Science is a fickle God

June 18, 2020

Science is a fickle God

We all worship; we’re made to worship. We all have an innate consciousness of the need for something greater than ourselves that is in control and that can save us. And never has this been more true than now. From north to south, east to west, there is a ravenous thirst for someone to “save us” from corona doom.

“There is no such thing as not worshiping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship … If you worship money and things, … then you will never have enough … worship power, you will end up feeling weak and afraid, and you will need even more power over others to numb you to your own fear …. But the insidious thing about these forms of worship is … they’re unconscious. They are default settings.“ ~David Foster Wallace, 2005.

Whether dancing around a golden calf or fawning over the “facts and evidence” presented by “experts”, humans are burdened by two fatal propensities 1) a fear of and fascination with calamity, and 2) a knee jerk propensity to abdicate responsibility and demand that “somebody[else] do something!” It is this innate fear of loss and longing to control the future that drives our need to worship, to erect gods to both cry to and to blame. Today, the most pervasive god is science.

Don’t get me wrong, as a practicing dentist I try really hard to base my practice on science. Randomized double-blind unbiased and repeatable tests are the best objective evidence we have. The problem is that that gold standard is extremely difficult to meet. Consequently, most of what passes for scientific “proof” is little more than arrogant postulation. In the October 2019 issue of General Science, author Jonathan Jerry lists nine reasons why scientists rarely seem to get it right.(1) At the top of the list are bias, pride, greed, and the genuine complexity of real life outside the laboratory.

Current and relevant examples of popular scientific dogma that are far from settled include-

Human mediated climate change – Popularly portrayed as settled science(2), both the extent and cause of climate change are not even close to being proven facts. A “fact” elegantly explained before the US Senate by non-other than Greenpeace co-founder Patrick Moore.(3)
Fat is healthy – Nowhere is the necessity for a rigorous examination of the scientific process more critical than in the ongoing debate over dietary fat. Popularized by Adkins and championed by Gary Taubes in his 2002 New York Times article What if It’s All Been a Big Fat Lie,(4) the Keto dream of eating all the grease your heart desires sadly fell flat on its face!(5)
Human evolution – If you really want to be labeled an unscientific lunatic, just dare question the “proven” theory of human evolution. In that statement itself though lies the root of the problem, the word theory. The one thing history and the future both have in common is the undeniable fact that neither can be subjected to scientific testing. Therefor any-and-all theories and models relating to what happened before recorded history and what may happen in the future are just that – theories and models which more often than not end up being replaced by new theories and models. This was glaringly pointed out to me during my visit last summer to evolution’s mecca known as Olduvai Gorge. There in the museum I found these words – The paucity of the fossil record between 2.5 and 2 million years ago does not allow us to reconstruct in detail how this most important phase in human evolution took place. Rare honesty from the scientific community!

But at no time has weakly supported scientific “fact” caused more harm and damage than in the last few months! Here are 7 Facts with the most recent data to support that statement. I’ve excerpted them from a total of 16 points in a June 4 article(6) by J.B. Handley. It would be well worth it to read the whole thing.

1. The Infection Fatality Rate for COVID-19 is somewhere between 0.07-0.20%, in line with seasonal flu – According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the current “best estimate” for the fatality rate among Americans with COVID-19 symptoms is 0.4 percent. The CDC also estimates that 35 percent of people infected by the COVID-19 virus never develop symptoms. Those numbers imply that the virus kills less than 0.3 percent of people infected by it—far lower than the infection fatality rates (IFRs) assumed by the alarming projections that drove the initial government response to the epidemic, including broad business closure and stay-at-home orders.(7)
2. People infected with COVID-19 who are asymptomatic (which is most people) do NOT spread COVID-19 – An ongoing outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has spread around the world. It is debatable whether asymptomatic COVID-19 virus carriers are contagious. We report here a case of the asymptomatic patient and present clinical characteristics of 455 contacts, which aims to study the infectivity of asymptomatic carriers… In summary, all the 455 contacts were excluded from SARS-CoV-2 infection and we conclude that the infectivity of some asymptomatic SARS-CoV-2 carriers might be weak.(8)
3. Published science shows COVID-19 is NOT spread outdoors – “There is absolutely no evidence that this disease is airborne, and we know that if it were airborne, then the measures that we took to control COVID-19 would not have worked,” Dr. Reka Gustafson, B.C.’s deputy provincial health officer, told CTV Morning Live Monday. “We are very confident that the majority of transmission of this virus is through the droplet and contact route….” The overwhelming majority of (COVID-19) transmissions occur through close, prolonged contact and that is not the pattern of transmission we see through airborne diseases,” she said.(9)
4. Science shows masks are ineffective to halt the spread of COVID-19, and The WHO recommends they should only be worn by healthy people if treating or living with someone with a COVID-19 infection(10) – In our systematic review, we identified 10 RCTs that reported estimates of the effectiveness of face masks in reducing laboratory-confirmed influenza virus infections in the community from literature published during 1946–July 27, 2018….In pooled analysis, we found no significant reduction in influenza transmission with the use of face masks…Our systematic review found no significant effect of face masks on transmission of laboratory-confirmed influenza….Proper use of face masks is essential because improper use might increase the risk for transmission.(11) The science regarding the aerosol transmission of infectious diseases has, for years, been based on what is now appreciated to be ‘very outmoded research and an overly simplistic interpretation of the data.’ Modern studies are employing sensitive instruments and interpretative techniques to better understand the size and distribution of potentially infectious aerosol particles…The primary reason for mandating the wearing of face masks is to protect dental personnel from airborne pathogens. This review has established that face masks are incapable of providing such a level of protection… It should be concluded from these and similar studies that the filter material of face masks does not retain or filter out viruses or other submicron particles. When this understanding is combined with the poor fit of masks, it is readily appreciated that neither the filter performance nor the facial fit characteristics of face masks qualify them as being devices which protect against respiratory infections.(12)
5. The epidemic models of COVID-19 have been disastrously wrong, and both the people and the practice of modeling has a terrible history – Specifically, the true number of next day deaths fell outside the IHME prediction intervals as much as 76% of the time, in comparison to the expected value of 5%. Regarding the updated models, our analyses indicate that the April models show little, if any, improvement in the accuracy of the point estimate predictions… Our analysis calls into question the usefulness of the predictions to drive policy making and resource allocation.(13) The models essentially have three purposes: 1) To satisfy the public’s need for a number, any number; 2) To bring media attention for the modeler; and 3) To scare the crap out of people to get them to “do the right thing.” That can be defined as “flattening the curve” so health care systems aren’t overridden, or encouraging people to become sheeple and accept restrictions on liberties never even imposed during wars. Like Ferguson, all the modelers know that no matter what the low end, headlines will always reflect the high end. Assuming it’s possible to model an epidemic at all, any that the mainstream press relays will have been designed to promote panic.(14)
6. The lockdowns will cause more death and destruction than COVID-19 ever did – Although well-intentioned, the lockdown was imposed without consideration of its consequences beyond those directly from the pandemic…The policies have created the greatest global economic disruption in history, with trillions of dollars of lost economic output. These financial losses have been falsely portrayed as purely economic. To the contrary, using numerous National Institutes of Health Public Access publications, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and Bureau of Labor Statistics data, and various actuarial tables, we calculate that these policies will cause devastating non-economic consequences that will total millions of accumulated years of life lost in the United States, far beyond what the virus itself has caused…Considering only the losses of life from missed health care and unemployment due solely to the lockdown policy, we conservatively estimate that the national lockdown is responsible for at least 700,000 lost years of life every month, or about 1.5 million so far — already far surpassing the COVID-19 total.(15)
7. All these phased re-openings are utter nonsense with no science to support them, but they will all be declared a success – “Trust me, whomever conjured up your state’s plan is quite literally making things up as they go along. And, given the extreme range of plans taking place—even in neighboring counties—the odds that they have ANYTHING to do with the arc of the virus is exactly ZERO… The good news is they will ALL succeed, because we never needed to lockdown in the first place—MISSION ACCOMPLISHED.”

One other COVID fact that should be pointed out – all but 0.8% of COVID deaths involved people with other underlying health issues.(16) If you are healthy, you have nothing to worry about.

OK, by now I hope I’ve made my point. Whether or not you agree with the sources I’ve referenced, one thing is certain – science has a rubber nose, easily bent by the scientist’s own preconceived assumptions, biases, and pride, not to mention the extreme limitations of the method itself. This should come as no surprise, especially to the medical community where most if not all physicians were told at the start of their education – “Half of what we are going to teach you is wrong. The problem is that we just don’t know which half that is”!

So, if science cannot be relied on to provide the peace and security we all long for, what are we left with, where do we go from here? Here are 5 points that have proven helpful to me.

Remember: Nobody knows everything. So question everybody, even yourself.
Everybody sees through their own set of filters (experience, education beliefs…). So, with a genuine desire to understand, listen to many voices– including (especially) those that challenge you.
Pick whom/what you worship carefully. And if you choose a god of love, remember that a god of love will be a god of freedom – for the two are mutually and inextricably interdependent. It is impossible for love to flourish in the presence of coercion.
With freedom comes responsibility. Learning to balance love’s freedom with love’s care is a lifelong process.
With responsibility comes risk. If there are things you cannot know, then there will certainly be things you cannot control.

God, give me grace to accept with serenity
the things that cannot be changed,
Courage to change the things
which should be changed,
and the Wisdom to distinguish
the one from the other.

P.S. After reading this, my proofreader asked why there have been so many deaths if the death rate is similar to seasonal flu. Remember, rate and number are not the same thing. If the rate is 1% and 100 people get infected, then 1 person succumbs. However, if 500 people get infected then the number who succumb will be 5. Because this virus is new (“novel”) there is little herd immunity yet, so more people are getting infected at the same time than would typically happen. In other words, as an individual your risk is the same as it is with the regular flu. As a population though, more numbers are at risk. Bottom line, if you live with or care for an at-risk person, be careful. Otherwise, get on with your normal life!(17)

Dr. Lon Peckham provides comprehensive and wholistic dental care in Priest River, Idaho. He is a consultant certified in Lead Management and Choice Theory, as a Lifestyle Health Facilitator, and is currently pursuing certification by the American Board of Lifestyle Medicine. He helps patients and dentists successfully incorporate whole-health into their lives and practices.

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