Statistics

California Coronadoom Experts: You’re Too Stupid To Understand. Just Behave

The promised global cooling article will run Monday. Too good for Saturday.

At the bottom of this post will come a short quiz, to see how much you have been paying attention to material over the past year.

From an anonymous reader comes this email:

Just saw this article showing, once again, how the left breaks their promises. No surprise since it is Gavin Nuisance breaking his transparency promise:

LINK TO ARTICLE

“SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — California Gov. Gavin Newsom has from the start said his coronavirus policy decisions would be driven by data shared with the public to provide maximum transparency.”

However, now he has decided to keep Californians in the dark:

“State officials said they rely on a very complex set of measurements that would confuse and potentially mislead the public if they were made public.”

I would sure hate to be confused and misled… Oh, wait…

“Shut up,” Experts explained.

Here’s the dope on their models, after some words about why the model results are contradictory:

Yet the data model that he has repeatedly pointed to as key to planning among an array on the state’s website still shows hospitalizations bumping up over the next month, though projections flatten more each day.

The model is based on historical infection data that follows a pattern where about 12% of those with the virus get hospitalized and 12% of them end up in the ICU. The model’s projections do not account for changes in conditions, such as more vaccinations or a lifted stay-at-home order.

Computer models must take into account so many factors that they may be valuable only on a much smaller scale, experts said, perhaps to allow local officials to spot outbreaks or target vaccination campaigns.

Either occult models or Trump’s exit are responsible for the “falling” numbers, take your pick.

Could be the weather, too. Regular readers will recall I have been shouting about how deaths always peak in mid-January, and then begin to fall, and to be ready for it, and that our elite would take credit for it. See any Tuesday coronadoom update for confirmation.

Anyway, the real hilarity is the purposeful hiding of THE science, which is, of course, exactly how science works in our regime.

Experts decide what THE science is, claim their results are based on THE science, and when asked to describe THE science say you just wouldn’t understand. Shut up and do what you’re told. We’re the experts.

Laugh if you like. But just know they’re going to pull the same trick everywhere. Global cooling, racism, “white supremacy” terrorist forecast, and on and on.

This doesn’t mean real science is entirely dead. It will drag along in quiet corners in areas which can’t easily be tied to politics or oligarchic interest.

Time for the quiz!

True or false: All models, including expert models, only say what they are told to say?

Quantitative: How accurate is this expert model?

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Categories: Statistics

25 replies »

  1. Answers: True, and no way to tell quantitatively.

    Ask yourself how Newsom is smart enough to understand this. He’s not a genius–except at getting idiots to give him money and elect him–nor are any of the other governors. Newsom is dyslexic and Wiki says he struggled in school. He RAN/RUNS A WINERY (which never closed down, of course, as he is the annointed one). Come on, virtually every reader here is smarter than he is as far as science and math goes. He KNOWS it and is hiding in the closet like a little school girl/boy/it. These people are arrogant posers who really don’t know a freaking thing. They were often the lower half of their class in school. Governors are great LIARS and great at smoozing. I see nothing in true scientific models that involves these two traits. “The Science” does, but it’s all about lying and power, zero about science. So next time you read a dyslexic wino knows more about Covid than you do after you’ve read the actual literature, ask yourself how Americans got so incredibly stupid as to buy this garbage. This is why our Overlords deperately want to shut us up, before we find out who the little man behind the curtain is.

  2. The latest “Super COVID-19” will enable “the experts” to provide the Democrats enough clout to finish off small businesses and, to make their steal of the country complete.

  3. I’ve seen this “12% wind up in the hospital” claim before. Where the hell does this come from?

    Although nationwide hospitalizations are dropping now, at the peak last month net new hospitalizations were only averaging about 0.5% of new “cases” most days. Now it’s even lower because more people are leaving the hospital, but at no time have we ever come close to an average of 12%.

    In fact, since most people end up leaving the hospital, the net admissions number at one point would have to be even higher on some days than 12% to make the arithmetic work. 12% hospilization rate is a nonsensical claim.

    Im using the same data the media has, just taking it one step further and doing a single calculation. Do they not fact check this stuff? (Dumb question)

  4. Thank you for these words of wisdom in the above post:

    “Experts decide what THE science is, claim their results are based on THE science, and when asked to describe THE science say you just wouldn’t understand. Shut up and do what you’re told. We’re the experts.”

    I plan to incorporate them elsewhere when needed (with credit to you, if course).

  5. Also, if you assume the “cases” count to be true, 12% hospitalizations certainly – truly – would “overwhelm” hospitals, waaay beyond anything we’ve seen to date. I can understand their concern if they believe that assumption to be true, but I have seen no data that backs up that claim that I have seen. But “cases” are inflated all over the country and even then actual hospitalizations don’t match up.

  6. Answers to the quiz:

    1) True

    2) That depends on five factors:
    a) How simple or complex is the system being modelled?
    b) Are there any aspects of the system that are not well understood theoretically?
    c) How many approximations or simplifications are put into the model, and how much uncontrolled systematic or statistical imprecision is there?
    d) How competent are the people creating the model?
    e) How well has the model been tested (including did it pass those tests)?

    If the answers are a) simple; b) no; c) none; d) highly competent; and e) extremely well, then I will trust the model. If the answers are a) complex; b) yes; c) a lot; d) not very; and e) poorly then I will definitely not trust the model. In practice, of course, most of the time the answers will be somewhere in the middle, and you will have to proportion your trust accordingly. But failure in any one of those criteria means that we should maintain a healthy scepticism.

  7. All computer models output what they are coded to output. It’s that simple.

    I suspect that this 12% figure was chosen with care. It’s not as low as 10%, as that round figure doesn’t seem scary enough. But you don’t want to say 15%, as that seems too run-of-the-mill. But while 12.5% might say, “we worked really really hard to figure this out”, others might state that they’re admitting some uncertainty. I think 12% might be at that sweet-spot: small enough to let the people think there’s some light at the end of the tunnel, but large enough to keep the scare going indefinitely.

  8. Michigan magically eased indoor dining restrictions two days after Potato Joe’s inauguration.

    The Dems and most Repubs will simply dance to whatever tune Xi has paid for. Any tough talk on China is just a put-up job.

  9. Plato, about the proper attitude in the face of health problems (The Republic, III, 14-15). Notice, he is a pagan, not a post-Resurrection believer:

    Of course. And yet what greater proof can there be of a bad and disgraceful state of education than this, that not only artisans and the meaner sort of people need the skill of first-rate physicians and judges, but also those who would profess to have had a liberal education? Is it not disgraceful, and a great sign of want of good-breeding, that a man should have to go abroad for his law and physic because he has none of his own at home, and must therefore surrender himself into the hands of other men whom he makes lords and judges over him?

    Of all things, he said, the most disgraceful.

    […].

    Well, I said, and to require the help of medicine, not when a wound has to be cured, or on occasion of an epidemic, but just because, by indolence and a habit of life, such as we have been describing, men fill themselves with waters and winds, as if their bodies were a marsh, compelling the ingenious sons of Asclepius to find more names for diseases, such as flatulence and catarrh; is not this, too, a disgrace?

    […].

    How do you mean? he said. I mean this: When a carpenter is ill he asks the physician for a rough and ready cure; an emetic or a purge or a cautery or the knife, –these are his remedies. And if some one prescribes for him a course of dietetics, and tells him that he must swathe and swaddle his head, and all that sort of thing, he replies at once that he has no time to be ill, and that he sees no good in a life which is spent in nursing his disease to the neglect of his customary employment; and therefore bidding good-bye to this sort of physician, he resumes his ordinary habits, and either gets well and lives and does his business, or, if his constitution falls, he dies and has no more trouble.

    Yes, he said, and a man in his condition of life ought to use the art of medicine thus far only.

    Has he not, I said, an occupation; and what profit would there be in his life if he were deprived of his occupation?

    Quite true, he said. But with the rich man this is otherwise; of him we do not say that he has any specially appointed work which he must perform, if he would live.

    He is generally supposed to have nothing to do. Then you never heard of the saying of Phocylides, that as soon as a man has a livelihood he should practise virtue?

    Nay, he said, I think that he had better begin somewhat sooner.

    Let us not have a dispute with him about this, I said; but rather ask ourselves: Is the practice of virtue obligatory on the rich man, or can he live without it? And if obligatory on him, then let us raise a further question, whether this dieting of disorders which is an impediment to the application of the mind t in carpentering and the mechanical arts, does not equally stand in the way of the sentiment of Phocylides?

    Of that, he replied, there can be no doubt; such excessive care of the body, when carried beyond the rules of gymnastic, is most inimical to the practice of virtue.

    Yes, indeed, I replied, and equally incompatible with the management of a house, an army, or an office of state; and, what is most important of all, irreconcilable with any kind of study or thought or self-reflection –there is a constant suspicion that headache and giddiness are to be ascribed to philosophy, and hence all practising or making trial of virtue in the higher sense is absolutely stopped; for a man is always fancying that he is being made ill, and is in constant anxiety about the state of his body.

  10. In MN Governor Walz has went on and on about how various “metrics” are being used to determine when to end his “dial back” lockdown measures. But there have been multiple times where he has been asked point blank by a reporter what results on the metrics would be necessary for the next reopening measure to be taken, only for him to admit that he doesn’t know. It’s a “I’ll know it when I see it” sort of situation which coincidentally is indistinguishable from a “I’ll do whatever the hell I want” situation.

    One point this became very clear was when he insisted in having no more than 10 people in churches, including the state cathedral, until “metrics” improved. But when bishops and people in other denominations publicly stated that they were resuming services anyway, suddenly Walz announced that the “metrics” had just improved at that very moment and masses could resume (with his pet restrictions).

  11. TRUE and nit a chance in Hell. I promise I did not peek at others replies first.

    The title of this post is the best description of the Democrats platform that you will ever find. Everything in the platform eventually leads to it.

    That said, it is still mind-boggling to me – with each new day – to see how they are increasingly open about how smart they are and how stupid we are. Granted, the mass stupidity of “us” is on full display as well, but the stupidity only ramps up, hockey stick style, when our Elite Masters are factored in.

    The brazenness of their lies is also exponentially rising. They plain don’t care – they have the power and that’s all that matters.

  12. I agree with Paul H. regarding, both the convenience of avoiding round figures to give the impression of expertise and hard work, and the careful managing of fear and hope from the architects of this global coup
    d´état.

    It drives me absolutely nuts to hear fellow humans (at least they look like us) repeating things like “well, 87 % of infections happen when people go out for dinner. We can´t be too mad at the authorities for doing something about it”. The scary part is not compliance. It is the profound stupidity behind believing that kind of “accurate data”.

  13. Unrelated question:: Briggs, is there somewhere on line I can see the figures in larger size while reading Price of Panic on Kindle?

  14. One hour after Biden takes office, WHO reverses guidance on PCR tests… might not diagnose corona at all
    https://nonvenipacem.com/2021/01/23/one-hour-after-biden-takes-office-who-reverses-guidance-on-pcr-tests-might-not-diagnose-corona-at-all/

    I’m guessing there will be one BIG MAJOR STORM NORMANDY-LIKE Lockdown/Mask-Up attempt worldwide with Police batons and SWAT and VACCINATE!VACCINATE!VACCINATE! hysteria for a few months until summer, and then VOILA! Everything is over! The numbers nosedive and they’ll all say, “See folks? Government works!”

    My guess is it’ll be done just in time for Biden to stand on a float at a DC Pride Parade surrounded by a military of trannies.

  15. If they drop the COVID numbers it should be interesting to see what happens to the influenza numbers. We are currently at the latest start of flu season in the last decade, with still functionally no hospitalizations. When COVID drops, will they just immediately throw all the flu hospitalizations back where they belong, creating a ridiculously steep spike? Or will they bother to fudge the data to create a smooth increase in a “late” flu season?

  16. “Experts decide what THE science is, claim their results are based on THE science, and when asked to describe THE science say you just wouldn’t understand. Shut up and do what you’re told. We’re the experts”.

    That reminds me very much of the attitude I met with from priests (clergymen, ministers, etc.) of Christianity.

    First they would tell you, authoritatively, what God wants and doesn’t want, and what we must and must not. Often this phase includes a lot of detailed (if tangled and inconsistent) explanations.

    But when you ask one simple, but awkward, question, they tell you angrily that such matters are divine mysteries which your puny human brain cannot hope to understand. (Although apparently theirs can).

  17. ‘The scary part is not compliance. It is the profound stupidity behind believing that kind of “accurate data”’.

    Very true, Rogelio. I am reminded of one episode of “Star Trek” which I unintentionally witnessed long ago. (Misled by someone who assured me that, as an SF reader, I would enjoy it).

    Captain Kirk asks Mr Spock for the Enterprise’s height above a planetary surface. The reply, given instantly:

    “13,487, 321.6713 metres, sir!”

    (I invented the exact figures – but that was the gist). I missed the rest of the enthralling story while trying to calculate of that height was relative to one pimple on Mr Spock’s nose, or one cell within the pimple. And apparently above a glassy-smooth planetary surface with no variations in height – like a neutron star.

  18. Murphy’s second law: the liklihood that the majority will be wrong on any issue varies directly with the complexity of the issue relative to the knowledge available at the time.

    So:

    1 – true because every mathematical simulation model has a deterministic equivalent.

    2 – depends on what process is modelled, but if the problem calls for “expert judgement” and we know that an expert majority is almost always wrong then the answer is pretty obvious.

  19. Tom Welsh –

    There’s a universe of difference between discussing things that are in the realm of the supernatural, versus those of the natural, particularly when it comes to ‘THE SCIENCE ™.’

    If ‘THE SCIENCE ™’ were willing to admit they were equally priests divining for us what ‘THE UNIVERSE ™’ does or doesn’t do, and how much our sinful human activity is hurting it and will bring about a divine chastisement of perpetual winter where the new normal is akin to Ragnarok, then we’d be willing to cut them some slack.

    But let’s not forget ‘THE SCEPTICS’, for whom any inability to answer absolutely everything to their occult standards of understanding and proclivity automatically results in a failing grade.

    If one of your ‘simple but awkward’ questions happen to be along the lines of “But where does God come from, hmmm? Who made Him, hmmm? Why is there anything at all, huuuh? But what if everything we experiences is illuuuuusionnnn?” and if Aristotle’s point wasn’t good enough for you, then we’re already on a conversation train to nowhere…

  20. Amazing hype over covid. Things always sound worse when presented as a number total compared to percentages. Heart disease and cancer is still nearly double Covid deaths. The media has done an effective job in this exaggeration of deaths that would occur anyway. Go in dieing from. The top 5 come out dead with Covid not from Covid? Something to think about.

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