Team Christian Forums

probinson

Legend
Aug 16, 2005
22,247
2,921
46
PA
Visit site
✟132,584.00
Country
United States
Faith
Word of Faith
Marital Status
Married
Politics
US-Others

This article is from April 2020, and the first line reads;

From New York to Ohio to California, the nation’s governors are leading the way during the coronavirus crisis, using their offices to provide residents with consistent messages that promote public safety.

Of course, we know during this time that Governor Cuomo of New York was actively suppressing the number of nursing home deaths. And why wouldn't he? It was his policies that caused such a huge number of COVID deaths in nursing homes;

NYDoHNursingHomeLetter.jpg


So of course Governor Cuomo wanted to suppress and downplay the toll of nursing home deaths in New York, since many of those deaths were a direct result of his foolish policy highlighted above. And that doesn't even begin to address his sexual harassment allegations.

Remarkably, he could still win re-election, as nearly half of New Yorkers still support the guy for some reason, illustrating just how real the Stockholm syndrome is with many people.

And what about Governor Newsom, who is now facing a recall?

That article clearly hasn't aged well.
 
Upvote 0

The Barbarian

Crabby Old White Guy
Apr 3, 2003
25,918
11,305
76
✟363,350.00
Country
United States
Faith
Catholic
Marital Status
Married
Politics
US-Libertarian
Of course, we know during this time that Governor Cuomo of New York was actively suppressing the number of nursing home deaths. And why wouldn't he?

Pretty much the way DeSantis did in Florida. It's what hack politicians do. Surprised that there are corrupt democrats? Lately, it may seem like all the crooks are republicans, but that's not necessarily true.

Remarkably, he could still win re-election, as nearly half of New Yorkers still support the guy for some reason,

DeSantis might well win re-election, too. Depressing that guy like this can botch their jobs, killing thousands of people, and still have substantial support.

illustrating just how real the Stockholm syndrome is with many people.

(Barbarian checks)

A plurality of republicans still believe Trump won the election, but was cheated out of it.

So you could be right.
 
Last edited:
Upvote 0

probinson

Legend
Aug 16, 2005
22,247
2,921
46
PA
Visit site
✟132,584.00
Country
United States
Faith
Word of Faith
Marital Status
Married
Politics
US-Others
That's being addressed, now. There's no longer any pressure to waffle or even downplay the truth. But this is yet another example of how America became weaker in the previous four years.

I know you truly believe that, and I really wish I had some oceanfront property in Arizona to sell, because you'd be my first prospect. But as this article shows, the CDC under Walensky is still little more than a political organization with only a marginal concern for public health;

“It was very clear that [Walensky] didn’t want anyone talking to reporters at that time,” a senior CDC official told POLITICO. “She wants to control the narrative as much as possible.”

...

The lack of media access to CDC scientists pushed the Washington, D.C., chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists in February to send a letter to Walensky denouncing the CDC's “restrictions on staff speaking to reporters without notifying authorities,” according to a press release from the organization.

...

Getting it right requires synthesizing complex virology and public health and behavioral science findings about Covid-19 in an easy-to-understand way for the public, while ensuring that the White House is on board with the CDC’s conclusions.


America is ready to return to normal. Biden’s CDC chief isn’t so sure.
Controlling the narrative. Not allowing officials at the CDC to speak without clearing it with her first. Making sure that the White House agrees with the CDC's conclusions. Sounds like The Science™ to me!
 
Upvote 0
This site stays free and accessible to all because of donations from people like you.
Consider making a one-time or monthly donation. We appreciate your support!
- Dan Doughty and Team Christian Forums

The Barbarian

Crabby Old White Guy
Apr 3, 2003
25,918
11,305
76
✟363,350.00
Country
United States
Faith
Catholic
Marital Status
Married
Politics
US-Libertarian
Pretty much the way DeSantis did in Florida.

Despite criticism and calls for him to stop heavily censoring records, Gov. Ron DeSantis has decided to keep the public in the dark about several coronavirus public interest issues. It’s a misguided move designed to control information — and the messaging on how the pandemic is impacting the state.

Advocates of open, transparent, and accountable government believe the secrecy is a violation of Florida’s open records laws.

What’s the governor afraid of?

That the public would see these victims in their full humanity, that we would feel for them, that we would learn that their deaths could’ve been avoided if only we had reacted sooner, informed them better, revealed data at a more urgent pace than in droplets at a time?

That journalists would find shoddy, incongruous data-keeping?

The Miami Herald’s investigative reporters have already done that, revealing inconsistent statistics on deaths between the Florida Department of Health and the county medical examiners.

https://www.miamiherald.com/news/lo...-santiago/article242561781.html#storylink=cpy

Even by DeSantis' heavily-doctored records, Florida has a higher infection rate than most states. Because he's hiding data, we don't really know what the true picture is.

But we do know his numbers don't line up with the numbers from county sources. That alone should be a tip-off.
 
Upvote 0
Status
Not open for further replies.