The Mistake We Can’t Even Look At

For a theory to go into a textbook as knowledge, it does not need the unanimity of checkers’ assent, but it does need far more than a bare majority’s. It should be generally recognized as having stood up better than any competitor to most of the tests that various critical debunkers have tried

‘Kindly Inquisitors: The New Attacks on Free Thought’ – Jonathan Rauch

I recently re-read Jonathan Rauch’s ‘Kindly Inquisitors’ as an exercise in poignancy over the damage wrought upon liberal science during 2020-2021. I have been shocked by the scale and blatancy with which the weaknesses in intellectual liberalism have been exploited during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic.

The various scientific institutions across the developed world have not covered themselves in glory, to put it mildly. First we had the absurdly poor model (in terms of coding and predictive accuracy) produced by Neil Ferguson at Imperial College [1]. The predicted 500,000 deaths from the “no intervention” scenario of the model made a considerable, if not deciding, contribution to the panic which lead to the untested and undefined public policy of “lockdown”. It was only after the cell door clanked shut and the nation started to wonder if they should have asked for a few details on what “lockdown” meant (or when it would end) that the legacy news media became aware of Prof. Ferguson’s previous abject failures in predicting global outbreaks of respiratory viruses. By then, of course, it was too late. The “experts” had spoken, the policy was in place and as well all now know, a few weeks to “flatten the curve” became over a year and counting. The cost in terms of life, health and wellbeing of the population in pursuit of this policy (not to mention the financial and economic cost) was never considered by political elite, let alone discussed with the populations caught under their newly seized, authoritarian powers.

It is now considered a heresy of the highest order to suggest scepticism of lockdown’s efficacy, despite there being plenty of research demonstrating minimal to no effect [2] along with plenty of data from every country which applied various forms of “lockdown” and their lack of correlation with reduced infections or deaths. Indeed, one of the most prominent papers purporting to show that lockdowns work has turned out to be so flawed that, once one corrects their modelling “error” their conclusion is undermined entirely [3]. It is quite remarkable that a policy which had zero UK public awareness in January 2020 would be beyond reproach by January 2021 and lodged in the minds of the population as the absolute and only solution that should be used in the event of a respiratory virus pandemic despite the mounting evidence to the contrary.

Driving all this is, of course, every institution in the land who are all fully on board with the narrative that “lockdowns work” and total vaccination of every living thing on the planet are the absolute and only solution available. From the government to scientific bodies all the way through to the media classes; the dichotomy presented is total authoritarian lockdowns or “let it rip” which, by no accident, suggests sitting back and doing nothing at all as the body bags pile up. The idea that there could be a whole range of solutions along a spectrum has never even entered the national discussion. It is entirely possible, of course, that one could luck out entirely and have the first proposed solution for a problem be maximally effective and optimum in terms of negative side effects. However, to assume it is from the get-go and deny the suggestion or even existence of other options is abject stupidity. This is what has happened and this is where we still are.

The problem with trying to rectify this is that it is not just the institutional capture which is of concern. If one concedes that lockdowns don’t work and came at an astronomic cost, not just financially but in terms of damage done to lives, relationships, physical health, mental health and education (which it now appears is the case) then not just the authorities but everyone in society is complicit for going along with it (and please note despite my disagreement I include myself in this). There are those who are adamant that lockdowns are the solution because the alternative (that they blindly supported a policy which caused so much damage) is just too horrific to countenance. They need lockdowns to have worked.

What politician is going to admit they formulated, or at the least voted for lockdowns, which undeniably killed people in the immediate and long term [4][5] ? What paper or news channel is going to run a story admitting that the media not only failed in their duty to hold the government to account but actively encouraged, even begged the government for lockdowns? Who is going to sit down at a dinner party with their friends and open the conversation with “so, we all lost out minds for over a year, surrendered our liberty to the government and are complicit in the deaths of tens if not hundreds of thousands, hey?”.

My guess is not many even though the realisation, I suspect, has been creeping into many a brain over these past months. I honestly don’t think any of the systemic failures which have lead to these catastrophic lockdowns will be fully investigated and exposed until most of the generations invloved have passed on. The files will be locked and we will grind onto the next crisis, leaving it for future generations to piece together what went wrong and witness our shame; that we were so cowardly, we couldn’t even bring ourselves to look at our own mistakes.

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