Free Republic

Skepticism is at the heart of the scientific method. Question everything. Test everything. Scientific knowledge is established by evidence, not authority. The method is sound, but the execution may be imperfect. That's why I have faith in the methods of science but not necessarily in scientists. Experts in science have a store of credibility that can be maintained only by their performance. I have a great deal of trust in the meteorologists at the National Weather Service because their forecasts are 80%–90% accurate (no weatherman jokes, please — I used to be one!). But if most of their predictions began...

Earlier this month, the University of Minnesota School of Public Health released projections from a revised coronavirus computer model that said deaths might double by Memorial Day. That didn’t happen. In fact, to a layman, it doesn’t even look close. Minnesota Health Commissioner Jan Malcolm and a key official involved in the model both acknowledged Tuesday that the short-term death projections of the model are notably higher than the reality — but both defended the value of the model.

Are politicians now continuing the lockdowns because admitting error — that they’re guilty of advancing one of American history’s greatest blunders — would mean political destruction? Are they continuing to destroy the careers of millions to save their own (when, perhaps, something more sinister is not at work)? Many may now draw this conclusion after yet another study, this one by establishment company JP Morgan, has found that the lockdowns have done nothing to alter the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic’s course. As the Daily Mail reports:Falling infection rates since lockdowns were lifted suggest that the virus ‘likely has its own dynamics’...

...Ferguson’s model, however, isn’t the only fraudulent model that led to destructive policy decisions. Citing the Imperial College model, Dr. Christopher Murray, director of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation in Seattle, produced another set of graphs at the end of March that expanded on Ferguson’s pseudoscientific “social distancing” demands. Much like Ferguson, Murray portrayed plague-like conditions in the United States once COVID-19 took hold... Birx and Dr. Anthony Fauci, without subjecting the raw paper to any peer review, presented Murray’s charts to President Trump at the end of March. According to the president, they then insisted he “shut...

In the history of expensive software mistakes, Mariner 1 was probably the most notorious. The unmanned spacecraft was destroyed seconds after launch from Cape Canaveral in 1962 when it veered dangerously off-course due to a line of dodgy code. But nobody died and the only hits were to Nasa’s budget and pride. Imperial College’s modelling of non-pharmaceutical interventions for Covid-19 which helped persuade the UK and other countries to bring in draconian lockdowns will supersede the failed Venus space probe and could go down in history as the most devastating software mistake of all time, in terms of economic costs...

The economy has gone from President Donald Trump's greatest political asset to perhaps his biggest weakness. Unemployment is spiking at an unprecedented rate. Consumer spending is vanishing. And GDP is collapsing. History shows that dreadful economic trends like these spell doom for sitting presidents seeking reelection. The coronavirus recession will cause Trump to suffer a "historic defeat" in November, a national election model released Wednesday by Oxford Economics predicted. The model, which uses unemployment, disposable income and inflation to forecast election results, predicts that Trump will lose in a landslide, capturing just 35% of the popular vote. That's a sharp...

Coronavirus infections could reach as high as 5.4 million in the US in the next two months and more than 290,000 Americans could die if social distancing isn't adhered to, according to a COVID-19 forecast model. The ominous forecast from the University Of Pennsylvania's Wharton School model accounts for all states fully reopening without any social distancing measures. In comparison, the model predicts nearly 4.3 million cases and 230,000 deaths by July 24 if states reopen but individuals maintain their social distancing efforts.

<p>Some things are sacred to scientists: Facts, data, quantitative analysis, and Nature magazine, long recognized as the world's most prestigious science periodical.</p> <p>Lately, many have begun to wonder if Jayson Blair has a new job as their science editor. On Page 616 of the April 8 issue, Nature published an article using a technique that it said, on Page 593 of the same issue, was "oversold," was inappropriately influencing policymakers and was"misunderstood by those in search of immediate results." The technique is called "regional climate modeling," which attempts to simulate the effects of global warming over areas the size of, say, the United States.</p>