The second sentence of the abstract of a new paper about trust in scientists, which is generally high but in some places low, provides the very reason for distrust: “Public trust in science can help decision-makers act based on the best available evidence, especially during crises such as climate change or the COVID-19 pandemic.”
“Climate change” is not a crisis, and it is absurd for scientists to claim it is. The covid panic was. But only because scientists in the name of Science first created the damned bug, and then repeatedly botched its “solutions”. What rulers and Experts did to the body politic in the name of Science would make a San Francisco bathhouse habitué blush.
Incidentally, trust in scientists, they say, and not in Science. An interesting and important distinction.
The paper is “Trust in scientists and their role in society across 67 countries” by Viktoria Cologna, Naomi Oreskes, whom we have met several times, and a legion of others. We have met, and have not enjoyed meeting, Oreskes many times before.
Like the abstract, the paper itself begins in a bizarre way: “Public trust in science provides many benefits to people and society at large.”
Yes and no. Sometimes the fruits of science provide benefits, true, but sometimes they provide harms; e.g., gain-of-lethality research and nuclear bombs. Perhaps the net, at least at the date of this writing, is a benefit, but this is unclear. To be clear we’d have to have an agreed upon definition of The Good. We would have to know the purpose and meaning of life, and how our toys and machines fit into this scheme.
Which is not the purview of science. And which, in our decaying culture, our Experts, elites and rulers never discuss.
This is important because this paper, as in most minds, production of tools and toys are conflated with science. Science is the understanding of the nature of world. Controlling the world via this understanding is not science, but something else. Confusing the two leads to scientism.
Now this paper is a mess, and there is no point taking it too seriously. The ambiguity of translating the questions asked, the state and history of country-level science education and production, culture itself, and things like this mean that absolute numbers cannot be used or compared with anything close to certainty. For instance, a picture (their Fig. 1) shows Egypt (!) and India far outpacing other countries in scientist trust. Japan and Russia are near the bottom.
Then the authors say things like this: “Societies with high public trust in science dealt with the COVID19 pandemic more effectively, as citizens were more likely to comply with non-pharmaceutical COVID-19 interventions and had higher vaccine confidence.”
No they didn’t. The USA, which Followed The Science, had one of the highest crap-out rates. Sweden, which did not, did much better.
Who really knows, though, because countries reported numbers with different levels of assiduity. Complying with idiotic and vain “non-pharmaceutical” “interventions” is a definite strike against trusting scientists. Follow the arrows on the floor or die! Wear a mask standing but not sitting or die! Break the 6 foot barrier and die!
What struck me as bizarre was this:
Trust is significantly associated with attitudes towards science. We find positive relationships between people’s trust in scientists and their willingness to rely on scientific advice and thus make themselves vulnerable to scientists, the belief that science benefits people like them, and trust in scientific methods.
Make themselves vulnerable to scientists. Drips with effeminacy and toxic femininity. Same kind of stuff you see from synodalians listening and accompanying us on our spiritual journey together. Mental sugar poisoning. Vulnerable to scientists forsooth!
We also find that science-related populist attitudes—that is, beliefs that people’s common sense is superior to the expertise of scientists and scientific institutions—are associated with lower trust in scientists.
Here’s where the scientism really creeps in. Knowing how the world works does not, in any way, tell us the best and worst ways of manipulating the world. Ordinary people can often tell when they are being shafted by Vlad The Scientist Impaler. Their commonsense solutions can work better than scientist “solutions”.
The mistake the paper makes is assuming scientists’ expertise is always better than people’s. Sometimes yes, sometimes no. But never always.
Think of the scientist whose bright idea it was to put lithium in water supplies to calm the indigenous populants—and make them love scientists more? Or the scientist who wants to—and I swear this is true—shrink people to make war on “climate change.”
Scientists, even PhD-bearing mathematical prodigies, can be stupid. Because of DIE and the work, that stupidity on public display increases.
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Viktoria Cologna and Naomi Oreskes? Okay, let’s take a look… yup — let me rewrite your headline, Sarge:
“Jews Blame Lower Trust in Jews on Everything but Bad Jews”
Hope springs eternal someone has finally gotten around to challenging ‘the science’
of mass fluoridation of the national water supply. Or perhaps someone in the CDC realizes
they have fully plumbed the depths of stupid in the general population.
EPA’s Final Witnesses Concede Fluoride’s Harm, Admit to Flaws in Key Study as Trial Closes
https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/epa-final-witnesses-neurotoxicity-fluoride-trial/?utm_id=20240214
” Science is the understanding of the nature of world. ”
No. Science is an organized approach to understanding phenomenon, perhaps the most favored approach for industrialized societies. But there are others, perhaps not so productive, that reach areas inaccessible to strict scientific methodologies.
On the politics, yes, of course; on the science – no, you’re dead wrong when you say:
—
No they didn’t. The USA, which Followed The Science, had one of the highest crap-out rates. Sweden, which did not, did much better.
—
in fact Sweden followed the science, the US did not – please read my “A Brief History of Covid19” ( – winface.com/node/32 for an explanation.
Viktoria Cologne is a soccer team and Naomi Oreskes is a jockstrap.
Covid? All they had to do was change a few definitions. The only route to herd
immunity became vaccines. Lockdowns once defined as the worst option to
combat a contagion’s spread due to the wholesale destruction of the economy
became the preferred option. And voilà a Great Reset now peppered with a few
wars and the lingering threat of nuclear annihilation. It’s not hard to see how
we all got here.
Confucius Says “lol, lmao”
On the very basics of governance
N.S. LYONS
FEB 15, 2024….https://theupheaval.substack.com/p/confucius-says-lol-lmao?publication_id=330796&post_id=141702634&isFreemail=true&r=9834w
I’m old enough to remember when a scientist was widely viewed as a very smart person invariably lacking in common sense. There were many, many cartoons created with some variation of this theme as the punchline.
Some companies I worked for had scientists on staff. It was their job to blue-sky, then throw their findings over the wall to the gate-keepers and implementers. The scientists were never involved with actual product development, as they weren’t very good at it. This isn’t surprising, as the characteristics that make someone a good scientist make for a lousy implementer. Scientists do their best work as individuals, implementers do their best work as a team.
There should be a Dunning-Kruger sub-type defined for scientists and academics: smart people who are unaware of their lack of common sense, stubbornly refusing any introspection despite overwhelming behoovity to the contrary.
Anthropogenic climate change
Climate history (hockey stick)
Impending ice age
Disappearing polar ice caps
Acid rain
Rainforests
Vaccines
Masks
Floor arrows
Social distancing
Gender bullshit
Food pyramid
After all of that lying, they still expect me to take them seriously?
THE SCIENCE ™ is a marketing public relations firm for the ruling class.
They make pretty paper packaging for every poison the ruling class concocts and wishes us to take.
THE SCIENCE ™ trains, certifies and employs their own certified THE SCIENtists.
THE SCIENtists then go on the teevee and say “Trust Us, we are THE SCIENCE ™.”
“Trust THE SCIENCE ™!”, says the teevee, “We are THE NEWS(sic)! Proudly sponsored by THE SCIENCE ™!”
Then the injections begin to dance, as a woman wearing a diversity pin screams towards the rising tide of the coastline.
Do not ask questions. Do not criticize. Do not discourage others from following THE SCIENCE ™.
It is now illegal.
“France ?? Today, 02/14/24, the French government basely maneuvered so that article 4 was adopted.
It is a highly liberticidal article which will not tolerate any criticism of the therapeutic treatments which will be recommended or made obligatory by the state.
Any person who dares to openly criticize these therapies will be liable to fines and imprisonment. Already, renowned doctors are being targeted, whom this article will silence.
France is taking a totalitarian turn, Macron and his henchmen are followers of the WEF and globalist policies.
It is a catastrophe for the country where a majority of citizens no longer obey vaccine propaganda. Social unrest ahead.”
https://twitter.com/arnaud_annie26/status/1757816600554520754
Today a law was passed in France qualifying any opposition to mRNA-LNP injections as a “sectarian aberration”. It carries a penalty of up to 3 years’ imprisonment and 45,000 euros.
“It will not tolerate any criticism of the therapeutic treatments which will be recommended or made obligatory by the state. Any person who dares to openly criticize these therapies will be liable to fines and imprisonment.”
https://twitter.com/KLVeritas/status/1757891479119298723
> one of the highest crap-out rates. Sweden, which did not, did much better.
Actually this is based on doctored data… but the data has been doctored more since then! So, back in the day, Summer 2020, I was following Sweden in particular. Their numbers were through the roof, clearly the worst performing of the bunch. Then, suddenly, just as the summer vacation season started, their mortality… dissapeared. Just like that. People all of a sudden stopped dying of COVID19. Now… clearly… that’s outside the bounds of rationality. No vaccine was made available, there was no shockingly effective breakthrough in treatment, there was no sudden improvement in social coping. But the mortality line went down vertically, and didn’t recover even in Autumn 2020, the last time I checked before today.
They lied. They lied and they didn’t tell anyone they lied. What I PRESUME happened was that a few guys sat down in some government building and said “look, if we don’t fix this COVID19 thing, people will start an uprising”. “Yeah, but how can we fix it, we’re out of medicine, all our doctors are overworked, the only option we have is to tell people to [silence] social distance.” “But if we tell them to social distance, all of our very, very carefully crafted ILLUSION of our own Nordic racial supremacy will collapse. People will start an uprising.” Long silence. “Well, let’s just say all these dead people are dying WITH COVID and exclude them from the count, and for those rare few that we can’t find any sort of an excuse we’ll say they died FROM COVID and count only them.” “Brilliant.” And that’s how the myth of Swedish Nordic racial supremacy over American Redneck Idiots was maintained. The spell was so powerful even Americans belived it, and most belive it to this day (the remainder forgot there was anything happening at all, it’s been four years after all and human memory only goes back three years).
But hey, if you want to check what I just said you won’t be able to. That’s because the racially supreme Nordics have doctored their numbers once again! This time around, they rubbed out their dastardly change in numbers. But who knows what trickery they used to produce the numbers that currently exist. But even in this case, if you did some light statistics, you’ll see the notion of Nordic racial supremacy is unfounded. According to Worldometers, Sweden had to date 27258 dead people from 2752831 cases out of 10540886 total people. That gives us the following numbers: CFR 0.99%, infections-per-population 26.1%, deaths-per-population 0.25%. For USA it’s 1198706 dead out of 111247054 cases for 334914895 total people. Derived numbers: CFR 1.08%, infections-per-population 33.2%, deaths-per-population 0.36%. Now, please anybody explain this riddle: how did USA have MORE infections per total people, then Sweden, if it was Sweden that didn’t do lockdowns? Wasn’t it supposed to be the other way around, with Sweden racing toward “heard immunity” without lockdowns, and USA being prudent and waiting for vaccines (which may or may not have ever came)? And if that expectation didn’t bear out – as it didn’t – can we honestly conclude anything else, or are we now supposed to throw out the model and start over?
“No they didn’t. The USA, which Followed The Science, had one of the highest crap-out rates. Sweden, which did not, did much better. ”
Love it William!
“Scientists, even PhD-bearing mathematical prodigies, can be stupid.”
I attended a friend’s barbecue some years ago – he was doing a PhD at one of the top two UK Universities and his tutor was also there. Amazingly intelligent but he behaved like a little child, a real eye opener.
Well, at least we still have some actual sensible Experts. Sadly, they are hated by Expurts.
Mr. Bean Was Right – And So Was Toyota
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/mr-bean-was-right-and-so-was-toyota
Little wonder lefties have a hatred for the Japanese too. Their attractive female superhero comics are better than ours!