Ever hear the old saying, “There are lies, damn lies, and statistics”? We are living through this.
There are plenty of Flubros but the "it's exponential bro" types are just as annoying..and wrong. It's a logistic pattern, and nature has followed it for zillions of years. And yet, we see endless threads of this guy quoting this chart and that gal posting this link...does anyone READ this analysis/try to draw a conclusion to help themselves or our fellow man? Or did they see some zinger on Breitbart that supports their hysteria?
There is also an amazing display of Authority Bias...Fauci may be smart (he's authored some good papers) but he vacillates between hysteric and sober spokesbureaucrat - AND he whined for more money during Ebola and he wrote a "love letter" to Hillary. So, I'm supposed to believe him - or anyone holding a medical degree or doctorate or slide ruler - because of a resume? Indeed, the asinine author of this article can't help himself by stating up front "One of the offshoots of being on the debate team in college, taking graduate level statistics as part of my masters and working as a lawyer, is an awareness of how one can make a case for practically anything, by playing around with evidence, numbers, analysis and language." Well I am IMPRESSED...Do you want a cookie?
Now of course I want someone to know what they are doing - I want my electrician to mend the electricity, my doctor to remove my appendix vs toe, and my chef to make a steak. And maybe Blake is a good debater and attorney etc..but Frank Zappa said effectively he didn't care if any auditioner went to Curtis or played with the LSO - I'll see if they can play during the audition.
That is my approach. And frankly, most of the analysis I've seen is crap. I'm sure many people feel the same way about what I've posted, but at least my stuff is original AND Road-tested by FReepers who WILL tell me where I've erred. It's one of the best peer-review places around...and it is how I've seen DoughtyOne and gas_dr produce the best work, and we'd be in the dark without null. Thank you all.
The fact of the matter, is that we are facing something unprecedented....and the tin foil hat guys can make as much sense at times as the statisticians. Wayne Allen Root put it best:
I have many great friends and guests on my national TV and radio shows who are medical experts. Half believe this is the pandemic to end all pandemics. They quote Centers for Disease Control and Prevention models that report as many as 1.7 million Americans could die. So people are rightfully scared out of their minds. American business is shutting down. But the other half of my medical friends and expert guests say this is an overreaction. They predict fewer Americans will die than during the flu season of 2017-18 that killed about 80,000 people. They don't believe we need to close down American business and lock ourselves in our homes. The problem is we won't know who's right until it's over.
So many of us will do our own homegrown analysis and post it for comment in a quest for the truth. Americans have a historic distrust of authority but a champioining of the individual. And THAT is what is annoying so many people who pretend to possess the truth through this thing - we think you're full of shite, mate.