{"id":1026,"date":"2020-10-01T23:16:29","date_gmt":"2020-10-01T23:16:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/joshmitteldorf.peachpuff-wolverine-566518.hostingersite.com\/?p=1026"},"modified":"2020-10-21T17:26:51","modified_gmt":"2020-10-21T17:26:51","slug":"the-men-who-speak-for-science","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scienceblog.com\/joshmitteldorf\/2020\/10\/01\/the-men-who-speak-for-science\/","title":{"rendered":"The Men who Speak for Science"},"content":{"rendered":"

The scientific community has something that American corporations and politicians want. It\u2019s not technology or research. It\u2019s not understanding or policy guidance. It\u2019s the people’s confidence.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

In recent decades, every institution in America has suffered decline in public confidence. The press, the Federal government, religious institutions, banking, corporations, even academia\u2014<\/span>\u00a0confidence levels are all in the 30-40% range. But public confidence in science is still over 90%.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Sources:\u00a0Gallup<\/a>,\u00a0Gallup<\/a>,\u00a0Gallup<\/a>,\u00a0Pew<\/a><\/p>\n

It follows that if you want to market a product or win an election, claiming that \u201cscience is on my side\u201d is a powerful selling point. If you want to halt human colonization of the global ecosphere or move people out of their cars into public transportation, the backing of science is natural and maybe even honest. If you have more sinister goals\u2014<\/span>shutting down democracy, dividing a nation so it is politically dysfunctional, destroying small businesses and handing their markets to multinational giants\u2014<\/span>then claiming the imprimatur of science is probably the only way to con hundreds of millions of people into a program so profoundly contrary to their interests.<\/p>\n

Look around. You see responsible citizens and good neighbors cooperating to curtail the spread of a deadly virus. But if you blink and look again, you may see the widest, fastest, most successful mass deception in the history of the world.<\/p>\n

They\u2019ve come so far because they have money and government and the press on their side. But they could not have captured so many minds without the support of a few people who claim to speak for science. Of course, Bill Gates and Anthony Fauci and Neil Ferguson are not representatives of a scientific consensus. But, curiously, they have not been laughed off the stage. The scientific community has not come together,\u00a08-million<\/a>\u00a0strong, with a public statement that \u201cThese men do not speak for science.\u201d And years of anemic public education has taught the populace to accept a scientific world view, rather than to trust their own evidence-based thinking.<\/p>\n

We the People will not pull out of this nightmare on our own. The public will continue sleepwalking into medical martial law without a strong and credible counter-narrative. There is a powerful need for We the Scientists to come together and override the mountebanks who have hijacked<\/span>\u00a0the mantle of science.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not news that science is subject to political and financial influence. Examples from the past must start with the\u00a0pharma industry<\/a>\u00a0as the most egregious offender; and also\u00a0FDA diet recommendations<\/a>, health effects of\u00a0cell phones<\/a>, suppression of\u00a0energy technologies<\/a>, past suppression of data about asbestos and tobacco and lead.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

But never before 2020 have so few people with so little scientific credential claimed to speak for the scientific community as a whole; and never has the public been asked to modify our daily lives and sacrifice our livelihoods on such a scale.<\/p>\n

Anecdotal Evidence<\/span><\/p>\n

Biological weapons are an abomination. No government or research institute has even tried to convince the public that biowarfare research is a good idea, because it would so obviously stir more opposition than support.<\/p>\n

After WW II, Nazi bioweapons programs were transplanted to the US, thanks to\u00a0Operation Paperclip<\/a>. The story is told in horrifying detail by\u00a0Stephen Kinzer<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In the wake of international\u00a0treaties<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0acts of Congress<\/a> to outlaw bioweapons research, the US project was re-branded as pandemic preparation and transferred to civilian laboratories. The ruse was that in order to prepare for the next killer pathogen that may soon emerge from the wild, we must create laboratory-modified viruses so we can develop vaccines and treatments for them. The obvious flaw in this logic has been no obstacle to the bureaucratic momentum behind the project.<\/p>\n

In 2005, 700 prominent scientists protested to the NIH, calling attention to the masquerade of biological warfare as public health [NYTimes<\/a>]. Our largest and most prestigious association of scientists, AAAS issued a strong editorial<\/a> denouncing biowarfare research. Though they did not succeed in halting the program, they created a public relations nightmare for NIH, and after Obama\u2019s election, the NIH program was indeed curtailed, and had to be moved (temporarily) offshore.<\/p>\n

The situation is very different in 2020. In April,\u00a0Newsweek<\/a> helped alert the public that Dr Fauci\u2019s own NIAID was sponsoring gain-of-function research in Wuhan, China, that modified bat Coronaviruses so they could infect humans. President Trump got wind of this, and ordered that\u00a0 gain-of-function research at NIAID be immediately defunded. I\u2019m confident that scientists as well as the public were overwhelmingly supportive of this sensible, belated gesture.<\/p>\n

But that was not the response of record. In short order, a prominent group of (geriatric? bamboozled?) scientists was reported to protest the move.\u00a077 Nobel Laureates Denounce Trump Officials For Pulling Coronavirus Research Grant<\/a>. And last month, AAAS produced editorials in support of continuing this insanely dangerous program. Even in a year as bizarre as 2020, I never expected to be siding with Donald Trump against the institutions of science. I read and reread the article in\u00a0Science<\/span><\/a>\u00a0before I was forced to conclude that Trump was wearing the white hat.<\/p>\n

\n\n\n\n
In the same issue, there was a\u00a0second editorial<\/a>\u00a0denouncing Trump for \u201cpoliticization of science\u201d by permitting research to go forward with plasma from recovered COVID patients as treatment for present patients. This approach to treatment is logical, it has historic precedent, and by all means it should be tested. The only reason I can imagine for suppressing convalescent plasma is that, if it works, it obviates the need for a vaccine, and NIH as well as private investors have billions of dollars sunk in vaccines. I would not dare to make such a charge if I had not seen an even more blatant example of the same phenomenon in the suppression of chloroquine [ref<\/a>,\u00a0ref<\/a>,\u00a0ref<\/a>,\u00a0ref<\/a>].I shouldn\u2019t have to say this, but please don\u2019t interpret my position here as any kind of general support for Donald Trump. I believe he is as corrupt and ignorant a president as I have known in my lifetime\u2014<\/span>though GWBush gives him a run for his money. One of the unfathomable turns of politics this year is that so many Democrats have been so enraged by Trump\u2019s ascent to power that even when he does the right thing they leap to oppose him. Look at the\u00a0Democratic response<\/a>\u00a0when he announced withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n

COVID-19 and the Perversion of Science<\/span><\/p>\n

The political response to COVID, in the US and elsewhere, has been not only contrary to well-supported medical science, but contrary to common sense and contrary to past practice. In every respect, the response has been either ineffective or likely to make the situation worse. We started too late for a quarantine program to be effective; then we failed to protect the most vulnerable and failed to quarantine the sickest patients. In fact, we forced nursing homes to take in COVID patients, triggering a predictable tragedy. Ventilators remained the standard of care long after it was reported by front-line doctors that they were killing COVID patients. Healthy, young people are at very low risk for serious complications, and should have been out there earning our herd immunity; instead, they were kept terrified and locked up. The economy and all cultural and religious institutions were closed down, leading to tens of thousands of deaths of despair<\/a> [video by Glen Greenwald<\/a>]. Masks and social distancing, the least effective<\/a> protections, were endlessly promoted while simple, effective protections including vitamin D and zinc were actively disparaged by health authorities. And all the while, the most effective treatment of all, zinc + chloroquine, was criminally suppressed. Now, as deaths from COVID are down to a fraction of their April peak, government and media continue their campaign to terrorize us with a false narrative<\/a>, while extending lockdowns, school closures, and masking into the indefinite future.<\/p>\n

Call for a response by the scientific community<\/span><\/p>\n

Mosts scientists are curious and open-minded, opinionated but cognizant of others\u2019 opinions, the opposite of polemical. It is not a natural community from which to recruit activists. But the misrepresentation of science in this pandemic has been extreme, and it threatens the future of science and its role in guiding public policy. There have been many scientists who have stood up to counter the COVID narrative. Many more have been censored, their videos taken down from social media. This is a time when we, the scientific community, have been called to come together and call the misleadership of AAAS into account. There is an urgent need for scientists who have been shy about public stands in the past to come forward and speak out.<\/p>\n

\n

Over the next week, I will post details of ways in which I have seen science distorted in support of a government and corporate COVID agenda.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

Here are ten messages that are essential pieces of the standard COVID narrative, but which are unfounded in actual science. Stay tuned for a detailed rebuttal of each.<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. \u201cThe origin of the SARS-CoV-2 virus was one of many random events in nature in which a virus jumps from one species to another.\u201d<\/li>\n
  2. \u201cChloroquine kills patients and is too dangerous to use against COVID\u201d<\/li>\n
  3. \u201cThe Ferguson model warned us of impending danger in time to take action and dodge a bullet.\u201d<\/li>\n
  4. \u201cAmerican deaths from COVID: 200,000 and counting\u201d<\/li>\n
  5. \u201cNew cases of COVID are expanding now in a dangerous Second Wave\u201d<\/li>\n
  6. \u201cMasks and social distancing are keeping the virus in check in our communities\u201d<\/li>\n
  7. \u201cDr Fauci and the CDC are guiding our response to COVID according to the same principles of epidemic management that have protected public health in the past.\u201d<\/li>\n
  8. \u201cAsymptomatic carriers are an important vector of disease transmission, which must be isolated if we are to stop the spread of COVID\u201d<\/li>\n
  9. \u201cThe lower death rates now compared to April are due to protective measures such as social distancing, mask-wearing, and limited travel.\u201d<\/li>\n
  10. \u201cWith enough resources, pharmaceutical scientists can develop a vaccine in a matter of months, and provide reasonable assurance that it is safe.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    END of Part 1
    \n    Link to Part 2<\/a>
    \n    Link to Part 3<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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The surprising fact that our bodies are genetically programmed to age and to die offers an enormous opportunity for medical intervention. It may be that therapies to slow the progress of aging need not repair or regenerate anything, but only need to interfere with an existing program of self-destruction. Mitteldorf has taught a weekly yoga class for thirty years. He is an advocate for vigorous self care, including exercise, meditation and caloric restriction. After earning a PhD in astrophysicist, Mitteldorf moved to evolutionary biology as a primary field in 1996. He has taught at Harvard, Berkeley, Bryn Mawr, LaSalle and Temple University. He is presently affiliated with MIT as a visiting scholar. In private life, Mitteldorf is an advocate for election integrity as well as public health. He is an avid amateur musician, playing piano in chamber groups, French horn in community orchestras. His two daughters are among the first children adopted from China in the mid-1980s. Much to the surprise of evolutionary biologists, genetic experiments indicate that aging has been selected as an adaptation for its own sake. This poses a conundrum: the impact of aging on individual fitness is wholly negative, so aging must be regarded as a kind of evolutionary altruism. Unlike other forms of evolutionary altruism, aging offers benefits to the community that are weak, and not well focussed on near kin of the altruist. This makes the mechanism challenging to understand and to model. more at http:\\\/\\\/mathforum.org\\\/~josh\",\"sameAs\":[\"http:\\\/\\\/AgingAdvice.org\"],\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/scienceblog.com\\\/joshmitteldorf\\\/author\\\/joshmitteldorf\\\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO Premium plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"The Men who Speak for Science - Josh Mitteldorf","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/scienceblog.com\/joshmitteldorf\/2020\/10\/01\/the-men-who-speak-for-science\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"The Men who Speak for Science","og_description":"The scientific community has something that American corporations and politicians want. It\u2019s not technology or research. It\u2019s not understanding or policy guidance. It\u2019s the people’s confidence. In recent decades, every institution in America has suffered decline in public confidence. The press, the Federal government, religious institutions, banking, corporations, even academia\u2014\u00a0confidence levels are all in the ... 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The surprising fact that our bodies are genetically programmed to age and to die offers an enormous opportunity for medical intervention. It may be that therapies to slow the progress of aging need not repair or regenerate anything, but only need to interfere with an existing program of self-destruction. Mitteldorf has taught a weekly yoga class for thirty years. He is an advocate for vigorous self care, including exercise, meditation and caloric restriction. After earning a PhD in astrophysicist, Mitteldorf moved to evolutionary biology as a primary field in 1996. He has taught at Harvard, Berkeley, Bryn Mawr, LaSalle and Temple University. He is presently affiliated with MIT as a visiting scholar. In private life, Mitteldorf is an advocate for election integrity as well as public health. He is an avid amateur musician, playing piano in chamber groups, French horn in community orchestras. His two daughters are among the first children adopted from China in the mid-1980s. Much to the surprise of evolutionary biologists, genetic experiments indicate that aging has been selected as an adaptation for its own sake. This poses a conundrum: the impact of aging on individual fitness is wholly negative, so aging must be regarded as a kind of evolutionary altruism. Unlike other forms of evolutionary altruism, aging offers benefits to the community that are weak, and not well focussed on near kin of the altruist. This makes the mechanism challenging to understand and to model. more at http:\/\/mathforum.org\/~josh","sameAs":["http:\/\/AgingAdvice.org"],"url":"https:\/\/scienceblog.com\/joshmitteldorf\/author\/joshmitteldorf\/"}]}},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/scienceblog.com\/joshmitteldorf\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2020\/10\/confidence.png","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pgtN8h-gy","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/scienceblog.com\/joshmitteldorf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1026","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/scienceblog.com\/joshmitteldorf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/scienceblog.com\/joshmitteldorf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scienceblog.com\/joshmitteldorf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/65"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scienceblog.com\/joshmitteldorf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1026"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/scienceblog.com\/joshmitteldorf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1026\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scienceblog.com\/joshmitteldorf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1027"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/scienceblog.com\/joshmitteldorf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1026"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scienceblog.com\/joshmitteldorf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1026"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scienceblog.com\/joshmitteldorf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1026"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}