Category Archives: Politics and sociology

When will we beat the false positives?

Posted on 17/02/2021 by Jon Garvey

Daily Telegraph headline today: “Covid lockdown to continue until cases drop below 1,000 a day.” It’s accompanied by a graphic projecting the current fall in UK cases to make April 7th the likely date. But there is reason to doubt this optimism.

Posted in Medicine, Politics and sociology, Science | 1 Comment

A sense of place

Posted on 16/02/2021 by Jon Garvey

I’ve just read two books to lift the heart above the media’s COVID monomania, albeit it in a bittersweet way. The second was Meadowland: the Private Life of an English Field, by John Lewis-Strempel, a birthday gift from my daughter. It traces the year in the life of a hay-meadow in Herefordshire as observed by its owner, which resonates with me because I own a hay-meadow in Devon.

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Proportionality

Posted on 14/02/2021 by Jon Garvey

Just a couple of UK-based graphics to consider this wintry Sunday:

Posted in Medicine, Politics and sociology, Science | 2 Comments

Tragedy

Posted on 12/02/2021 by Peter Hickman

This is a guest post by Dr Peter Hickman, an experienced UK medical practitioner, and a regular commenter on The Hump. The phrase “every death is a tragedy” has been repeated multiple times by the Prime Minister and other politicians during the 2020/21 SARS-Cov-2 Coronavirus pandemic. What does “every death is a tragedy” actually mean, and is it a useful or appropriate thing to say?

Posted in Medicine, Politics and sociology, Theology | 1 Comment

When public truth becomes subjective

Posted on 09/02/2021 by Jon Garvey

In my last post I wrote about the subjectivisation of truth in the progressive programme. But it would be a mistake to think this is restricted to specific examples like race and gender, because the postmodern element of progressivism extends it to the whole of life. It is all truth that becomes subjectivised to a preferred narrative, not just particular instances. Needless to say, this has profound implications.

Posted in History, Philosophy, Politics and sociology, Theology | 2 Comments

Paranoia and Patriarchy

Posted on 08/02/2021 by Jon Garvey

Paranoia is a pretty distressing symptom in its common setting of schizophrenia. My in-laws once went for a house viewing, only to find the place full of scrap metal structures intended to prevent US satellites spying on the owner. But it can occasionally be potentially lethal as well.

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Those best placed to know

Posted on 06/02/2021 by Jon Garvey

Bret Weinstein, in discussion with Heather Heying, makes some interesting observations on why “scientific consensus” is not always the virtuous thing it seems. His topical example is the increasing evidence that SARS-CoV-2 was accidentally released from the virology laboratory in Wuhan, as the evidence for the “wet market” hypothesis becomes less and less persuasive.

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The English, the English, the English are best…

Posted on 04/02/2021 by Jon Garvey

I guess it’s now pretty well known around the world how the one successful part of Britain’s COVID policy has been its vaccine procurement and distribution. I mean, we were pretty well the first to OK the Pfizer vaccine, and we seem to have got away with it rightly judged its safety. And the Oxford vaccine, with a little tradesmen’s help from those Swedish chaps, was a close second on the scene.

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This is what got us here in the first place

Posted on 02/02/2021 by Jon Garvey

The line taken both by speakers at the WEF Davos virtual conference, and in its publicity beforehand, is that “The Great Reset” is the way to go forward, rather than a return to the previous normal, because the latter is what got us into this mess in the first place. That claim requires a little examination.

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Why lockdown kills everybody

Posted on 31/01/2021 by Jon Garvey

I’m pretty sure a new word is soon going to become part of the English language: “zoomed-out.” I keep hearing the concept, if not always the phrase, used by people who are, ostensibly, doing reasonably well under lockdown. Whether it’s our own student pastor, doing all his church and college work on a screen, or historian Neil Oliver comparing dreary lockdown life with the buzz he felt from a live audience on a book tour before all this, or even my old school-fellow J. J. Burnel commenting ruefully on trying to compose a new Stranglers album via Zoom (having sadly lost his friend and keyboard player, Dave Greenfield, to COVID … Continue reading →

Posted in Medicine, Philosophy, Politics and sociology, Science, Theology | 1 Comment