Many begin to doubt what we were told about "science"

"Little tears are forming in the fabric of belief. Many who believed that taking their shots was the only right thing to do, are noticing inconsistencies in the official story. The failure to prevent disease. The rashes and the fatigue. The cognitive deficits. The heart damage and the cancers. The sudden deaths among the young and apparently healthy. The adverse events.

These things can nag at one’s consciousness.

Most who were compliant, however, still believe on balance that it was the right choice, even if it came with risks that we were not told about.

“Because I had my shots, when I did get Covid, I was barely sick for a day or two.”

“Because” has no place in that sentence. It assumes a causality for which there is no evidence."

Read more here: https://naturalselections.substack.com/p/its-not-too-late?

Heather Heying is an evolutionary biologist and I listen to her podcast with her husband Bret Weinstein. They are life long Democrats and university faculty, now on the outside for questioning the vaccine, the blatant evil treatment of scientists who disagreed with Fauci and CDC. They are openly opposed to the current transgender hysteria of Democrats.

A good Climate year

"2022 has been a good year in terms of climate, and it also reaffirms the positive trends toward a reduction in the intensity of climate change in many of the main indicators: temperature, Arctic sea-ice extent, sea level, and extreme phenomena. Let us not be fooled by those supported by our taxes. We have nothing to fear from climate change now or in the foreseeable future. Richard Feynman, one of the best physicists of the 20th century, said in 1966 that “science is the belief in the ignorance of the experts”, and Stuart Firestein teaches us that ignorance is the fuel that makes science advance. Those who believe they know what is wrong with the climate, who refuse to accept their ignorance, are not advancing science, but hindering its progress by slowing it down. They do not deserve to be called scientists because they do not serve the cause of science, which is to increase knowledge. They are only trying to line their pockets by defending an orthodoxy of clear political interest. It is clear why the climate panel is called “intergovernmental.” https://wattsupwiththat.com/2023/01/07/2022-seventh-warmest-year-warming-slows-down/

I'm no scientist, but then neither are a lot of those who claim the title. Here's my take as a retired librarian; when there's drought in California, they whine climate change, and when it rains too much, they cry climate change, and when they have no plan to keep the reservoirs full, they blame climate change. It keeps the bureaucrats fat and the professors published.

Now that we know, what should be done

Sometimes we can't know what we don't know. What happened from March 2020 through today (when I saw people still wearing masks inside their cars with several dirty masks on the dash) would have been unimaginable in western, democratic, free countries as recently as December 2019, but did happen. 

• The vulnerable and most at risk for the disease weren't protected
• Those not at risk were forced to comply as though they were in danger of dying
• There were mass violations of civil liberties
• Unknown risks have been passed on to the next generation because pregnant and lactating women were included in the madness
• Young men in the prime of life have been forced through peer pressure, government edict, and threats of job loss to take heart risks with odds they would never consent to for a plane flight
• Laws involving elections were violated or made up on the spot
• Minor, unelected officials assumed great authority and power 
• Small businesses were ruined; massive businesses got wealthier
• People skipped treatment for cancer and heart because government was protecting hospitals and not patients
• Safe alternative treatment options were forbidden--even their names could not be spoken
• Anxiety and mental health issues soared from both lack of care and the sufferers being terrified and sickened by media
• Lockdowns separated the dying from their families, their last comfort, or contributed to their early death
• Even when it was learned that the jabs didn't prevent getting the disease and didn't stop transmission to others, ridiculous rules stayed in place, controlled by teachers' unions, businesses, the White House, and CDC
• "Trust the science" became a joke and punch line with our elected officials bowing to the power and money, not laws or common sense or honoring the people who elected them
• One unelected man, an aging bureaucrat controlling two presidents and billions in grants to pharmaceutical companies, claimed to be the face of "Science" and if we distrusted him, we were traitors 
• There should be town halls in every village, town, city, church, business, club and university to sort this out. Maybe financial reparations will never happen, but we deserve an explanation for the cowardliness of our so-called leaders who needed to step up and STOP THE INSANITY. 
• For the friends and family who died, for the grandparents who didn't see their grandchildren for 2 years, for the jobs lost, the friendships destroyed, the trust stomped on we need to make sure it never happens again.

Masks, mandates and media

"All religions have their representatives. There are cardinals, bishops, imams and rabbi’s etc. They are perhaps the leading voices, but they aren’t the only representatives. There are envoys, missionaries, TV evangelists, religious correspondents and so on.

The State is no different. We have politicians and governmental advisers, as the leading voices, but there are also NGO spokespersons, union officials, the academic & scientific orthodoxy, lords and ladies, multinational CEO’s, central bankers, business leaders and more. Of these, the most powerful, in terms of their ability to shape public opinion are the mainstream media (MSM.)"

This article is from June 2020, when mask mandates, without a shred of science, were just being imposed. And with each mandate we've experienced more loss of freedom and the masks certainly haven't kept us safe. Even those with the 3 shots are getting Covid.

Face Masks Have Put Us In A State – OffGuardian (off-guardian.org)

GOP hearings on origin of Covid--lab or market

I hope you watched the GOP's hearings on the origin of Covid--hearings the Democrats refused to participate in, and Dr. Fauci wouldn't appear. The cover up gets more massive all the time. Fauci was sending hush up warnings to his own people, not even Birx was included, then calming, no problem e-mails to the Trump advisors. The man knew from the beginning this was from a lab and that he'd be implicated because the research on gain of function had continued despite Trump stopping it.

 
One scientist testified that everyone who knew him told him not to testify, and one even told him it was because it might help Trump! Another scientist was told his lab would never work again with the Chinese if he testified about the origins of the virus. I doubt this was reported on cable news. That "we may never know" line they've been repeating? They already know.

https://youtu.be/YeW5sI-R1Qg

Democrats are so worried about an outspoken Republican Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene who is a match for AOC, but they don't seem to worry about the huge crimes (and deaths) perpetrated by non-elected bureaucrats on the American people during this pandemic.

Pregnant people

This is what "science" has become. Woke. Notice that women no longer go into labor, "pregnant people" go into labor. This movement is so anti-woman it's beyond anything or any era of misogyny.

"Researchers integrated information from 45 protein, metabolite, and immune data points to identify a window two to four weeks before a pregnant person will go into labor."

Fortunately, in the actual article, "pregnant women" and "mother" are correctly used. However, woke editors are easing you into the word changes so that if later you start to object you will be called "transphobic."  Stop it now.

A Science parable—author unknown

A science professor on the first day of class went down each row of students and had them answer one question: "are you open-minded?" If so, then stand! Student after student proudly stood up and proclaimed, "Yes, yes, yes, yes. . ." One lone student said no, remained seated, and was mocked and scoffed at by the crowd. The professor then said to everyone else standing, "Good. . .all who are standing can leave now. . .you're not cut out for science." A wave of anger, disappointment and disgust took over the classrooms as entitled and confused students were trying to figure out what was going on. The professor then went on to explain, "If you're open minded, you're gullible and suggestable. If you want to know the truth, you need to be discerning--you hunger for evidence and you test assumptions--you take nothing at face value."

Science journals’ editorials against Trump

These science journals promote an amazing misuse of a world tragedy. Since I regularly read medical and science journals, especially JAMA and NEJM, let me assure you they have all been way left in their editorial coverage since I began reading them in the 1980s. Also, in clinical trials, they are quick to demand all sorts of fair, unbiased and diverse controls, sex, age, weight, culture, socio-economic status, smoking, alcohol use, marital status, health history, but in this pandemic, they only look at Trump.

I think they are angry that his leadership in cutting red tape and "making deals" has uncovered the stultifying "science" culture which has its own deep state and swamp. This isn't China, David Foster, or even Sweden. In a country where we have a Constitution to protect us from the state, "scientists" see this as a lost opportunity for the federal government to take the same grab for power that the states have with mandates, lockdowns and petty local demands.

The "scientists" (I think Obama had one advisor on this one) have loved the EMR installed by fiat at a cost in the billions (which is why medical costs soared during Obama's reign) with no known benefit to health or reduced cost because it's plan was data diving and not to get you quickly admitted or treated. Now they are called on to do actual research, find new drugs, figure out the mutations, think outside the box--as a businessman would do. We already have many new drugs ready to be on the market--it's called competition--and you can see how the popular and science media have reacted. Why can't everyone get this drug, why compassionate use for a guy we hate, why should he speculate or dream when that's a scientist's job, why does he listen to a virologist or an epidemiologist and not a cell biologist (or someone on our board); and most importantly, why didn't he die!

Trump has shown in 4 years that our bloated government, our stagnant universities, our rigid peer review publication system, our technology sector with embedded lobbyists in Washington to make sure start ups get squashed with new laws needs a shake up. I don't believe the pandemic was a plot (many do), but leftists in every field, every corporation, every university, every church, realize that if they don't act very quickly and get rid of this man, their days of fancy awards, fat grants at our expense, flying to conferences to wine and dine, and living in their self designed bubbles, just might be threatened. Bring him down and get rid of him, no matter the cost. We all know the next Democrat elected whether this year or in 4 years will return things to "normal" crony capitalism, but they are are afraid of the fall out.

Media, disinformation and science

http://junkfoodscience.blogspot.com/

For a number of years, I followed this blog, "Junkfood Science". She did amazing research. Unfortunately, she retired the blog in 2009, but I see she posted her concern in a letter to her readers in May 2020. I think it's worse now than in 2009. Click on over and read her May letter. It's so appropriate in this politicized pandemic.

"Media has become an expanse of junk science, disinformation and doublespeak, politics and marketing. All of us are now on our own to question everything, seek out original sources and do our own fact-checking, research and critical thinking. You'll be surprised at how much of what "everyone knows" is not true."

What science or expert do you trust?

"According to the epidemiologist Sunetra Gupta, you should do just about the opposite of what’s being preached by college presidents, teachers’ unions, political leaders, and the scientific and media establishment. Unless you’re elderly or particularly vulnerable, you shouldn’t be wearing a mask all day, or shaming others for going unmasked. You should be careful not to endanger the vulnerable, but otherwise you should be exposing yourself to the virus in order to promote herd immunity."

https://www.city-journal.org/achieving-herd-immunity?

I was a medical librarian for 14 years, agriculture for 3 and I used to translate medical journals when I was a grad student.  If I'd ever tried to present my clients or employers with the mish mash of so-called politicized science we've heard the last 6 months, I would have been fired. I have no idea if Dr. Gupta is right, or whether 6' is the optimal number, or whether masks do any good.  This I believe: the elderly, like me, are at risk; those with other health conditions like smoking, diabetes, obesity and lung diseases are at risk even if not elderly; and rioting and looting and taking your exposure back to your family puts everyone at risk.

I trust vaccines, but not Trump says Biden

Joe Biden says he trusts vaccines, he trusts science, but he doesn't trust Trump! Is Trump in the lab? Is he lining up the diverse group for the clinical trials? Of course not. He's promoting and pushing money to the firms doing the science. This vaccine has moved faster than any in history and multiple firms are working on it. All because of Trump's leadership. Biden is instilling hate, anger and distrust. How’s that for keeping people calm.  How’s that for hope? Who in the world would ever trust a vaccine with Biden's leadership? He has politicized science (although that had already been done in academia). If he wins, will he start all over because President Trump had provided the money? Probably. He wants to lockdown the entire country and raise taxes--why not start over and keep us really helpless. He hasn't read the distribution plan, but says he doesn't trust it--in fact, I think he said (with help from the media) that there was no plan in place. Biden is an anti-vaxxer. Last night I talked to a friend in the pharmaceutical business and am much encouraged. Time to toss Biden into the dust bin of history along with other socialists.

It’s science unless it isn’t

“For the first two months following the coronavirus outbreak, public-health experts insisted that we “follow the science” and implement their recommendations, even if it meant millions of lost jobs and significant restrictions on constitutionally protected activities, such as church attendance and freedom of assembly. Blue-state governors quickly positioned themselves as executors of this neutral scientific knowledge, condemning anti-lockdown protesters as “anti-scientific;” meantime, social media companies banned anti-lockdown groups and censored content from lockdown skeptics.

But when protests erupted in the U.S. after the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, many public-health experts reversed course—and subordinated “science” to their activist politics. The same doctors and nurses who once shamed churchgoers released petitions in support of Black Lives Matter and marched with tens of thousands of protesters in the streets. They categorized racism as a public-health threat and rationalized their participation in street demonstrations by deeming Covid-19 transmission the lesser of two evils. In other words, public-health experts rejected science in favor of progressive politics.”

https://www.city-journal.org/beware-the-progressive-scientific-alliance

MeToo strikes in the sciences, too

Francisco José Ayala Pereda seemed to have every award and honor available to people in his field, evolutionary biology,  but in 2018 he became a victim in the MeToo scandal, when four colleagues and a grad student accused him of sexual harassment. I was reading about it in a science publication I received in e-mail.  https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/the-year-in--metoo-65244  He donated $10 million to his university, UC Irvine, with naming rights on buildings and several chairs were named in his honor. The accusations must have been believable, because he’s gone, and the buildings have been renamed.

“I deeply regret that what I have always thought of as the good manners of a European gentleman—to greet women colleagues warmly, with a kiss to both cheeks, to compliment them on their beauty—made colleagues I respect uncomfortable,” Ayala says in a statement, according to the newspaper [LA Times]. “It was never my intent to do so.”

According to Wikipedia:  “He served on the advisory board of the now defunct Campaign to Defend the Constitution, an organization that has lobbied in support the separation of church and state. He has been publicly critical of U.S. restrictions on federal funding of embryonic stem cell research. He is also a critic of creationism and intelligent design theories, claiming that they are not only pseudoscience, but also misunderstood from a theological point of view. He suggests that the theory of evolution resolves the problem of evil, thus being a kind of theodicy.  Although Ayala generally does not discuss his religious views, he has stated that "science is compatible with religious faith in a personal, omnipotent and benevolent God." He also briefly served, in 1960, as a Dominican priest. Ayala does not say whether he remains a religious believer, not wanting to be "tagged by one side or the other."

I’m guessing he votes Democrat.

Please explain that--Explain That Stuff

"Explain that Stuff is an online book written by British science writer Chris Woodford (author of many popular science books for adults and children, including Atoms Under the Floorboards: The Surprising Science Hidden in Your Home). It includes 450 easy-to-understand articles (plus around 2000 photos and 800 illustrations), covering how things work, cutting-edge science, cool gadgets, and computers."

http://www.explainthatstuff.com/

Also has a Facebook site.

Take this science quiz

Whites and Hispanics score better than blacks on general science information, 8.4, 7.1 and 5.9. But why? This is information most of us had by 10th grade in general science class. It's not college level science.  I scored 11 out of 12 and have been away from science classes for over 50 years, but I recognized a lot of the questions from freshman high school general science. The debate will continue, but it would certainly affect STEM graduation and future jobs.  Asians are not included because there wasn’t a big enough pool for the researchers, but since they outscore whites in every area, I think we know what that would be. There is no breakdown by gender or age in the summary, although there is in the questions.  I’m assuming males score higher than females and older higher than younger.

http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/09/15/the-race-gap-in-science-knowledge/

This cartoonist got it wrong

Seems a bit over the top even for a political cartoon. I don't know a single person who denies that the climate has changed over the last 10,000 years or so, especially here in Ohio where the state was covered by a glacier until a few thousand years ago. Not too terribly long ago the science proved we were in another ice age.

I've never heard a Creationist suggest that science be stopped--they love being proven right time after time. The anti-vaxxers don't deny science in general, they just have believed stuff they see on the internet--originally published in a prestigious medical journal by scientists.

This cartoon diminishes the pain and suffering that militant, radical Muslims have inflicted on Yazidis, Christians, Afghanis and Iraqis. They've chopped off heads of children, crucified people, kidnapped girls to be slaves, and massacred other Muslims. Show me something even close by people who think science is sometimes/often way off track.

Then allow me to show you the retractions in science journals that are in every issue.

Some tidbits about science

The survey, "Science and Technology: Public Attitudes and Understanding," conducted in 2012, involved more than 2,220 Americans and was conducted by the National Science Foundation for the Science and Engineering Indicators report that is presented to the federal government.

“According to a new survey that focuses on public awareness and perceptions of science, research and scientists, only 74 percent of Americans that participated knew that the Earth orbits the sun. The survey also revealed a strong appreciation for the work of scientists while Americans continue to struggle to answer basic science questions.”

Actually, I’m surprised that 74% knew.  Aren’t you?

About 30% Americans say that “dealing with global
warming” should be a priority for the president and
Congress. In recent years, dealing with climate issues
has been near the bottom of Americans’ list of
potential priorities.”

So guess what our President and Secretary of State are doing?

“. . . between 2000 and 2008, scientists represented just 1% of characters on prime-time network shows. Of these scientists, 7 out of 10 were men and almost 9 of 10 were white. 8% of the characters were medical.”

I’m thinking they aren’t counting the pathologists and archeologists in the the crime shows.

I’m not surprised that the Internet is increasingly becoming a source of information for scientific information.

Did you evolve from slime, ooze and sludge?

Here's what the guys who think you did, think of you if you believe the Bible (In the beginning God. . .; In the beginning was the Word. . .; He is before all things. . . ; Where were you when I laid the earth's foundation?. . . ):

"It is very troubling to think that with all the billions of dollars we have spent on "education" that we have so may uneducated people. It's even more troubling to think about how the trillions of dollars wasted on religious "stuff" (buildings and properties, salaries, lawsuit settlements, velvet slippers and gold chapeaux, etc., etc.) could have been better served invested in new technology, basic research, infrastructure construction and maintenance, "real" education, social services, etc.). Shameful foolishness."

Found at a "science" blog comment.

Why the Arabic World Turned Away from Science

"To anyone familiar with this Golden Age, roughly spanning the eighth through the thirteenth centuries a.d., the disparity between the intellectual achievements of the Middle East then and now — particularly relative to the rest of the world — is staggering indeed. In his 2002 book What Went Wrong?, historian Bernard Lewis notes that “for many centuries the world of Islam was in the forefront of human civilization and achievement.” “Nothing in Europe,” notes Jamil Ragep, a professor of the history of science at the University of Oklahoma, “could hold a candle to what was going on in the Islamic world until about 1600.” Algebra, algorithm, alchemy, alcohol, alkali, nadir, zenith, coffee, and lemon: these words all derive from Arabic, reflecting Islam’s contribution to the West.

Today, however, the spirit of science in the Muslim world is as dry as the desert."


The New Atlantis » Why the Arabic World Turned Away from Science

Wonder where the women went?

For 40 years, women have been getting special help in the sciences, math, engineering and computing fields. Summer camps, workshops, girly places on the internet to talk techy, special scholarships--collectively the government and foundations must have spent billions. There's been some headway--women now outnumber men in some of these fields (called STEM, science technology engineering math) as college grads, but they don't continue on to excel in graduate school. I suspect it's the "fun factor." How many nights can you spend on a problem eating cold pizza before it gets old? For guys, they think that's a blast. Not so much, gals. A high school science teacher told me that when she teaches physics to boys, it confirms what they already know. Not so with the girls, who have no intuitive or learned sense of the field.

So today I was browsing Crunch Gear and saw in its "About Us" there are no women. I clicked over to the job search and wondered how many women are even applying for these positions, let alone landing them and then advancing.