Posted on 12/27/2023 5:59:23 AM PST by DoodleBob
…Americans’ trust in the agency, and in science more broadly, was badly damaged by the coronavirus pandemic, …38% of Republicans said they had little or no confidence in scientists to act in the public’s best interests, up from 14% in April 2020.
At the same time, the CDC’s winter vaccination campaign appears to be falling on deaf ears. ..And partisan divisions over vaccination persist: A KFF poll in September found 7 in 10 Democrats but just a quarter of Republicans planned to get the updated COVID shot.
…
When (Dr. Mandy K. Cohen) speaks to reporters, she frequently brings up her children…“…if we can have a human-to-human conversation about what I would do for my own kids, who I love and I want to be healthy, maybe that can connect us in a different way.”
…
Experts agree CDC officials and other public health leaders made serious messaging missteps during the pandemic. Officials bred mistrust by speaking “with certainty when there wasn’t any” and later changing their recommendations…research found a significant portion of the public — as much as 20% or 25% — was now unreachable because public health officials used language that “sounded like it was lecturing, and almost abusive toward people who had legitimate doubts.”
…
…When Rep. Daniel Crenshaw, R-Texas, pushed her to admit that the CDC had been wrong during the pandemic, she politely ignored the request. Rep. Jeff Duncan, R-S.C., wanted to know if she had regrets about COVID restrictions from her time in North Carolina (where she called for students and staff members in K-8 schools to wear masks and threatened legal action against a school district over its COVID policies). Cohen did not admit to any. When he asked her pointedly if she would impose such restrictions today, she ducked the question,
(Excerpt) Read more at seattletimes.com ...
Meet the new boss…
I have a great deal of trust in science. It’s the majority of scientists who are just as corrupt as the majority of politicians, and for much the same reason: if you want your research funded, you have to have your conclusions pre-set bu the funders.
Betcha the CDC won't do any of this. The truly massive amount of funding provided to the CDC by entrenched politicians far outweighs truth ... and Liberty.
Make that “science.” It’s anything but.
I have trust that the scientific method can produce informative and insightful results when followed correctly. I believe statistical significance isn’t absolute certainty. I believe in full disclosure.
None of the above was followed by the CDC et al during the pandemic. And that same bastardized pathway is still being followed.
I don’t know which agency is a bigger dumpster fire : the CDC, IRS, or FBI.
CDC is run by the Government, brings to mind President Reagans famous 9 words.
Get back to me on that trust in about 200 years. I still want to know the true reason virologist Dr. Timothy Cunningham angrily walked out of his CDC office in the middle of the day, took a walk picking up pretty rocks and ended up dead in the river with no after care for his beloved dog.
Take Covid. People with reasonable questions about the efficacy of masks and the clot shot were dismissed as heretics. I thought that was the entire POINT of science. Asking questions and being a heretic and discovering something nobody else has.
It never was.
And it sure isn't now.
The history of science is littered with "no wait....that's wrong...THIS is right..." going through the rinse and repeat cycle endlessly.
And that's ok. Inquiry and challenge and "being a science heretic" is, in many ways, how mankind learns more and can fix more problems.
One of my favorite sagas regarding "accuracy" and "settled science" is ulcers.
In 1981 Barry Marshall began working with Robin Warren, the Royal Perth Hospital pathologist who, two years earlier, discovered the gut could be overrun by hardy, corkscrew-shaped bacteria called Helicobacter pylori. Biopsying ulcer patients and culturing the organisms in the lab, Marshall traced not just ulcers but also stomach cancer to this gut infection. The cure, he realized, was readily available: antibiotics. But mainstream gastroenterologists were dismissive, holding on to the old idea that ulcers were caused by stress.
Unable to make his case in studies with lab mice (because H. pylori affects only primates) and prohibited from experimenting on people, Marshall... ran an experiment on ...himself. He took some H. pylori from the gut of an ailing patient, stirred it into a broth, and drank it....Back in the lab, he biopsied his own gut, culturing H. pylori and proving unequivocally that bacteria were the underlying cause of ulcers.
For their work on H. pylori, Marshall and Warren shared a 2005 Nobel Prize. Today the standard of care for an ulcer is treatment with an antibiotic.
But science isn't math. Your checking account balance is the sum of deposits less sum of withdrawals. Always. Forever.
The problem arises when people try to equate science with math...usually they call it "settled science." And, to be sure, robust inquiry and disciplined application of the scientific method usually gives you clear and distinct results. Then, science is settled...until we get new data or better techniques, and then we get "wait a minute..".
For example, there was a most excellent article posted on how "settled science" wasn't so settled, wherein:
seems that Earth has been misplaced. According to a new map of the Milky Way galaxy, the Solar System's position isn't where we thought it was. Not only is it closer to the galactic centre - and the supermassive hole therein, Sagittarius A* - it's orbiting at a faster clip.
It further noted other "errors" in SCIENCE:
A good recent example of this is the red giant star Betelgeuse, which turned out to be closer to Earth than previous measurements suggested. This means that it's neither as large nor as bright as we thought. Another is the object CK Vulpeculae, a star that exploded 350 years ago. It's actually much farther away, which means that the explosion was brighter and more energetic, and requires a new explanation, since previous analyses were performed under the assumption it was relatively low energy
The other problem arises when Certain Powers work overtime to suppress assiduous inquiry. Which, is what we have today as well. It's a bad double whammy.
In the interest of full disclosure, my "science isn't math" quote came from a recent post on social sciences, that featured this brilliant give and take involving a Harvard faculty member critical of Charles Murray from the original article, that is worth reprinting - it is with regard to the "certainty of SCIENCE":
"so why should we let someone teach social science that we know to be wrong in our social science courses?"
Because it is possible that you are wrong.
Science is not mathematics. Newtonian physics was wrong. And social science is a further three rungs down in certainty from science.
Your level of certainty and arrogance about what can be said, and probably thought, smacks of religion, and not science. This is a political religion that permeates academia at the moment. And which I am fairly sure you will swear does not infect you, while the rest of us can see the symptoms quite plainly.
Only religions ban heretics from speaking because of the wrong-think they might cause. Real science loves a good heretic. In fact, honestly, the entire goal of science is to be a heretic. To have an idea that no other person ever had. Science is the pretty much the antithesis of your thought-police approach.
And most of academia used to be the antithesis of your thought police approach as well, until the religion of leftism took it over, with the direct help of people like you.
Science, like truth, does not need a PR campaign.
Politicians and liars need PR campaigns.
Communicating “who I love” as part of her job? NTSA
“I’m not just the CDC director, I’m also a mom,” she said cheerily, noting on live television that her daughters, 9 and 11, had already received the latest COVID and flu shots. She added, “So I wouldn’t recommend something for the American people I wouldn’t recommend for my own family.”
Whatever Dr. Mengele Cohen.
If you were promoting tea oil extract for gangrene, should I take you seriously?
Your team deKcuF up and did so willingly so, they could cash on the lucrative deals to be in The BioPharma Industrial Complex.
You guys are frauds
I will neve take the flu shot again and won’t be finishing my 2nd shot for Shingles as I thought I was going to lose my arm from the 1st and was put in bed for over a week from it.
I trust real science.
I DON’T trust anyone from the Gov. including the CDC.
It would deepen my trust if all of the woke control freaks at CDC/NIH/NIAID gathered on their front lawn, read a short statement of apology, linked arms, and committed mass suicide.
Absent that, I will never trust them again — along with about three quarters of the rest of the medical “profession”. Just like journalists, they have gone from helpful public servants to power-mad cultural marxist control freaks in the blink of an eye.
Push to indict Fauci and we might believe you.
The “scientists” want to save the planet by reducing population.
They have a conflict of interest—saving and extending lives will harm the planet.
Let us hear them talk openly about that topic—if they dare.
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