I think one of the things that fundamentally bothers me when conspiracy theorists get into scientific topics is the basic laziness of it.
There are a lot of things about the universe that are hard to understand or that nobody understands, but to a remarkable extent it's basically an open book. It takes a lot of effort though. It works in complicated and subtle ways that the human brain isn't trivially suited to comprehend. Trying to understand all that is a huge adventure.
These people imagine that all of the big questions of existence have easy peasy answers but that they only seem hard because someone is deliberately hiding the answers from them, like some annoying nerd who won't let them copy their homework. We got the answers all handed to us on a silver platter but they're locked up in a government warehouse somewhere next to the Ark of the Covenant.
@mattmcirvin this is part of why I think it is so critical that we teach the scientific method as a specific, step by step, strongly disciplined tool of investigation and carefully guard terminology to prevent it from being watered down through careless usage.
It helps build a protective shield on one hand and on the other even helps directly disprove some of those who would dip their toes in those subjects.
It can start at an easy level.
Teach people the advantage of playing the odds. There was a bloodclot risk associated with the COVID vaccine, and sure, I looked it up before I got vaccinated the first time. The odds were very much in favor of vaccination
Likewise, you may have an explanation that goes against mainstream opinion from the science community., and there's a nonzero chance that you might be right. But odds are very slim, aren't they?
Poor Dr Fauci. I think he could have played his cards better.
But he was in a position where speaking with authority was expected, and his audience very much needed certainties
If he'd said things like "Presently we recommend that you wash your hands often, but we're waiting for more data and we'll give you an update ASAP"
He didn't foresee the extreme bad faith and water-murkying power of the RW noise machine. Well, he's a scientist. Different mindset from T Carlson
@quatrezoneilles no, I don't extend that excuse to him.
Dr. Fauci wasn't just an expert but someone who had taken a job as a public facing public official. Communicating with and engaging with the public was part of the job.
And he blew it.
He didn't foresee bad faith and water-murkying? How? If he was THAT out of touch with the public then he was unfit for holding a position where understanding the public was so critical.
So I don't know if he could have played his cards better. If he couldn't foresee water-murkying then he was unfit to play the game.
@mattmcirvin
@volkris @quatrezoneilles The thing that was difficult to foresee, I think, was that his own boss would be intentionally sabotaging his message out of simple jealousy of the attention he was getting. That takes a special kind of pathology.
@mattmcirvin @volkris @quatrezoneilles How was Trump sabotaging his message? Fauci praised Trump's efforts to fund vaccine development. What do you have in mind here?
@ech @mattmcirvin @volkris
And this was the last year of Trump's term, when by experience he knew the Senate would approve just about any clown he nominated for just about any post.
Fauci could have resigned, but what if he wanted to make sure he wouldn't have been replaced by someone like Ronnie Jackson? That was a definite possibility at the time... just look at the current Surgeon General in Florida.
@quatrezoneilles if you check the Senate records you'd see that the Senate failed to approve many nominees that Trump sent over.
Those stories were always just sensationalism.
https://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/executive_calendar/2020/Final_2020.pdf
@ech @mattmcirvin @volkris
Well I concluded that Fauci was not naive at all after all. But there are still possible explanations for his behavior that have not been aired
What if he chose to speak with authority instead of admitting ignorance due to lack of data, thinking: the RW noise machine will go "this guy is on top of the health care pyramid but he doesn't know sh-diddly-squat"?
Damned if you do...
FACT: Trump was pro-vaccine until he watched Carlson.