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If you read his article, it is lighter on stats than it should be, and absent any models to prove his point. Although he repeatedly invokes statistical rigor, I had to reread it a second time to confirm: He hasn’t actually done any math himself, just quoted articles and blathered at length.
Then there is this sentence:
At some tipping point, the most virulent viruses will be more likely to kill their hosts before the virus can spread.
Even Malmcolm Gladwell knows better than to say “virulent virus”.
The theoretical answer to the question of how deadly the virus will turn out lies in part in a strong analytical relationship between the rate of spread and the strength of the virus.
What follows this sentence is paragraphs absent any numbers. “Strong analytical relationship, you dum dum! No I will not demonstrate that, you should already know how, dear reader.”
Strong viruses! Much sciencey speak! I am sold.
8 Likes
Was he at least covering something other than thermodynamics?
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Sorry to disappoint you…
I know the type, all too well:
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Ah no, that’s my site.
https://umbraxenu.no-ip.biz/mediawiki/index.php/Category:Richard_Epstein
Normally, he’d just be guilty of ultracrepidarianism, but I think we’re into serious D-K territory now.
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Why does anyone with a brain spend even a minute listening to a man who can’t deal with basic facts or someone asking him basic questions?
Exactly when did listening to morons like this start, and for what reason?
This is exactly like Trump- say something with no facts to back it up, and bluster forever, until someone listens to you because you’re just so cooly unmainstream, you must be right!
3 Likes
He may well also be hitting the motivated reasoning really, really, hard; but his style sounds very much like that of the (not uncommon in law and politics) type who never quite realized that debate team bears roughly the same relationship to epistemology as chess does to medieval military strategy.
It certainly requires some talent to do well; but, since it has carefully codified rules to game, that doesn’t keep it from being even further than sophistry from any sort of actual truth seeking activity.
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I first heard of this guy from an interview he gave to Reason magazine a few weeks ago. He was an idiot back then too, though the interviewer didn’t question him.
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Reason likes to present itself as some kind of objective, pro-science publication but the truth is that when science conflicts with “the market” you can generally count on the magazine to side with the latter.
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I read his paper, then the interview, then the Boing-Boing take and all I can say and I could be wrong is the man is a closet Republican/Trumpublican.
1 Like
As I read it, he means both.
Obligatory xkcd!
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The ‘weak form’/‘strong form’ theory is particularly odd given that this particular virus is notorious for a relatively long asymptomatic but infectious period.
It’s possible that I’m just not worthy to compare resumes; but that little detail seems like a…bit of a confounding factor in the theory of how the disease will totally become a non problem via darwinian economics.
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The name of the magazine should always be proceeded by “Koch-funded”.
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That is a truly disgusting and far too accurate and applicable gif. You are a master of your craft!
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It’s not new, sadly
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It’s basically a Libertarian rag.
Reason is an American libertarian monthly magazine published by the Reason Foundation
Reason Foundation is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization supported by donations and sale of its publications.[1] According to disclosures,[4] as of 2012, its largest donors were the David H. Koch Charitable Foundation ($1,522,212) and the Sarah Scaife Foundation ($2,016,000).
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I think we’re just interpreting the name wrong. It sounds like it should mean “rational thinking” or “logical explanation”. We should be reading it more as “justification” magazine.
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What’s with folks who don’t grasp statistical models and facts? In the case of any virus with high infection rates and novelty it will inevitably cause a pandemic if not treated properly. It seems folks like Epstein want to wag their tongues and other things to prove themselves ‘relevant’ or otherwise insightful. Even as someone with a CS degree from a middling college I knew this virus was different. All you had to do is look at the number of infections and the rate of it which it progressed. You don’t need to be an epidemiologist to realize this was going to happen due to the delayed response and outright false skepticism in the face of the facts.
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