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Post Archive
Category Archives: Politics and sociology
Being on the safe side
We now know a lot more about COVID than we did last year, which makes it easier to follow the science in health policy, as our government is doing with the help of the country’s leading behavioural psychologists and theoretical modellers. Well, mainly political analysts, actually, guessing what will make them look least like idiots for ruining the economy.
Posted in Medicine, Politics and sociology, Science
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Environmental costs of worldly virtue
Now, my problem is that if somebody talks about a sure-fire and simple way of saving the environment, I’ll immediately ask how it works (in detail), what the down-sides are and, of course, the rather obvious one of whether it even works behind the green hype. For some reason, that seems to be an uncommon thing to do, even for governments.
Posted in Politics and sociology, Science
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Virtue, virtue everywhere…
Last month the now mandatory alumni magazine arrived from my wife’s old college. The usual requests for money were inside, but the cover sported a photo of an athletic-looking black chap in rugby strip standing in front of the familiar architecture.
Posted in Philosophy, Politics and sociology, Theology
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We were right about false positives
The current “false positive” discussion that’s reached the MSM is about the lateral flow tests prodigally doled out at supermarkets for the worried public to bodge at home, and how many people will be quarantined unnecessarily for every true positive case. It goes along with the statistic that routine and invasive testing of school children, not at any risk from COVID, costs £120,000 to find one case (and that is probably a false positive too). That many were warning the government of this last year does their policymaking no credit at all.
Posted in Medicine, Politics and sociology, Science
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Spot the correlation
Just a short piece with a second-hand chart, which is instructive if you haven’t seen it. It shows the COVID death rates across the US states:
Posted in Medicine, Politics and sociology, Science
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Do not be deceived
There’s a rather nice little piece in Watts Up With That today. It contrasts real science, based on accumulating evidence, with”Woke Science”: In woke “science” there is no falsifiable hypothesis. In place of that, we have the official orthodox consensus view. The official orthodox consensus view has been arrived at by all the smartest people, because it just seems like it must be right. The official orthodox consensus view must not be contradicted, particularly by the little people like you. Based on the official orthodox consensus view, those in power can take away all your freedom (Covid) and/or transform the entire economy (climate). After all, it’s the “science.”
Posted in Medicine, Politics and sociology, Science
1 Comment
Small, but calculable, mercies
There is a tiny bit of good news on COVID in the last few days, in the advice given by the MHRA to avoid the Astra-Zeneca vaccine in younger patients because of the possible risk of blood clots. The good news is not that the vaccine has taken a hit, but that the decision shows there is still someone in authority, at least, with the nous and courage to buck the party-line propaganda narrative and do their job on principles of reason.
Posted in Medicine, Politics and sociology, Science
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Woke historical revisionism for beginners
There was a rather unfortunate, though amusing, slip of the tongue on yesterday’s Antiques Roadshow. It was on the lips of the seasoned expert Paul Atterbury (also famed as the model for Andy Pandy in his infancy, his mother being the puppeteer), who was examining two sea-rescue medals.
Posted in History, Politics and sociology
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Following the evidence (to make sure it’s dead)
Have you experienced an odd feeling over the last year? You get involved in some ordinary activity – family events, a work project or whatever – and life seems to be getting back to some kind of normality, until you suddenly realize with a start that what with COVID, the Social Justice Revolution, and international politics, the whole world is a lunatic asylum, and it’s the normality that is the illusion.
Posted in History, Medicine, Politics and sociology, Science, Theology
2 Comments
Destructive societal superstitions
There is still a prevalent idea that witchcraft was predominantly a mediaeval thing, representing the remnants of pagan religion amongst the peasantry. In fact, the wave of superstitious belief in witches, pacts with the devil and so on was an early modern phenomenon beginning in the sixteenth century, and was at its height of “witchfinders general,” show trials and so on in the following century. Witchcraft was actually very rare in mediaeval times.
Posted in History, Music, Politics and sociology, Science
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