• Welcome to Religious Forums, a friendly forum to discuss all religions in a friendly surrounding.

    Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to the following site features:
    • Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
    • Our modern chat room. No add-ons or extensions required, just login and start chatting!
    • Access to private conversations with other members.

    We hope to see you as a part of our community soon!

Why the angst when

Revoltingest

Pragmatic Libertarian
Premium Member
With scientific consensus changing as we learn more about
the novel coronavirus, & with government appropriately
adjusting public policy in accordance, this indicates that
you cannot trust anything they say....according to anti-vaxers
I know.
I explained to one that it is, after all, a "novel" coronavirus, so
we'll learn more as time goes by. He was surprised to learn
that "novel" meant new. (He knew not what it meant, & had
no reason to look it up.) He gets his science & health news from
friends & conservative talk radio show hosts & their call-in guests.
They've had a consistent message all along, ie, that Covid 19
isn't dangerous, & it's all a liberal plot to inure us to oppression.
 
Last edited:

Evangelicalhumanist

"Truth" isn't a thing...
Premium Member
With scientific consensus changing as we learn more about
the novel coronavirus, & with government appropriately
adjusting public policy in accordance, this indicates that
you cannot trust anything they say....according to anti-vaxers
I know.
I explained to one that it is, after all, a "novel" coronavirus, so
we'll learn more as time goes by. He was surprised to learn
that "novel" meant new. (He knew not what it meant, & had
no reason to look it up.) He gets his science & health news from
friends & conservative talk radio show hosts & their call-in guests. They've had a consistent message all along, ie, that Covid 19
isn't dangerous, & it's all a liberal plot to inure us to oppression.
This is one of the more frightening posts on RF recently.

Tragically, it also seems (to me) to be quite correct.
 

gnostic

The Lost One
I think it is plain stupidity and irresponsible to attend large gatherings, like rallies to protests, like at Sydney, without face masks and being in close contact with others around them.

They are not helping anyone by possibly spreading viruses to more people, especially someone who could be contagious with the delta variant.

And there have been conspiracy theories, not just in the US, but here in Australia, where people are spreading misinformation that the governments want lockdowns and restrictions.

Sure it is hard, businesses are down, unemployment have risen, but such lockdowns also affect the economies, bringing revenues down and spending up, and no governments want that.

People not taking preventive measures seriously are not helping themselves and everyone else, when they rally in large numbers.
 

Shadow Wolf

Certified People sTabber
Can't stand it if people desire stability?
The science illiteracy revealed in that is almost up there with a Young Earth Creationist. Science doesn't care about stability. It cares about discarding things when new evidence and information shows something is wrong. If you can't keep up or don't like then that one's entirely on you.
 

Wildswanderer

Veteran Member
I find it interesting listening to the news these days, especially when the President (or my Prime Minister), government health agencies and other experts, revise statements that were made previously. Then, the press screams questions like “but didn’t you say people who were fully vaccinated can do anything, or don’t need to wear masks?”

There is still so abysmally little understanding of science out there. The presumption seems to be that once we learn something about a virus, that’s it! Nothing will ever change, nothing more to learn here. Nothing ever changes – especially nature.

Today, on the stops of the Capitol, Republican House Minority Leader accused the CDC of issuing “new guidance, different from what they said before!” Doesn’t the CDC know, at any moment in time, everything it will ever know in all future moments in time?

Really?

Get over it, folks. Science isn’t religion. In religion, the expectation (usually silly) that nothing will ever change again, and every effort is made to try and safeguard every bit of dogma forever – even when it looks wrong. In science, sorry, but everything changes all the time – especially when it looks wrong.
It shows how little we actually know about anything.
 

Polymath257

Think & Care
Staff member
Premium Member
It shows they even can't make up their mind either. So why should anything said now be taken seriously later? Keep contradiction alive you keep skepticism alive as well.

They were pretty clear about what was not known. For example, they were clear that they did not know how transmissible the delta variant was for those who are vaccinated. They were also clear about how people not getting vaccinated would impact things (because variants would be more likely).

It sounds to me like there was honesty all the way through by the experts. it's just that some people insist on not hearing what they have to say.
 

Polymath257

Think & Care
Staff member
Premium Member
It can also mutate into a less harmful variation.

Once this batch is gone.

Look at the Spanish flu.

Same thing for Covid.

Yes, it *can*. But without herd immunity, it is less likely that it will mutate in that way. Spanish flu killed a LOT of people before it reached the stage of herd immunity and less deadly variants.
 

Polymath257

Think & Care
Staff member
Premium Member
Well if viruses didn't, we would all be dead from the Spanish Flu by now!

Anyways I prefer to be optimistic here.

Sorry, but it doesn't work that way. If you don't have herd immunity, those variants that are more transmissible will overtake the rest. Vaccinations are useful for reaching that herd immunity and make so that the highly transmissible versions aren't as likely to get passed on, making the less transmissible ones become dominant.
 

Revoltingest

Pragmatic Libertarian
Premium Member
They were pretty clear about what was not known. For example, they were clear that they did not know how transmissible the delta variant was for those who are vaccinated. They were also clear about how people not getting vaccinated would impact things (because variants would be more likely).

It sounds to me like there was honesty all the way through by the experts. it's just that some people insist on not hearing what they have to say.
To anti-scientist types, not knowing...ie, not having all the answers
is failure. And to be wrong, even if correcting it later is worse still.
Of course, there is no better source, but that inconvenient fact is
completely ignored. The goal is to be comfortable with what one
wants to continue believing. And that is served by finding fault
with the opposition.
 

Polymath257

Think & Care
Staff member
Premium Member
Scientists have made a big joke of science in just 2 years, claiming things 1 day, and the opposite the next day, and not once, but dozens of times. Not smart (meaning quite stupid, unless they are smart, but pretend to be stupid... time will tell... soon)

Exactly when did they claim opposite things even in successive months?

From what I have seen, they have been clear about the alternatives, clear about what we do and do not know, clear about why the recommendations were made and how they could change under changing circumstances, and clear about the consequences of not taking this seriously.

We *cannot* know ahead of the development of a variant if vaccines are going to be effective against it. The vaccines were shown to be effective against death and hospital stays due to the original variants. There has *always* been a concern that if too few people got vaccinated, a variant would be able to break out and affect vaccinated people as well.

So the scientists are dealing with a moving target while also dealing with idiots that don't listen to what is being said. And then the idiots complain that the results they were warned about (but didn't listen to) happened.
 

GardenLady

Active Member
My current angst is focused on the sad fact that the Irish government’s Foreign Birth Registry office (where I am eligible to apply for citizenship) has not re-opened yet. Because apparently, half the people in the US are bat**** crazy.
 
Top