The Sordid History of Scam Science
Robert E. Wright
– July 17, 2020

AIER >> Daily Economy >> Policy >> Economic Trends >> Economic Education >> Crisis


I went with scam science in the title partly because of the alliteration but mostly because Steve Milloy already claimed junk science. His Junk Science Judo (and website), Julian Simon’s Hoodwinking the Nation, Matt Ridley’s The Rational Optimist, and Thomas Sowell’s Intellectuals and Society are must reads if you are struggling, as I continue to do, with the world’s wacky reaction to the not-so-novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19. For those with insufficient time or inclination to read a thousand pages, I offer my synthesis here.

Don’t get me wrong, COVID-19 is a very, very serious disease for the aged and those with comorbidities. But it was never serious enough to merit locking down much of the world’s economy for months on end. Even an outbreak of smallpox or the Black Death would not have merited that blunt, top-down, one-size-fits all response. (Incidentally, while smallpox has been eradicated from the wild, cases of the bubonic plague still plague the western United States. No joke! This map is from the CDC, so it “has to be” correct.)

The socioeconomic and health effects of the lockdown are far-reaching temporally, geographically, and environmentally and will take years to sort out carefully. For example, while some cheer that fewer critters have been killed by vehicles because of the lockdown, few policymakers realize that right now in Africa a wildebeest or gazelle is being torn to shreds by a pack of ravenous dogs (Canis familiaris) that their owners can no longer afford to feed. (Fewer still realize that animals not hit by cars are likely soon to be mauled by a natural predator or killed by disease/starvation anyway. Not many expire from old age.)

What was also not-so-novel about the COVID crisis was its origin in scam or junk science. John Ionnnidis, one of the leading critics of weak scientific work-- excerpt, rest at link above --

Great article, the author details out decades and decades of garbage shoved down the throats of imbeciles worshiping at the feet of the "experts." They are now getting everything that their miserable lives deserve, unfortunately they are dragging down the rest of is into this mire....