Before COVID-19 became a referendum on political ideologies, there were scientific answers about human genetics, lifestyle choices, and the expression of viruses in world populations.
Before climate change was elevated from typically variable environmental behaviors to weather events that are mysteriously responsive to the shaming of humans and the expenditure of vast amounts of money, there were scientific answers.
A scientific answer was supposed to be indifferent to political aspirations, but these are interesting times in which we live.
Follow the Money
When we listen closely to arguments, there can often be discerned a profit motive on both sides of most debates about current “science”. Whether directly or indirectly, someone has an opportunity to make money if their solution is enacted.
It is a sad commentary on our times.
I used to look more hopefully upon our business and political leaders in their conduct of business, but our baser instincts still seem to hold considerable sway in the world.
Which is why I prescribe and practice a healthy dose of skepticism when filtering information from all sources. As the saying goes, trust but verify.
Shell Games for Fun & Profit, Alex
Tinkering with numbers to sell a point or product has been around for ages. The COVID-19 pandemic, however, put a different spin on this confidence game. This time the numbers represented death and the threat to our lives. This time, numbers had meaning for us.
Not letting a good threat go to waste, all sorts of folks took to spinning tales that emphasized some aspects of numbers, though few of them supported their choice of numbers with verifiable evidence.
Just take their word for it anyway.
During the pandemic, the number of positive tests and death rates went up and down, depending on who was reporting out. There were symptomatic cases and asymptomatic cases, COVID deaths as primary cause and COVID associated cases… After a while a fatigue over numbers set in and we no longer knew anything about the situation for sure.
More importantly, we no longer cared.
Conversations about mitigating the effects of the illness faded from public view and the topic of conversation centered on vaccination programs. Don’t bother with little details like the fact that there is no history of a pharmaceutical ever eradicating a coronavirus. The story of the magical cure was too good to pass up.
Where Did the Scientific Answers Go?
So many inconsistencies and so few certain results. It is no wonder that confidence in science and scientific leadership has taken such a hit.
The hubris was very public and while people were, and are, frightened, we still do not like our good nature being taken advantage of.
There is an inherent honesty in a “We don’t know” response to a question about a scientific matter. While discomfiting for the speaker, is still a responsible response. People understand and respect (eventually) when an answer is not available.
The universe gives us answers like that all the time. Why doesn’t a certain person like us? We can conjure all sorts of possibilities but when it comes to knowing another’s mind, we don’t know.
Science, by nature, is a mechanism of questioning our universe. The answers we receive are always qualified by the fact that they may be changed when additional information is received.
We may want that solid answer that establishes that we know all there is to know but you will have to seek that carved in stone certainty somewhere else. Life, much less science, only provides us hints for us to use in figuring out one answer.
Is it the only answer to our question? We will have to try to find out. And on it goes
That is why they are called reasoning skills.
“A sign of a lover of wisdom is his delight in not running his mouth about things he doesn’t know.”
― Criss Jami
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