Facts should inform opinion

Opinions are open to debate, but scientific facts emerge from the scientific method after extensive debate between highly trained scientists.  Facebook posts, YouTube videos and editorials claiming the inefficacy of masks in mitigating virus transmission, denying anthropomorphic climate change, blaming vaccines for autism, and purporting adverse health effects of 5G rely on cherry-picked data to confirm biases, give credence to ideologues who are delusional or falsely claim expertise, advance conspiracy theories, and apply willful ignorance to credible evidence.

Reliable sources are non-partisan non-ideological experts in their fields who take pleasure in learning the truth and who publicly change their minds in light of new evidence.  Many career government employees fit the criteria, such as Dr. Fauci, who can be trusted to translate complex science to the public.  Serious journalists and geeky fact checkers, who carefully qualify their statements, can be found working for the major news outlets.  Facebook and Youtube, on the other hand, are populated with quacks, nutjobs and ideologues who spew nonsense that should be ignored.  Media outlets that provide only one political viewpoint are also untrustworthy.

In other words, Fox News argued that everyone knows that Tucker Carlson is not purporting to be reporting facts and his viewers know it.

Nightly programs on Fox News are unreliable.  As reported in the New York Times, a libel case against Fox was dismissed because: In reaching her decision (see tinyurl.com/Y55ecbvq), Judge Vyskocil relied in part on an argument made by Fox News lawyers that the “general tenor” of Mr. Carlson’s program signals to viewers that the host is “engaging in ‘exaggeration’ and ‘nonliteral commentary.’” The judge added: “Given Mr. Carlson’s reputation, any reasonable viewer ‘arrive[s] with an appropriate amount of skepticism’” about the host’s on-air comments.  In other words, Fox News argued that everyone knows that Tucker Carlson is not purporting to be reporting facts and his viewers know it.  Based on what I have read on these pages, many of you believe these programs and some act on the disinformation, like those who believe the lie that the presidential election was stolen and stormed the Capitol.

Turn to Scientific American magazine for trustworthy coverage of science and technology.  The authors are top scientists and journalists who are specialists in science and writing, and all articles are vetted for accuracy.   Errors in print that later come to light are promptly corrected, and a letters section offers informed exchanges.

Scientific American has published articles on COVID that show the physical structure of the virus, describe how scientific detective work found a bat cave in China where SARS-CoV-2 most likely originated, explain how the disease is transmitted, provide an appreciation for how researchers have learned its impact on the immune response through vast studies of samples collected from critically ill patients, etc.  Compare these nuanced narratives to those who arrogantly dismiss COVID as a hoax.
An article in the January 2021 issue of Scientific American describes how the number of COVID deaths determined from death certificates can be checked against excess deaths over the incredibly constant background death rate.  375,000 excess deaths were reported over the period from the first US COVID death through mid-November 2020 when US death certificates showed 250,000 lost lives due to COVID.  Researchers explain that these additional deaths are attributable to unreported COVID deaths and to preventable deaths from other causes that were untreated or under-treated because of stresses to medical resources during the pandemic.  So directly or indirectly, COVID has resulted in more deaths than reported.  If not COVID, what is the cause of these deaths?

So directly or indirectly, COVID has resulted in more deaths than reported.  If not COVID, what is the cause of these deaths?

Rather than debating the efficacy of masks – it’s been established that they reduce the spread, let’s debate our opinions on acceptable death rates.  Are some lives more valuable than others?  Let’s argue for appropriate levels of research funding.  The fast development of COVID vaccines relied on decades of research funded by the agencies that Trump consistently wanted to cut.  Let’s recognize the complexity of the world.  The choice is not between fighting COVID and saving the economy; the two are intertwined.  Let’s debate the right balance needed to attain the desired outcome and not allow ideology to stand in the way.  Let’s debate how much we should spend now compared with investing in the future to empower our children to deal with their challenges of climate change and future pandemics as our parents invested in us.  Let’s preserve our democracy by making the effort to learn the truth and base policies on facts, not lies.  Let’s accept Biden’s legitimate victory and move forward together.  And let's not fight over the facts, but instead, we would expend our energies on debating how best to implement solutions to the serious existential problems that are just around the corner.