What does it mean when we call someone an expert? Here's what Google says:
"a person who has a comprehensive and authoritative knowledge of or skill in a particular area".
In this one word I think we will find the root of our troubles: 🧵
So if someone is an expert in virology, that means they have comprehensive & authoritative knowledge of virology.
But what does comprehensive knowledge of an area mean? It means to be complete.
We're expecting our scientists to claim complete knowledge of an area.
At the same time, we know that experts in the same area of a decade ago, or 50 years ago, certainly did not have complete knowledge of that area, since we've made large breakthroughs since. Are we assuming no more breakthroughs are possible?
So this is the deep issue with expertise. One can have far more knowledge than another in some field. But to claim completeness is not a statement about the knowledge one has. It is a statement about what proportion of total possible knowledge one has. An unprovable assertion.
And that assertion has further implications. When one is seen as an expert, they may get questions about what should be done in one area or another. And if one believes themselves an expert, they will answer that question definitively. And by doing so, they put skin in the game.
Now that opinion is no longer just a reflection of our best understanding. It is a personal investment of credibility, one that the "expert" will be motivated to defend. They might attack opposing arguments, they might construct disingenuous supporting arguments.
And if many experts get together, in some kind of expert panel, and they determine what's best for the world to do in one or another area, then it's no longer simply a matter of saving face. Suppressing opposing views is a matter of *saving the world*. *Saving actual lives*.
You don't want blood on your hands do you? So keep your heretical opinions to yourself, Mr young scientist, and sing from the songbook. We can talk about your ideas privately, but expressing them in public will give oxygen to the bad guys. We can't have that. They're deranged.
And once expert opinion is calcified, it creates journals, and departments, and conferences, and government research programs, and prizes. People's salaries now depend on them not being wrong. Their entire future depends on it. How can they admit it?
What they'll do instead is form a tight-knit group of experts, all supporting the same beliefs that lead to their shared prosperity. And if a young student or an outsider, points out that some of what they say doesn't add up, they'll be told "who are you to doubt the experts?"
All from a minute confusion. The subtle implication that what we know is most of what there is to know. But that's something we can't possibly know.
I have no problem trusting experts. It's just that they don't exist outside narrow, artificial fields, and even there, it's shaky.
Anyone claiming to be an expert is making a claim they can't possibly support. This may not be intentional, but it is severely consequential. It converts humility into pride. It converts questions into answers. It prevents us from moving further by claiming there's nowhere to go.
And now the words of Richard Hamming might make sense. This is why today's experts can be trusted to make positive claims, but never *ever* negative or universal claims.
Wow. Talk about a thread that says the exact opposite of the paper it cites. Comments🔥. 📄Quote:
"Transmission reductions declined over time since 2nd vaccination, for Delta reaching similar levels to unvaccinated by 12 weeks for ChAdOx1 & attenuating substantially for BNT162b2"
Your daily reminder that I have no idea on biology and if I can find complete and total misrepresentations within seconds of looking at a paper that a supposed public health communicator is touting, things are entirely not OK. This is not what one resorts to when one is winning.
If my current project isn't clear, I'm working on understanding and evaluating the hypotheses put forth by @GVDBossche. As things start to go sideways I'm suspecting that he may have been right about a lot, but with a hypothesis that rich, it takes work to make conclusions. 🧵
Like many, I was first exposed to Geert's ideas through his interview with @BretWeinstein:
My most recent reintroduction to Geert's thoughts is this blogpost is putting together a hypothesis that is largely aligned with Geert Vanden Bossche to the degree I understand both..
🤣 @fiddlebits donated to the FLCCC in honor of @hang_a_shore's constructive comment below, and now I have no choice: I have to follow through with a "donate and block" fundraiser. The people have spoken!
Holy shit, I just noticed the subtitle of this image. OK folks, we have to get to the bottom of the whole "variants emerged due to vaccine trials" claim. Has anyone chased this down, other than the original correlation GISAID images?
2. "Hospital admission and emergency care attendance risk for SARS-CoV-2 delta (B.1.617.2) compared with alpha (B.1.1.7) variants of concern: a cohort study" (h/t @JoomiKim1)