Don't follow leaders: Scientists are not the new messiahs

Don't Follow Leaders
-- Bob Dylan

Let's be clear here: I'm a scientist. In fact, I'm a computational scientist, whose bread and butter is parameterization and models--the exact same thing as the scientists who are now being looked at as the messiahs, the excuse politicians are using to shut down the economy.

But I'm no messiah. I'm smart enough to know it. I do the best I can, and sometimes I can create a model that is informative and useful and predictive and actionable. And sometimes, despite my best efforts, I can't. A hallmark of a good scientist is being able to tell the difference between the two, and to inform those who might use your models the difference. The technical term for this is telling Shinola from shit and not thinking yours don't stink. 

Over the course of the Coronavirus panic, scientists are increasingly being used to justify all sorts of bad ideas, bad medicine, and assorted bad juju. Some have become rock stars for 15 minutes before falling away in disgrace (Neil Ferguson of Imperial College), while others have attempted to be more tempered and are still on the national stage (Anthony Fauci). But one constant is whenever politicians get in over their head--which seems to be every 30 minutes or so--they pick and choose things these scientists have said to justify their next move. 

It doesn't hurt that President Trump--love him or not--is clearly far far out of his depth when it comes to science. And so Trump blurts out an idea one day, then needs to walk it back the next day. And when he walks it back he inevitably replaces it with an idea he arrived at by consultation with his scientific brain trust. Sadly, this leads Trump to step down from some of his best impulses. Let's recall that Trump's first idea was to close the borders just in case and let the economy play out--the Swedish model. But, based on the crazy unsubstantiated fear-mongering of a few scientists and their sad models, Trump was quickly convinced by his brain trust to shut down the economy. The justification varied, but mostly summarized as "flatten the curve or we all die." As evidence: thousands dead in Italy and Wuhan. Which are statistics, not really actionable science. The science would have required putting those numbers into context (infection rate, population immunity). No one had that information. No one has it now. 

Émile Cammaerts 

Washington lives to not let a crisis go to waste. And to not miss an opportunity to fuel a crisis. And so here we are. 

And those who have created the crisis are now so dug in that there is no room for data or conclusions that don't fit the narrative. Most recently, this has taken the form of vitriol spewed towards Stanford scientist John Ioannidis--who had the audacity to publish actual data that suggests that Coronavirus may not be nearly the scourge the politicians and their complicit scientists have suggested. Be it no matter that Dr. Ioannidis's findings are far better supported than are those of any of the scientists who helped engineer the economic crash.  No, those in charge and their acolytes are talking with religious fervor now, and you don't argue with people like that. Try arguing with a fundamentalist about the existence of God. 

And the people in the street, those who didn't create the problem, but who have bought in like docile sheep? They have fallen in line, protecting their chosen messiahs. 

More than a century ago, Émile Cammaerts wrote

When men choose not to believe in God, they do not thereafter believe in nothing. They then become capable of believing in anything.

Looking at how easily out increasingly secular nation (particularly on the left) has succumbed, he was right.