By Victor Davis Hanson
The scientific method used to govern much of popular American thinking.
In empirical fashion, scientists advised us to examine evidence and data, and then by induction come to rational hypotheses. The enemies of “science” were politics, superstition, bias and deduction.
Yet we are now returning to our version of medieval alchemy and astrology in rejecting a millennium of the scientific method.
Take the superstitions that now surround COVID-19.
We now know from data that a prior case of COVID-19 offers immunity as robust as vaccination. Why, then, are Joe Biden’s proposed vaccination mandates ignoring that scientific fact? Dr. Anthony Fauci, when asked, seemed at a loss for words.
Is this yet another of the scientific community’s Platonic “noble lies,” as when Fauci assured the public last year that there was no need for masks? He later claimed he had lied so that medical professionals would not run out of needed supplies.
Fauci also threw out mythical percentages needed for herd immunity, apparently in an attempt to convince the public that it will never be safe until every American is protected from COVID-19 by vaccination only.
And why was it that hard for the scientific community to postulate a likely origin of COVID-19 Some of the very scientists engaged in gain-of-function research oversaw an investigation with Chinese authorities. They confirmed the predetermined conclusion that the virus likely had little to do with gain-of-function engineering. And they saw little proof it was birthed in a Wuhan virology lab. Yet scientific opinion, emerging evidence and basic logic have suggested the opposite.
How can the government hector citizens that they have a moral duty — and soon a legal obligation — to be vaccinated when it does not mandate vaccinations for unvetted refugees flying in from Afghanistan?
How can the government medical community remain largely silent when an anticipated 2 million foreign nationals will cross into the United States in the current fiscal year — almost none of whom are vaccinated or tested for COVID-19?
Why do the media and government blame particular races for the delta variant outbreak on grounds that they were insufficiently vaccinated? Why wouldn’t officials simply urge the Latino and Black communities to be vaccinated as quickly as possible? Data shows that both groups have lower vaccination rates than white and Asian populations.
Are woke political agendas discrediting science and losing public health?
We saw just that in June 2020, when more than 1,200 “health care professionals” signed a petition demanding exemptions from lockdowns and quarantines for Black Lives Matter protesters marching en masse. And they concocted medical excuses such as “vital to the national public health” to insist that violating quarantines was less unhealthy than not pouring into the streets.
Why did presidential candidate Joe Biden and his running mate, Kamala Harris, warn the American people on the eve of vaccination rollouts that an inoculation under the Trump administration could be unsafe, thereby undermining confidence in vaccines?
Why was the medical community largely silent about such dangerous sabotaging of new vaccines, but months later became vociferous in warning the public that any doubts about the safety of these Operation Warp Speed vaccinations were scientifically misplaced? Was there a medical breakthrough on Jan. 20, 2020, to alter their consensus?
From rewarding wokeness in medical school admissions to the peer reviewing of scientific papers, the anti-scientific mania has polluted scientific endeavors.
“Critical race theory” would preposterously tell us that we need racism to fight racism.
“Critical legal theory” ludicrously claims that laws have no rational basis but simply reflect power inequities.
“Modern monetary theory” defies millennia of evidence and basic logic in stating that governments can simply print money without worrying about balancing expenditures with revenues or inflating the currency to ruination.
Corporations are now asked to substitute a new woke agenda theory — “Environmental, Social and Corporate Governance (ESG)” — in lieu of market realities, rules of investment and economic data.
Science is dying; superstition disguised as morality is returning. And we’ll all soon become poorer, angrier and more divided.
Victor Davis Hanson is the Martin and Illie Anderson Senior Fellow in Residence in Classics and Military History at the Hoover Institution, a professor of classics emeritus at California State University at Fresno, and a nationally syndicated columnist for Tribune Media Services.
@Michael
A very interesting discussion relating inductive and deductive reasoning. I had a disagreement some 40yrs ago with a very good friend over those terms, and I look back on that time as something akin to ancient history. It does appear we are galloping back towards the undesirable goals of the Dark Ages, a very unenviable goal.
Regarding the findings in India, there could have been a distracting issue of the Indian genetics that allowed the use of IVM to work better as there exists genetic variations in all the various races and the Covid disease has always been known to have a varying effect based upon genetic variations of the races. Luckily we have the great example of Kerala which holds only 1/8 of the population of Uttar Pradesh and yet their case load has risen to over 600X higher and their deaths rose to over 100X higher. To have a drug challenge between the two ‘treatment’ models in the same region without any other obvious detracting influences is remarkably telling and very useful, though unfortunate for the inhabitants of Kerala, who, by the way, have now moved towards the use of IVM in early treatments.
I do strongly rely upon India as an example for the world to follow because the Modi govt has always acted to support their people’s needs in the Covid crisis, though sometimes with a vicious harshness, over the international medical communities calls for no treatment, but they are far from the only source for such evidence. Uganda and Vietnam each had sterling records of zero deaths til they were bribed by the World Bank earlier this year to abandon their pursuit of medical intervention and began using the vax, which of course resulted in the death wave which is now building with cases rising. Peru had one of the best records of medical intervention last year while using IVM and then crashed after abandoning it due to international pressures and now they hold the worst record in the world. There is also the medical successes of varying degree in Argentina, Mexico and Slovakia. Each of these national laboratory experiments contrast sharply with the likes of Israel, Finland, Malta and Iceland where vaccination has been nearly nation-wide. There are lessons to be learned from each of these nations, and the lessons will likely be harder to accept as the evidence is further ignored, even as the evidence is obscured with crap data managed with redefined terms intent upon proving success. If these lessons are ultimately never recognized, we will each have to learn the proper use of the Wigi boards and spell casting.
Peloni,
” I posted an article a few days ago regarding Uttar Pradesh, an Indian State that has eliminated Covid from their state which is about 2/3 the size of the US using IVM.”
You were using INDUCTIVE reasoning here, in a process my wife would call “generalization”; and have come to what I would say is a reasonable assumption. On the other hand, Hansen said,
“In empirical fashion, scientists [up until the current days of derangement] advised us to examine evidence and data, and then by INDUCTION come to rational hypotheses. The enemies of “science” were politics, superstition, bias and DEDUCTION.”
Deduction comes to conclusions, derived from “accepted assumptions”. In the current derangement, the main basic assumption is “The government is always right”. Deduction is therefore called a “top-down” method of reasoning. You have gone the other direction, generalizing a hypothesis from a specific body of evidence (namely, the record of Uttar Pradesh); and Victor David Hansen supports you in this, saying your approach is more conducive to true science.
So, I posted an article a few days ago regarding Uttar Pradesh, an Indian State that has eliminated Covid from their state which is about 2/3 the size of the US using IVM. Uttar Pradesh employed IVM in crushing an outbreak in May and has continued its use to completeley eliminate the disease from their nation. There is also a another state in India called Kerala which has pursued the US model with mass vaccination and treating only with the toxic Remdisivir. Their numbers have resembled those of the US, even as Kerala has ~70% vaccination. There is a line in an article that was very telling:
This article is long but very revealing:
https://www.thedesertreview.com/opinion/columnists/indias-ivermectin-blackout—part-iii-the-lesson-of-kerala/article_ccecb97e-044e-11ec-9112-2b31ae87887a.html
As I have noted previously, India has the best data to follow. This has proven to be quite accurate regarding the vax, the virus and the path to victory or defeat.
Science is science only when continually questioned