I'm afraid to admit it, but when that happens, combined with how prohibitively expensive it is to go to the doctor in the first place. It gets me conspiratorial about going to the doctor at all. I feel like they avoid catching things early, and they'll only diagnose something if they can charge thousands to fix it. Or they wait until it's too late when you have to pay for w/e they want.
I wouldn't even trust the vaccine or certain medicines, because of science... Not because ignoring it like the pharma industry does off-guardian.org/2020/12/02/5-burning-questions-about-the-new-covid-vaccine/
What did he do? *Sold you the drug that ALL of them would have prescribed not withstanding their varied diagnoses? Like prednisone or some other fit-all 'wonder drug'?
Technocracy in a nutshell. The appeal of a quasi-mechanical nature (including humankind) is one of the strongest drugs to get off from. As a STEM graduate myself, it is painfully shameful how long it took me to actually understand that causation is not correlation. As a former researcher in the area it is double painful to realize that in the pursuit of artificial intelligence, I too often found myself achieving fast stupidity instead. That is without even going into the fact research is paid for in our privatize world and studies will be financed until they produce the desired results. Politicians and scientists should have to adopt the NASCAR model of wearing your sponsors names on their suits/coats.
Speaking as a scientist, lefty and philosophy enthusiast, I can't endorse anyone claiming to "follow the science". You can't derive an 'ought' from an 'is'. The most science can tell, at its best, is what are the likely consequences of one or another set of policies. Of course, sometimes the interests of the population at large align in a certain direction, and/or the economic cost of some policy is much lower than the alternatives, but the decision in then a matter of common sense and not the same as 'following the science'.
@@crizish You can google Hume's Guillotine if you are want a more thorough explanation. Then this video is also excellent: ua-cam.com/video/nGVIJSW0Y3k/v-deo.html
@@KilgoreTroutAsf I liked the videos, cheers! The women was kind scary...but, hey, that's just my opinion. I'm going to have to listen to the guy again later 'cause it's late and his rant was putting me to sleep... (seems like a good explanation, just not at 11:30 pm...)
@@gertrudewest4535 It definitely is. So it’s interesting to think about why it is, and I think with Dr. Harvey’s analysis in hand it’s easy to see it largely as a failing of the American culture of expertise as much as the discipline itself, although there’s much to be said about that as well.
@@CephalicMiasma4 you are partially right. The positivist model of science around the world (whose origin is pretty much european), being the hegemonic one, is responsible, though.
Then in India would die like flies, its about pollution of environment air, and in India we have monsune that half of the year clean pollution, and of course diet that is terrible in America in general especially in poorest population. What is so difficult to understand about this. Diet influences the immune system, and pollution of air degenerate respiratory system. Old population has both degeneration because they were longer stressed by unhealthy conditions of modern Western life. You don't need science to see and understand this just common sense
This segment is *exceptionally* important. ...This issue, which I'd call a kind of "elitism of perspective" that has become pretty entrenched in fields like journalism, academia, gov't, and scientific research has given rise to whole subcultures like the Q-Anon situation and distrust in institutions, etc. In fact, it's specifically those four (4) fields that our friend Rush LImbaugh used to call the "Four Corners of Deceit" or something. The "elitism" phenomenon naturally arises from the fact that these disciplines (since they don't pay much, in general), are only pursued in a sort of technocratic isolation by the elites of various kinds that can afford to do things out of the "purity" or what-not, which is needed. ...So, propagandists can then try to take advantage of this weakness, and it just seems like from the NYTimes, to Teachers, to the CDC, to the New England Journal of Medicine, the various experts have been naive in that they've allowed themselves to be the tools of the powerful. ...They have been slowly coming-around (thanks to Trump in a way), but maybe we should all review Howard Zinn's book, **You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train**? ..It's a very tough challenge -- and it's going to get worse.
The sciences are bound by the limitations imposed by capitalism, no doubt. And the sciences are also terrible at dealing with the public, there is always an authoritarian speech, which simply does not convince the poorest people who are used to being treated with disrespect by the authorities and automatically assume that the content of that speech will not favor them. A very interesting discussion.
The necessary limits of science are because it is not possible to research every thing at the same time, Already Socrates understood the limits of science and the limits of scientific concept if they shall be exact enough to hit the object. He talks about akribia, which means that the concepts must be so exact and inexact as the world itself. Science has to divide the plurality of the world into different areas of knowledge to succeed, but because the world is a totality , where everything is connecting with all the other thing sand processes, philosophy is necessary, but only a philosophy that is bort within and between the sciences. Science is not wisdom because abstracting the common features of an area and overlooks the differences. Wisdom, says Socrate, is to know the nature of thing and also to identify the causes in individual cases. So it is not only capitalism, it is also reality and reality is both universal and individual. He says that it is not the disease that is sick but an individual and the implication is that every species of disease has an individual evolution from beginning to the end. That was the reason that the hippocratic doctors made extremely precise diagnosis and mixed the medicines individually adapted.
A major problem is sanctifying expertise in a narrow field, rather than opening up thinking to view the whole terrain, to understand how everything influences everything else. A lack of "generalists", people not necessarily well-versed in many fields but who see the overlaps does not allow us to grasp the full scope of the problem. Such "dabblers" are far more important in these times of megaproblems overlapping every which way.
The world needs a "Council of Wisdom". I was screaming 6 months ago to implement a 2 week moratorium. Prepare for 7 days and the world would mandatory quarantine for 14 days except for a skeleton crew of Essential workers hospital etc. The alternative is to let a virus run its natural course. The bare minimum approach we excepted caught us with our pants down and it wasn't pretty was to try and avoid overwhelming the sick care for profit system.
Joe Biden, the smartest person out of 330,000,000 in the USA, has just told the fine folks in our country that 250,000 Americans will die in December unless everyone stays in their homes and not celebrate Christmas. And, everyone must wear masks at all times. except for when they take a bite of fruitcake. California governor Newsom is exempt from these restrictions, he has another event scheduled at the French Laundry in Napa, California.
To be honest I think it is not that the science itself neglects social context but rather that the science which is emphasized in media and policy debates is disproportionately favored in a specific direction.
The problem with moving away from the rule of experts is that the minimum degree of expertise to make good decisions in a complex system (like our societies) is actually quite high. Problems such as this pandemic require multidisciplinary responses, not purely generalistic ones. The only possible answer to the flaws of science is more science. The scientific comunity (and academia in general) has HUGE communication problems. However... Even if those are addressed, a minimum level of scientific literacy is still required to differentiate solid science from speculation or just bad faith. The only real solution is universal scientific education.
Why should scientific discourse be limited? Harvey is talking about problems with the authority of experts and their distance to the rest of society, not the whole concept of science...
Absolutely. Spot on. Truth relativistic anti science Leftism makes my skin crawl. All I can hear when certain twerps talk about "capitalist science" (despite the fact that capitalism has been throughoughly dismantling the basic tenets of peer review through increased private sector marketisation - see Phillip Mickowsky on this) all I can hear is some Stalinst complaining about "capitalist Darwinianism" and promoting Lynsekoism. Politicising science is phenomenally dangerous, as we've seen throughout the crisis. The left needs to drop its fetish of democracy, and respect the role of expertise above public sentiment (bear in mind the reason scientists demanded they be treated as independents, with university grants funding divorced from popular sentiment was precisely because they were terrified of the US military trying to use them as Cold War government apparachniks, which seems a faie deal to me. Andrew Freeberg has talked about this).
@@ThePsycoDolphin who's going to turn science into politics? The philosopher kings? Science by itself can't produce policy, it can only ever help us if we know what we want, what our values are. To that, democracy should be the answer. At the same time, science can always benefit from having more viewpoints and broader communication, that's another kind of democracy. I can think of many examples of scientists failing because of their personal biases and limited vision, because even experts are just people. I'm really puzzled by the suggestion that leftism suffers under a "fetish" for democracy, because in my mind leftism is all about empowering people.
I agree that science is not to be followed as the very essence of science is to question and not follow blindly. However the flipside of that is a scenario which is just as common where people are convinced nobody can teach them anything, that they have nothing to learn. So yes, science could be less authoritarian in its presentation. But no, that won't make it any more palatable (to some people).
Perhaps medicine isn't the right analogy for comparing these two things. In my 20+years experience in the health care field I encountered a number of GP's and ER physicians who seemed to have a second sense in diagnosis. However, it is true that if you don't have an issue that is easily compartmentalized with a fixed diagnosis and treatment regimen, you could be left out in the cold.
I am sooo on board with this notion that an ideology- and interests-based appeal to science as authority is not only biased on its face, but incomplete science, in that it does not take into account what Prof Harvey here calls (after Marx?) 'the conditions of life'. Unfortunately, this point of view time and again proves unable to survive the utopian smell test (administered by Power and its minions), supremely rational and humane though it may be, thereby sidelining most supposedly predictive and corrective social science as at best worthwhile after the fact commentary.
It's interesting. I'm going through the playlist in sequence and this follows pretty shortly after the episode on the centralization of authority. These ideologies seem diametrically opposed. In order to have an effective central power that is capable of enacting quick and decisive actions, you need experts. Otherwise what is informing those decisions? On what basis did China decide to enact the policy of forced quarantining? They did it based on the data collected by experts which showed the scope of the issue at hand. I feel confident that is not the path that the Chinese Communist Party would have taken if they didn't have data on the matter. It would have been a lot more likely that they would continue their efforts to cover the situation up. If you want to see how distrust of experts and public health policy built on popular opinion play out, look at Florida. There has been a near-total disregard for anything said by any scientist about Covid, and it's been an absolute shit show. I'm not sure who he thinks collected and analyzed the data that showed that poor and minority communities have been hit hardest. Experts, scientists, researchers - whatever you want to call them - have a role to play. This is especially true in situations like a pandemic. People will not voluntarily come to the conclusion that they should change their behavior to halt the spread of the disease. The fight over this very issue in the US is a case study of this. Humans are not good at conceptualizing problems except once they have become an immediate issue. That's just how we are. And in regards to global warming, I wish we had a rule by experts. We have had people who are experts in the field getting ignored for fucking decades on this subject. Why has so very little been done in that time? There hasn't been the popular will to do anything so politicians don't dare rock the boat (if we're being so generous as to assume that they care at all or even believe that Climate Change is real). The people who actually know about the issue have no actual control over what gets done about it. We may have different ideas on what the word 'Rule' means. Encouraging the tendency of people to say, 'Well, your claims don't match my anecdotes, so idk if you actually know what you're talking about.' is irresponsible at best in the sorts of scenarios being discussed in this video. There's a saying that I quite like which is, 'Data is not the plural of anecdote' All of that said. There were a couple of diamonds in the rough here. The idea that we should identify the most vulnerable groups and make double our efforts to protect them is absolutely spot on. Additionally, the point that we should take away that the people who are most vulnerable are not in that situation by coincidence but as a result of structural problems is something that I absolutely agree with. I'm not optimistic that that will happen or that any sort of real change will be enacted but that is the takeaway that we should have. The problem that we have is laziness on the part of policymakers. They say, 'just listen to these science people, and you fix your problem yourself'. Avoiding getting Covid is something that has been distributed almost entirely to the level of the individual. To me, this speaks more of how terribly sunk into neoliberalism we are as a society - wear your mask, keep six feet apart, and keep shopping so that the economy stays afloat. After all, what could matter more than the economy? Our leaders have been cowards and have not forced any sort of measure to contain the disease. Instead, they prefer to hide behind the people doing the research and let that be the end of it. The role of epidemiologists, or any scientist for that matter, is to inform. Given the information that this is a disease that does best when people are in close contact with each other indoors, the people who actually have the ability to do anything could have formed policies to aggressively work to protect the most vulnerable parts of our society by that definition, but they didn't. If I'm coming across as angry that's because I am. 'Just being skeptical' of the experts is what has us on the track for irreversible temperature increases even if we were to completely neutralize our carbon emissions within the next decade, which won't happen. And that's the best case. It's also the reason that I'm writing this 9 months after this video got uploaded and we have people self-medicating with horse de-worming medications rather than getting a fucking vaccine. Should anyone have the ability to sit on high unquestioned? No of course not, but a single expert saying something is not how scientific consensus is formed. Science, when done right (which you bet your ass it was with Covid), is a bunch of people who know a lot about a subject being skeptical of each other's claims. And their skepticism is based on their knowledge of the field and the processes used in the experimentation that led to those claims, not a hunch, or what you saw happen to your neighbor. If anyone reads this and actually gets this far, thanks for actually hearing me out. If you want to actually exert skepticism on the claims of scientists, go to the source and read the papers. A lot of journals are paywalled, which sucks, but it is possible to at least get a hold of an abstract most of the time.
Local statistician here: it WOULD be possible to have SIR models and their related models factor in that certain places are more disadvantaged. You'd likely need to use Bayesian methods, but it's almost certainly possible.
globaly there is emergence of biostate, with adhoc police state rules, and with its population little by little reduced to the status of zoa , meaning without any rights except that to the naked life. Of course as long as they obey police biostate rules.
How useful could all those young scientists be who don't get one of the few academic positions and go straight to a company? Many academics and researchers with successful careers have little time to bridge gaps with the public. This wastes many results and leaves a void to be filled by the anti-intellectuals and economic elites (aka fascists). Masks good versus masks bad gets all the attention and is an absolutely draining subject.
Yes, the you need a better sound recording to get rid of the echo (see Chris Titus Tech or Jeff Geerling videos), speak clearly, slightly slower, pause more often, avoid repetition (edit the recording), use graphical props and you will get more hits! kdenlive opensource video editor is free!
What would happens if an engineer designs a bridge where her calculations omit the laws of gravity, or a vehicle that disregards the friction phenomenon? Would we still call them scientifically designed because the engineer in question practiced engineering science and got a degree in it? Even when the bridge and the vehicle fail to function? The 'omission' of the differential view of the population is not a mistake. The science in question is not a science; statistics is a science but not the way it is misused in medicine, this way it is a tool of population control and protection of the profit-oriented medico-pharmaceutical capitalism. In a hundred years since the last viral pandemic, they still have no cure for a simple virus! Ever wonder why they so viscously attack homeopathic science and the TCM which know how cure the little virus. Homeopathic theory is steeped in the exact same ideas and laws as the dialectical materialism.
We see that other government are doing bad buy not as bad as the U.S. I wondering why!. Capitalist logic. Money today.money tomorrow. greed forever. Not scientific.
You started to lose me with the "holistic" crap, but overall I agree. Some caveats worth discussing: You might be complaining about aggregate policy and or aggregate data. When instead, we need to be controlling for more variables. Science is a method, not an encyclopedia of facts. If there's data saying crowded communities are hit harder, that's science.
@@pablobarroso7193 I don't know what you mean by "approach". There is the scientific method - and that is basically all of "science". Research, testing your hypothesis etc.
Yes, there should have been preparations for pandemics that take into account the uneven vulnerability of the population as a result of class inequality. However, that was not done. And the predictable result was uneven contagion. The question is what to do when facing a contagion for which inadequate preparations were made as a result of class inequality? If they forgot to load the life jackets onto the boat, you discover the mistake when the boat is sinking, but then what do you do? The "authority" of the life jacket is then supreme. I would say that inquiries into why there were no life jackets aboard will and should begin once the emergency is over, not during the emergency.
Definitely the most I've ever disagreed with any of your videos. You can't be blaming scientists for problems with social structure, uninformed politicians, and the media's bad choices in reporting. Edit: 22:20 Okay, I get it now. The problem is that he's old. Sorry to be ageist, but that is the most "Damn kids and their rock and roll!" thing I've heard in months. He's allowed his age to make him stagnant, rigid, and atrophied in thought. The world is changing faster than he can keep up, and he's upset about that. It happens to all of us at some point. I get it. I'll be there in sooner than he likely was, but I can't abide by someone telling the public to ignore the experts! He sounds like Trump, and if you ever find yourself in the same boat as that pos, you know it's time to seriously reevaluate your thinking. The next step is selling essential oils, so I'd be careful if I were him. That's not a rabbit hole you want to fall down. They'll have you painting white roses red until you die.
You're basically correct here. Nobody's arguing that scientists should be treated like Gods who are infallible. But, as scientists, we should want to be transparent and public with our findings. Science should work to better humanity, and I don't think that's radical or unreasonable. Generally, scientists aren't telling people how to live in an authoritarian manner. We're only communicating to you what's likely to happen given a set of real circumstances (i.e., not wearing masks).
Had to dislike this. Sorry mate, but if America actually followed science, capitalism won’t exist and we won’t be stuck in the climate crisis mess we’re in and all the foreign wars wouldn’t have happened. Also, social epidemiologists are AWARE that factors such as race, lack of access to amenities, cultural aspects, etc. what you’re saying is still solved by the scientific method.
Harvey isn't questioning the validity of the scientific method. More science is part of the solution, but it's not about having better experts, but decreasing the gap between experts and the rest of society, for the sake of both.
Yeah lots of what I hear here is bullshit. I'm a statistician. When I study stuff, I'm not "telling people what to believe", I'm telling you what my analyses suggests and then I try to give sensible policies based on that. And yes, on certain issues, you should trust me more than your local person down the street because I have the requisite background to talk about Technical Subject A and they don't
@@jaredgreathouse3672 he does, the way I heard it. But he definitely doesn't emphasize not listening to science, because he never says that. His problem with science is from bad outside influences and misuse of the authority of experts, not something inherent to science. I could argue he's addressing a lack of science and expertise in politics and broader society, but that's not the words he'd use so I understand that he gets misunderstood.
Never attribute to incompetence and stupidity that which can be adequately explained by malice.
Never have truer words been said.
Science is not to be “followed “. The job of science is discussion.
For which there has been a deplorable lack of.
Well a lack of one side of discussion , Science is to question not to follow .
I've had the EXACT occurrence of the pharmacist solving a health problem in one sentence after long encounters with multiple specialists. 😜
I'm afraid to admit it, but when that happens, combined with how prohibitively expensive it is to go to the doctor in the first place. It gets me conspiratorial about going to the doctor at all. I feel like they avoid catching things early, and they'll only diagnose something if they can charge thousands to fix it. Or they wait until it's too late when you have to pay for w/e they want.
I wouldn't even trust the vaccine or certain medicines, because of science... Not because ignoring it like the pharma industry does off-guardian.org/2020/12/02/5-burning-questions-about-the-new-covid-vaccine/
What did he do? *Sold you the drug that ALL of them would have prescribed not withstanding their varied diagnoses? Like prednisone or some other fit-all 'wonder drug'?
Technocracy in a nutshell. The appeal of a quasi-mechanical nature (including humankind) is one of the strongest drugs to get off from.
As a STEM graduate myself, it is painfully shameful how long it took me to actually understand that causation is not correlation. As a former researcher in the area it is double painful to realize that in the pursuit of artificial intelligence, I too often found myself achieving fast stupidity instead.
That is without even going into the fact research is paid for in our privatize world and studies will be financed until they produce the desired results.
Politicians and scientists should have to adopt the NASCAR model of wearing your sponsors names on their suits/coats.
Speaking as a scientist, lefty and philosophy enthusiast, I can't endorse anyone claiming to "follow the science".
You can't derive an 'ought' from an 'is'. The most science can tell, at its best, is what are the likely consequences of one or another set of policies. Of course, sometimes the interests of the population at large align in a certain direction, and/or the economic cost of some policy is much lower than the alternatives, but the decision in then a matter of common sense and not the same as 'following the science'.
Sounds like an interesting paper in your comment. If you wrote it, I’d certainly read it.
@@crizish You can google Hume's Guillotine if you are want a more thorough explanation.
Then this video is also excellent:
ua-cam.com/video/nGVIJSW0Y3k/v-deo.html
@@crizish And this one too:
ua-cam.com/video/hEUO6pjwFOo/v-deo.html
@@KilgoreTroutAsf I liked the videos, cheers! The women was kind scary...but, hey, that's just my opinion. I'm going to have to listen to the guy again later 'cause it's late and his rant was putting me to sleep... (seems like a good explanation, just not at 11:30 pm...)
I’m not a religious man, but if the deity exists may she bless this dear man Mr Harvey.
❤️ Dr. Harvey, expert of my heart. ❤️
American psychiatry is a farce and a scam
@@gertrudewest4535 It definitely is. So it’s interesting to think about why it is, and I think with Dr. Harvey’s analysis in hand it’s easy to see it largely as a failing of the American culture of expertise as much as the discipline itself, although there’s much to be said about that as well.
Wow, this was beyond brilliant. Thank you!
The problems created by western science cannot ve solved by western science alone. Engels and Levins would be proud of this program. Cheers.
I think it's fair to say that those problems were not started by science alone either.
Also, there is no such thing as "western science". Chinese scientists are doing the same science the western world is doing.
@@CephalicMiasma4 you are partially right. The positivist model of science around the world (whose origin is pretty much european), being the hegemonic one, is responsible, though.
Then in India would die like flies, its about pollution of environment air, and in India we have monsune that half of the year clean pollution, and of course diet that is terrible in America in general especially in poorest population. What is so difficult to understand about this. Diet influences the immune system, and pollution of air degenerate respiratory system. Old population has both degeneration because they were longer stressed by unhealthy conditions of modern Western life. You don't need science to see and understand this just common sense
This segment is *exceptionally* important. ...This issue, which I'd call a kind of "elitism of perspective" that has become pretty entrenched in fields like journalism, academia, gov't, and scientific research has given rise to whole subcultures like the Q-Anon situation and distrust in institutions, etc. In fact, it's specifically those four (4) fields that our friend Rush LImbaugh used to call the "Four Corners of Deceit" or something.
The "elitism" phenomenon naturally arises from the fact that these disciplines (since they don't pay much, in general), are only pursued in a sort of technocratic isolation by the elites of various kinds that can afford to do things out of the "purity" or what-not, which is needed. ...So, propagandists can then try to take advantage of this weakness, and it just seems like from the NYTimes, to Teachers, to the CDC, to the New England Journal of Medicine, the various experts have been naive in that they've allowed themselves to be the tools of the powerful. ...They have been slowly coming-around (thanks to Trump in a way), but maybe we should all review Howard Zinn's book, **You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train**?
..It's a very tough challenge -- and it's going to get worse.
The sciences are bound by the limitations imposed by capitalism, no doubt. And the sciences are also terrible at dealing with the public, there is always an authoritarian speech, which simply does not convince the poorest people who are used to being treated with disrespect by the authorities and automatically assume that the content of that speech will not favor them. A very interesting discussion.
The necessary limits of science are because it is not possible to research every thing at the same time, Already Socrates understood the limits of science and the limits of scientific concept if they shall be exact enough to hit the object. He talks about akribia, which means that the concepts must be so exact and inexact as the world itself. Science has to divide the plurality of the world into different areas of knowledge to succeed, but because the world is a totality , where everything is connecting with all the other thing sand processes, philosophy is necessary, but only a philosophy that is bort within and between the sciences. Science is not wisdom because abstracting the common features of an area and overlooks the differences. Wisdom, says Socrate, is to know the nature of thing and also to identify the causes in individual cases. So it is not only capitalism, it is also reality and reality is both universal and individual. He says that it is not the disease that is sick but an individual and the implication is that every species of disease has an individual evolution from beginning to the end. That was the reason that the hippocratic doctors made extremely precise diagnosis and mixed the medicines individually adapted.
A major problem is sanctifying expertise in a narrow field, rather than opening up thinking to view the whole terrain, to understand how everything influences everything else. A lack of "generalists", people not necessarily well-versed in many fields but who see the overlaps does not allow us to grasp the full scope of the problem. Such "dabblers" are far more important in these times of megaproblems overlapping every which way.
Context, context, context
The world needs a "Council of Wisdom". I was screaming 6 months ago to implement a 2 week moratorium. Prepare for 7 days and the world would mandatory quarantine for 14 days except for a skeleton crew of Essential workers hospital etc. The alternative is to let a virus run its natural course. The bare minimum approach we excepted caught us with our pants down and it wasn't pretty was to try and avoid overwhelming the sick care for profit system.
Joe Biden, the smartest person out of 330,000,000 in the USA, has just told the fine folks in our country that 250,000 Americans will die in December unless everyone stays in their homes and not celebrate Christmas. And, everyone must wear masks at all times. except for when they take a bite of fruitcake. California governor Newsom is exempt from these restrictions, he has another event scheduled at the French Laundry in Napa, California.
21:46 A good time for Laurie Anderson's song "Only An Expert".
As an ex-Population Geneticist and still rabid Leftie - this was quite interesting and thought provoking!
To be honest I think it is not that the science itself neglects social context but rather that the science which is emphasized in media and policy debates is disproportionately favored in a specific direction.
All models are wrong, but sometimes useful.
The problem with moving away from the rule of experts is that the minimum degree of expertise to make good decisions in a complex system (like our societies) is actually quite high. Problems such as this pandemic require multidisciplinary responses, not purely generalistic ones. The only possible answer to the flaws of science is more science. The scientific comunity (and academia in general) has HUGE communication problems. However... Even if those are addressed, a minimum level of scientific literacy is still required to differentiate solid science from speculation or just bad faith. The only real solution is universal scientific education.
Why should scientific discourse be limited? Harvey is talking about problems with the authority of experts and their distance to the rest of society, not the whole concept of science...
Absolutely. Spot on. Truth relativistic anti science Leftism makes my skin crawl. All I can hear when certain twerps talk about "capitalist science" (despite the fact that capitalism has been throughoughly dismantling the basic tenets of peer review through increased private sector marketisation - see Phillip Mickowsky on this) all I can hear is some Stalinst complaining about "capitalist Darwinianism" and promoting Lynsekoism. Politicising science is phenomenally dangerous, as we've seen throughout the crisis. The left needs to drop its fetish of democracy, and respect the role of expertise above public sentiment (bear in mind the reason scientists demanded they be treated as independents, with university grants funding divorced from popular sentiment was precisely because they were terrified of the US military trying to use them as Cold War government apparachniks, which seems a faie deal to me. Andrew Freeberg has talked about this).
@@ThePsycoDolphin who's going to turn science into politics? The philosopher kings?
Science by itself can't produce policy, it can only ever help us if we know what we want, what our values are. To that, democracy should be the answer.
At the same time, science can always benefit from having more viewpoints and broader communication, that's another kind of democracy. I can think of many examples of scientists failing because of their personal biases and limited vision, because even experts are just people.
I'm really puzzled by the suggestion that leftism suffers under a "fetish" for democracy, because in my mind leftism is all about empowering people.
This is correct.
Glad to see you seem healthy
Kissinger > " Elderly are useless eaters " .. Who`s dyeing ?
The statistical population is influenced by political policy. Look at the fight around the US Census.
I agree that science is not to be followed as the very essence of science is to question and not follow blindly. However the flipside of that is a scenario which is just as common where people are convinced nobody can teach them anything, that they have nothing to learn. So yes, science could be less authoritarian in its presentation. But no, that won't make it any more palatable (to some people).
This construct is known as Social Vulnerability
Perhaps medicine isn't the right analogy for comparing these two things. In my 20+years experience in the health care field I encountered a number of GP's and ER physicians who seemed to have a second sense in diagnosis. However, it is true that if you don't have an issue that is easily compartmentalized with a fixed diagnosis and treatment regimen, you could be left out in the cold.
Close the eating establishments but its fine to travel on the tube , Shop by the 1000s @ the box stores ???
cool plants
I am sooo on board with this notion that an ideology- and interests-based appeal to science as authority is not only biased on its face, but incomplete science, in that it does not take into account what Prof Harvey here calls (after Marx?) 'the conditions of life'. Unfortunately, this point of view time and again proves unable to survive the utopian smell test (administered by Power and its minions), supremely rational and humane though it may be, thereby sidelining most supposedly predictive and corrective social science as at best worthwhile after the fact commentary.
It's interesting. I'm going through the playlist in sequence and this follows pretty shortly after the episode on the centralization of authority. These ideologies seem diametrically opposed. In order to have an effective central power that is capable of enacting quick and decisive actions, you need experts. Otherwise what is informing those decisions? On what basis did China decide to enact the policy of forced quarantining? They did it based on the data collected by experts which showed the scope of the issue at hand. I feel confident that is not the path that the Chinese Communist Party would have taken if they didn't have data on the matter. It would have been a lot more likely that they would continue their efforts to cover the situation up.
If you want to see how distrust of experts and public health policy built on popular opinion play out, look at Florida. There has been a near-total disregard for anything said by any scientist about Covid, and it's been an absolute shit show.
I'm not sure who he thinks collected and analyzed the data that showed that poor and minority communities have been hit hardest. Experts, scientists, researchers - whatever you want to call them - have a role to play. This is especially true in situations like a pandemic. People will not voluntarily come to the conclusion that they should change their behavior to halt the spread of the disease. The fight over this very issue in the US is a case study of this. Humans are not good at conceptualizing problems except once they have become an immediate issue. That's just how we are.
And in regards to global warming, I wish we had a rule by experts. We have had people who are experts in the field getting ignored for fucking decades on this subject. Why has so very little been done in that time? There hasn't been the popular will to do anything so politicians don't dare rock the boat (if we're being so generous as to assume that they care at all or even believe that Climate Change is real). The people who actually know about the issue have no actual control over what gets done about it. We may have different ideas on what the word 'Rule' means.
Encouraging the tendency of people to say, 'Well, your claims don't match my anecdotes, so idk if you actually know what you're talking about.' is irresponsible at best in the sorts of scenarios being discussed in this video. There's a saying that I quite like which is, 'Data is not the plural of anecdote'
All of that said.
There were a couple of diamonds in the rough here. The idea that we should identify the most vulnerable groups and make double our efforts to protect them is absolutely spot on. Additionally, the point that we should take away that the people who are most vulnerable are not in that situation by coincidence but as a result of structural problems is something that I absolutely agree with. I'm not optimistic that that will happen or that any sort of real change will be enacted but that is the takeaway that we should have.
The problem that we have is laziness on the part of policymakers. They say, 'just listen to these science people, and you fix your problem yourself'. Avoiding getting Covid is something that has been distributed almost entirely to the level of the individual. To me, this speaks more of how terribly sunk into neoliberalism we are as a society - wear your mask, keep six feet apart, and keep shopping so that the economy stays afloat. After all, what could matter more than the economy? Our leaders have been cowards and have not forced any sort of measure to contain the disease. Instead, they prefer to hide behind the people doing the research and let that be the end of it. The role of epidemiologists, or any scientist for that matter, is to inform. Given the information that this is a disease that does best when people are in close contact with each other indoors, the people who actually have the ability to do anything could have formed policies to aggressively work to protect the most vulnerable parts of our society by that definition, but they didn't.
If I'm coming across as angry that's because I am. 'Just being skeptical' of the experts is what has us on the track for irreversible temperature increases even if we were to completely neutralize our carbon emissions within the next decade, which won't happen. And that's the best case. It's also the reason that I'm writing this 9 months after this video got uploaded and we have people self-medicating with horse de-worming medications rather than getting a fucking vaccine. Should anyone have the ability to sit on high unquestioned? No of course not, but a single expert saying something is not how scientific consensus is formed. Science, when done right (which you bet your ass it was with Covid), is a bunch of people who know a lot about a subject being skeptical of each other's claims. And their skepticism is based on their knowledge of the field and the processes used in the experimentation that led to those claims, not a hunch, or what you saw happen to your neighbor.
If anyone reads this and actually gets this far, thanks for actually hearing me out. If you want to actually exert skepticism on the claims of scientists, go to the source and read the papers. A lot of journals are paywalled, which sucks, but it is possible to at least get a hold of an abstract most of the time.
How do you like a video twice? ❤️
Local statistician here: it WOULD be possible to have SIR models and their related models factor in that certain places are more disadvantaged. You'd likely need to use Bayesian methods, but it's almost certainly possible.
globaly there is emergence of biostate, with adhoc police state rules, and with its population little by little reduced to the status of zoa , meaning without any rights except that to the naked life. Of course as long as they obey police biostate rules.
# Empty Hospitals .
21:31 I don't think Populism is the key since the media industry has too great an influence on opinion.
How useful could all those young scientists be who don't get one of the few academic positions and go straight to a company? Many academics and researchers with successful careers have little time to bridge gaps with the public. This wastes many results and leaves a void to be filled by the anti-intellectuals and economic elites (aka fascists). Masks good versus masks bad gets all the attention and is an absolutely draining subject.
Junk science for sale
Yes, the you need a better sound recording to get rid of the echo (see Chris Titus Tech or Jeff Geerling videos), speak clearly, slightly slower, pause more often, avoid repetition (edit the recording), use graphical props and you will get more hits! kdenlive opensource video editor is free!
What would happens if an engineer designs a bridge where her calculations omit the laws of gravity, or a vehicle that disregards the friction phenomenon? Would we still call them scientifically designed because the engineer in question practiced engineering science and got a degree in it? Even when the bridge and the vehicle fail to function? The 'omission' of the differential view of the population is not a mistake. The science in question is not a science; statistics is a science but not the way it is misused in medicine, this way it is a tool of population control and protection of the profit-oriented medico-pharmaceutical capitalism. In a hundred years since the last viral pandemic, they still have no cure for a simple virus!
Ever wonder why they so viscously attack homeopathic science and the TCM which know how cure the little virus. Homeopathic theory is steeped in the exact same ideas and laws as the dialectical materialism.
We see that other government are doing bad buy not as bad as the U.S. I wondering why!. Capitalist logic. Money today.money tomorrow. greed forever. Not scientific.
You started to lose me with the "holistic" crap, but overall I agree.
Some caveats worth discussing:
You might be complaining about aggregate policy and or aggregate data.
When instead, we need to be controlling for more variables.
Science is a method, not an encyclopedia of facts.
If there's data saying crowded communities are hit harder, that's science.
Science is not a method. It is an approach to reality.
@@pablobarroso7193 I don't know what you mean by "approach".
There is the scientific method - and that is basically all of "science".
Research, testing your hypothesis etc.
Yes, there should have been preparations for pandemics that take into account the uneven vulnerability of the population as a result of class inequality. However, that was not done. And the predictable result was uneven contagion. The question is what to do when facing a contagion for which inadequate preparations were made as a result of class inequality? If they forgot to load the life jackets onto the boat, you discover the mistake when the boat is sinking, but then what do you do? The "authority" of the life jacket is then supreme. I would say that inquiries into why there were no life jackets aboard will and should begin once the emergency is over, not during the emergency.
Definitely the most I've ever disagreed with any of your videos.
You can't be blaming scientists for problems with social structure, uninformed politicians, and the media's bad choices in reporting.
Edit: 22:20 Okay, I get it now. The problem is that he's old. Sorry to be ageist, but that is the most "Damn kids and their rock and roll!" thing I've heard in months.
He's allowed his age to make him stagnant, rigid, and atrophied in thought. The world is changing faster than he can keep up, and he's upset about that. It happens to all of us at some point. I get it. I'll be there in sooner than he likely was, but I can't abide by someone telling the public to ignore the experts! He sounds like Trump, and if you ever find yourself in the same boat as that pos, you know it's time to seriously reevaluate your thinking. The next step is selling essential oils, so I'd be careful if I were him. That's not a rabbit hole you want to fall down. They'll have you painting white roses red until you die.
You're basically correct here. Nobody's arguing that scientists should be treated like Gods who are infallible. But, as scientists, we should want to be transparent and public with our findings. Science should work to better humanity, and I don't think that's radical or unreasonable. Generally, scientists aren't telling people how to live in an authoritarian manner. We're only communicating to you what's likely to happen given a set of real circumstances (i.e., not wearing masks).
Religion is the way of life who ever they might be and however they might do
Had to dislike this. Sorry mate, but if America actually followed science, capitalism won’t exist and we won’t be stuck in the climate crisis mess we’re in and all the foreign wars wouldn’t have happened. Also, social epidemiologists are AWARE that factors such as race, lack of access to amenities, cultural aspects, etc. what you’re saying is still solved by the scientific method.
Harvey isn't questioning the validity of the scientific method. More science is part of the solution, but it's not about having better experts, but decreasing the gap between experts and the rest of society, for the sake of both.
Yeah lots of what I hear here is bullshit. I'm a statistician. When I study stuff, I'm not "telling people what to believe", I'm telling you what my analyses suggests and then I try to give sensible policies based on that. And yes, on certain issues, you should trust me more than your local person down the street because I have the requisite background to talk about Technical Subject A and they don't
@@tychoclavius4818 well he doesn't really place emphasis on that
@Preston Garvey So? Just because my regressions can't derive moral truths doesn't mean that we should ignore them in discussions about morality
@@jaredgreathouse3672 he does, the way I heard it. But he definitely doesn't emphasize not listening to science, because he never says that. His problem with science is from bad outside influences and misuse of the authority of experts, not something inherent to science.
I could argue he's addressing a lack of science and expertise in politics and broader society, but that's not the words he'd use so I understand that he gets misunderstood.
Obviously this guy has a bit of science envy, quite undertsandable given his profession.