Trust the science! But only our interpretation of it!
The best part is, they brought indulgences back: you can get absolution by paying money (CO2 certificates) or by saying a prayer (virtue signal on social media). Science has become a religion.
The first time my statistics teacher turned an arbitrarily squiggly line into a beautifully smooth curve I realized the class was more closely related to rhetoric than mathematics.
I work in a regulated industry, and I'll never forget what one of the very senior engineers told me early in my career:
The purpose of the reports you're writing is to tell a story, and the moral of the story is whatever conclusion you want an auditor who isn't familiar with your work to draw. You don't lie, and you don't fudge data; but you also don't want to throw in a lot of superfluous data and analysis into the report that could cause the auditor to draw conclusions other than the ones you want them to draw. If all you know about a problem is the contents of the report, the conclusions should be self-evident.
No doubt policy papers and recommendations are written the same way.
I'd believe it. The engineer who taught me that had to learn it from someone.
Dilbert also had a plot line where Wally just made a bunch of data up because "all business studies are marketing studies, and marketing doesn't care if what you do has a basis in reality; so why bother trying to legitimize it?" Which is an argument I understand and even kinda agree with but can't quite bring myself to actually apply.
Wish I could find the strip, if anyone else remembers it.
Far from ignoring scientific evidence to argue for individual freedom, antimaskers often engage deeply with public datasets and make what we call “counter-visualizations”—visualizations using orthodox methods to make unorthodox arguments—to challenge mainstream narratives that the pandemic is urgent and ongoing. By asking community members to “follow the data,” these groups mobilize data visualizations to support significant local changes.
I'm sure every single author of this paper has at some point lamented ordinary people failing to take an interest in science and using the scientific method to make data-driven decisions.
MIT: "where'd you get crazy this idea that scientific methodologies and data ought to be made available to the public at large so they may draw their own conclusions?"
Unfortunately, there's always been a "Scientific Orthodoxy". Normally it's just a bunch of stubborn Scientific Elites hob-knobing with their council of peers from 'prestigious' academic institutions, and it normally doesn't actually get in the way of damaging progress in the real world. Fourier Series were held back from formal recognition for 40 years, mostly because of philosophical differences and political hostility to non-extreme rigor (academic make-work, frankly); but it was still used in Science and experimentation before that with good results.
The problem is that we're dealing with rabid fucking Leftism in scientific institutions at this point, and it's effecting policy badly. It's no different from Progressivism's intrusion into Science in the dawn of the last century with Eugenics, Social Darwinism, and Racialism. The last thing we need is for Scientists to come out and say, "Excuse me, I'm a Scientist and am therefore smarter than you. That's why the facts tell us we need to castrate the children. I'm very smart."
It's not mind-boggling at all. Academia is the lens for interpretation. Even if their methods for data collection are sound (a big assumption), their data interpretation has become absurdly biased. They're so used to interpreting things "correctly" that the idea of letting the data speak for itself leads to conclusions they're specifically trained not to reach.
The abstract uses the phrase "advocate for radical policy changes". Which in context means "opposes public health officials calling for shutting down the economy, locking people in their homes, and completely restructuring society". Imagine being so "radical" as to think people ought to have lived 2020 and 2021 in much the same way as they lived 2019.
The whole social distancing paradigm is a radical departure from established norms and would have been considered unorthodox to scientists in the medical community just 5 years ago.
I still say the biggest surprise I saw was someone I know who did their PHD on the Spanish flu concluding masks didn't do anything calling for masks a year ago...
Of course got unfriended when I linked them to a copy of their own paper on the subject...
This is the first instance where “the quiet part out loud” really applies imo. People today aren’t anti-science or whatever pejorative these clergy people want to use, we’re collectively more educated than ever before and we know how much of academia is just bullshit people put through to try and get their degree.
In the very first paragraph of the abstract (the very first section), you get this gem:
"This
paper investigates how pandemic visualizations circulated on social
media, and shows that people who mistrust the scientific estab-
lishment often deploy the same rhetorics of data-driven decision-
making used by experts, but to advocate for radical policy changes."
Yes, "business as usual" and "things are more or less fine", "be normal" and "behave like a citizen in a free and democratic nation" are radical policies according to the authors. Not only are they radical policies, but they're changes, as in, that's not how they view the world. They live in a dictatorship, and to defy the dictatorship in any way is a radical policy change.
Well, this is a pre-print that did not yet get published (or may not ever get published). At least i prefer to think it is, since that's what arxiv is for.
Trust the science! But only our interpretation of it!
The best part is, they brought indulgences back: you can get absolution by paying money (CO2 certificates) or by saying a prayer (virtue signal on social media). Science has become a religion.
We need another Martin Luther.
Right. They are the priest class mad that their holy book is being translated into a common language basically.
The first time my statistics teacher turned an arbitrarily squiggly line into a beautifully smooth curve I realized the class was more closely related to rhetoric than mathematics.
I work in a regulated industry, and I'll never forget what one of the very senior engineers told me early in my career:
No doubt policy papers and recommendations are written the same way.
This is how every scientific model and economic model works - you have so many variables you can show whatever your boss wants to see.
Fun fact - in most scientific papers the source code behind the model is never even published.
Peers approve the paper as long as it agrees with the narrative that gets your industry the most funding.
This is why climate change models have to be hysterical. But are never checked.
Sounds like the sort of stuff I'm learning with legal writing. It's all about how you frame things
It sure the hell is (framing is everything; former paralegal here).
This quote was literally a plot line in Dilbert.
I'd believe it. The engineer who taught me that had to learn it from someone.
Dilbert also had a plot line where Wally just made a bunch of data up because "all business studies are marketing studies, and marketing doesn't care if what you do has a basis in reality; so why bother trying to legitimize it?" Which is an argument I understand and even kinda agree with but can't quite bring myself to actually apply.
Wish I could find the strip, if anyone else remembers it.
There's lies, damn lies, and statistics.
My first day in college stats was: "I'm here to teach you how to lie with numbers!"
I think you assumed a bit much there.
Statistics is not "rhetorical math"
I'm sure every single author of this paper has at some point lamented ordinary people failing to take an interest in science and using the scientific method to make data-driven decisions.
MIT: "where'd you get crazy this idea that scientific methodologies and data ought to be made available to the public at large so they may draw their own conclusions?"
Plebs: "I learned it from you!"
"Defying public health officials"
Speaks to a mindset that doesn't quite understand that those "public health officials" work for the public and not the other way around, doesn't it?
"Use orthodox visualizations to make unorthodox arguments"
I want that on a fucking T-shirt.
They're literally complaining that people are using their own data to defeat their arguments.
It's also unwittingly admitting that there is such a thing as religious "orthodoxy" with respect to "scientific" arguments.
Unfortunately, there's always been a "Scientific Orthodoxy". Normally it's just a bunch of stubborn Scientific Elites hob-knobing with their council of peers from 'prestigious' academic institutions, and it normally doesn't actually get in the way of damaging progress in the real world. Fourier Series were held back from formal recognition for 40 years, mostly because of philosophical differences and political hostility to non-extreme rigor (academic make-work, frankly); but it was still used in Science and experimentation before that with good results.
The problem is that we're dealing with rabid fucking Leftism in scientific institutions at this point, and it's effecting policy badly. It's no different from Progressivism's intrusion into Science in the dawn of the last century with Eugenics, Social Darwinism, and Racialism. The last thing we need is for Scientists to come out and say, "Excuse me, I'm a Scientist and am therefore smarter than you. That's why the facts tell us we need to castrate the children. I'm very smart."
It's not mind-boggling at all. Academia is the lens for interpretation. Even if their methods for data collection are sound (a big assumption), their data interpretation has become absurdly biased. They're so used to interpreting things "correctly" that the idea of letting the data speak for itself leads to conclusions they're specifically trained not to reach.
The abstract uses the phrase "advocate for radical policy changes". Which in context means "opposes public health officials calling for shutting down the economy, locking people in their homes, and completely restructuring society". Imagine being so "radical" as to think people ought to have lived 2020 and 2021 in much the same way as they lived 2019.
The whole social distancing paradigm is a radical departure from established norms and would have been considered unorthodox to scientists in the medical community just 5 years ago.
I still say the biggest surprise I saw was someone I know who did their PHD on the Spanish flu concluding masks didn't do anything calling for masks a year ago...
Of course got unfriended when I linked them to a copy of their own paper on the subject...
Pretty worrying to know cultists like that are the ones making all the decisions tbh
I presume any scientists in the medical community today are simply keeping their heads down while the activists have the run of the place...
Pick one, pinkos.
This is the first instance where “the quiet part out loud” really applies imo. People today aren’t anti-science or whatever pejorative these clergy people want to use, we’re collectively more educated than ever before and we know how much of academia is just bullshit people put through to try and get their degree.
In the very first paragraph of the abstract (the very first section), you get this gem:
Yes, "business as usual" and "things are more or less fine", "be normal" and "behave like a citizen in a free and democratic nation" are radical policies according to the authors. Not only are they radical policies, but they're changes, as in, that's not how they view the world. They live in a dictatorship, and to defy the dictatorship in any way is a radical policy change.
Fundamentally, they are admitting the truth: data is being presented properly and it's not going the way they want in regards to policy.
Unorthodox Science
BEST Science.
"Fuck. We've over-educated the peasants."
This is all LeVar Burton's fault.
And so the children didn't.
He'd probably call you a science denier (and a racist, etc-ist) if you quoted that back at him today.
He'd probably call me a racist for wearing my "Infadel" shirt.
Well, this is a pre-print that did not yet get published (or may not ever get published). At least i prefer to think it is, since that's what arxiv is for.
“Do your research and cone to your own conclusions”
“Wait! Bot like that!”