…Top U.S. COVID-19 adviser Anthony Fauci recently blamed the country’s ineffective pandemic response on an American “anti-science bias.” He…compared those discounting the importance of masks and social distancing to “anti-vaxxers” in their “amazing” refusal to listen to science.
It is Fauci’s profession of amazement that amazes me. As well-versed as he is in the science of the coronavirus, he’s overlooking the well-established science of “anti-science bias,” or science denial.
Americans increasingly exist in highly polarized, informationally insulated ideological communities occupying their own information universes…
In theory, resolving factual disputes should be relatively easy: Just present strong evidence, or evidence of a strong expert consensus. This approach succeeds most of the time, when the issue is, say, the atomic weight of hydrogen.
But things don’t work that way when scientific advice presents a picture that threatens someone’s perceived interests or ideological worldview. In practice, it turns out that one’s political, religious or ethnic identity quite effectively predicts one’s willingness to accept expertise on any given politicized issue.
It’s called “Motivated reasoning”, folks. The American Way.
DPRK News Service @DPRK_News [“Official News feed of Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea”] 10:13 AM · Jun 23, 2020: “US plan to reduce Idiot population by not testing for Idiots expected to have underwhelming results, sources say.”
Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.), the chairman of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, is calling for the White House coronavirus task force to be disbanded to prevent health officials from causing President Trump’s message about the economy to be “distorted.” https://thehill.com/homenews/house/505636-gop-rep-calls-for-coronavirus-task-force-to-be-disbanded-so-trumps
“Dr. Anthony Fauci and Dr. Deborah Birx continue to contradict many of President Trump’s stated goals and actions for returning to normalcy as we know more about the COVID-19 outbreak,” Biggs said in a statement Thursday. https://biggs.house.gov/media/press-releases/congressman-biggs-applauds-president-trumps-leadership-great-american-comeback
“This is causing panic that compromises our economic recovery. We can protect our most vulnerable from the COVID-19 outbreak while still protecting lives and livelihoods of the rest of the population,” he added while calling for the task force’s disbandment.
The U.S. on Wednesday reported 50,000 new COVID-19 cases, the first time it had hit that threshold during the pandemic and as several states have halted plans to reopen. https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/505573-single-day-us-coronavirus-infections-top-50000-for-first-time
“Scientists say strain of coronavirus dominant around the world is different than what was seen in Wuhan : A strain of the coronavirus that was first seen in Italy is now the dominant strain of the virus, a group of scientists said Thursday.” https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/scientists-say-strain-of-coronavirus-dominant-around-the-world-is-different-than-what-originated-in-wuhan/ar-BB16hhXf?li=BBnbcA1
In an article published by the peer-reviewed science journal Cell, researchers working with the Sheffield COVID-19 Genomics Group announced that the new strain “has become the most prevalent form in the global pandemic.” Tracking changes in SARS-CoV-2 Spike: evidence that D614G increases infectivity of the COVID-19 virus
President Donald Trump insisted Thursday his administration is getting coronavirus under control even as the daily number of new cases in the U.S. surpassed 50,000 for the first time and a top health expert warned the situation could get far worse. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2020/07/02/coronavirus-trump-touts-response-covid-19-daily-cases-surge/5359135002/
While Trump contended the coronavirus crisis is “being handled,” his comments came a day after the U.S. reported 50,655 cases, the largest single-day total of new cases since the pandemic began. More than 128,000 people have died in the U.S. and the country’s case total has reached more than 2.6 million, according to Johns Hopkins University data. https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html
Link to Cell journal article: https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(20)30820-5