Comment by mike_hearn | Hacker News Reader

Comment by mike_hearn | Hacker News Reader

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I referenced the SAR in the post you're replying to (not under that name). Measuring that it's quite low isn't an explanation of why that happens, or an incorporation of that fact into policy.

I get what you mean about consensus but scientific consensus is by definition clear cut, it's supposed to mean 100% agreement. Often something is presented as a scientific consensus when it's really not, rather, people who disagree are being ignored or blocked from publishing.

During COVID a lot of things were presented to the public as if it were 100% obvious and agreed with by every specialist, then policy was made on that basis. You couldn't just disagree with government mitigations and ignore them, they were enforced by law and this was justified by the idea that anyone who disagreed with their effectiveness was a misinformation-addled rube who had to be forced for the good of everyone else. People who pointed out data or papers that disagreed with this supposed consensus were fired or banned from social media to try and maintain this illusion of universal agreement.

> there are some 200 countries and "they" followed very different policies

Did they? I'm pretty sure virtually every (rich) country all imposed mass testing, quarantines, mask mandates, lockdowns and mass vaccinations. Other than Sweden famously rejecting lockdowns, which countries didn't do these things? Policy was globally homogenous because the public health community is global and their methods don't really vary. Tegnell was the exception that proved the rule.

> Often something is presented as a scientific consensus

> During COVID a lot of things were presented to the public as if it were 100% obvious and agreed with by every specialist

Who is it that presents things to the public? Who are "they"? Who is "the media"? At least in the country I live in different journalists/writers/bloggers had very different opinions and they changed significantly over time. You could even watch the scientific process in real-time: New evidence comes in, people update their beliefs.

> scientific consensus is by definition clear cut

> maintain this illusion of universal agreement.

> Policy was globally homogenous

We can agree or disagree whether there are these groups that all act in unison, what I want to point out is that you need these homogenous groups for your argument to work.

If different countries had come to similar conclusions independently, that would mean the conclusion are likely valid, no? If different journalists/experts/scientist from different countries/cultures/political backgrounds came to similar conclusions independently, that would mean the conclusion is likely valid, no?

I'm making a guess here: I hypothesise that your discontent stems from the fact that you don't want other people to tell you what to do or not to do. In particular you disagree with the concept that society is a mechanism to distribute both wealth but also burden. Does that ring a bell?

"They" means scientists. The CDC, SAGE in the UK and the equivalents in other countries. They were directly giving briefings and press conferences.

We got to watch the scientific process in real time, indeed. It consisted of new evidence coming in and nobody updating their beliefs.

> If different countries had come to similar conclusions independently, that would mean the conclusion are likely valid, no?

No. After all, that cuts both ways. Many hundreds of millions of people around the world who were fully independent of the scientific grant funding structure watched this process and came to very different conclusions. So that must be mean the conclusions are likely invalid, no?

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