Anti-science

The infinite list

Almost three years ago science entered a new dark age.

Jay Bhattacharya, a professor of medicine at Stanford University and co-author of the Great Barrington Declaration, seems to agree. He has been compiling a list of the examples of anti-science we have unfortunately become used to.

I have listed his thoughts so far but the list is continually expanding. The list is probably infinitely long so feel free to add your own examples of anti-science in the comments below.

1. Insinuating that the lab leak hypothesis is a racist conspiracy theory is anti-science;

2. Closing international borders to keep a virus out when the virus is already established in-country is anti-science;

3. Panicked killing of Danish mink was anti-science. Public health apologizing for the mistake is pro-science;

4. Redefining herd immunity to exclude immunity conferred by disease recovery is anti-science;

5. Sending covid infected patients back to nursing homes to keep hospital beds empty was anti-science;

6. Lockdowns and other trickle down epidemiology are anti-science;

7. Science bureaucrats using their power to smear scientists who disagree with them is anti-science;

8. Instituting lockdowns & restrictions on the basis of overly-simplistic covid models is anti-science;

9. Pretending there is a scientific consensus on lockdown and so much else when there is not a scientific consensus (Especially while censoring sceptical voices) is anti-science;

10. Arbitrarily dividing society into essential and non-essential is anti-science;

11. Ignoring the obvious and devastating economic costs of policy is anti-science;

12. Censorship of scientific debate is anti-science. Literally.

13. Zoom school is anti-science;

14. Politically partisan public health is anti-science;

15. Not permitting healthy people to leave home for more than an hour, even for exercise, is anti-science;

16. Jumping off the sidewalk to avoid the breath of an unmasked person walking by is anti-science;

17. Shutting down kids’ sports is anti-science;

18. Public health shaming people for not following public health diktats is anti-science;

19. Forcing school kids to eat six feet apart from each other, outdoors and in silence was anti-science;

20. Redefining health to be synonymous with the avoidance of a single infectious disease is anti-science;

21. Six-foot social distancing is anti-science;

22. Not letting family members visit dying relatives is anti-science;

23. Contact tracing to contain a highly infectious and aerosolized respiratory virus is anti-science;

24. Zero covid is anti-science;

25. Mask mandates are anti-science;

26. White washing the harm done to children by school closures by glibly asserting that ‘kids are resilient’ is anti-science;

27. Institutionalized hypochondria is anti-science;

28. Masking toddlers is anti-science;

29. Requiring waiters to mask to serve unmasked patrons is anti-science;

30. Noble lies are bad public health practice and anti-science;

31. Pharmaceutical company funding of on-air news media and professional medical organizations is anti-science;

32. Policing private doctor patient communication for non-CDC approved content is anti-science;

33. Science & medicine are the common inheritance of all, regardless of party. Medical and scientific professional societies officially endorsing political candidates and thereby alienating half the population is anti-science;

34. Not rapidly running randomized trials to evaluate off-patent early treatment options and denigrating doctors and patients who tried them (“horse paste”) when better options were not available is anti-science;

35. Ignoring age-stratification in risk in determining pandemic policy and vaccine recommendations is anti-science;

36. Vaccine discrimination is socially divisive and is anti-science;

37. Public health experts have an obligation to speak respectfully with everyone, including people who oppose their recommendations (such as on vaccines). Guilt-by-association attacks on experts who fulfil this obligation are anti-science;

38. Asserting that a vaccine stops transmission when it does not stop transmission is anti-science;

39. Ignoring immunity after covid recovery is anti-science;

40. Vaccine mandates have demolished public trust and are anti-science;

41. Pausing childhood vaccination programs and tuberculosis treatment in poor countries because of fear of covid led to many unnecessary deaths and is anti-science;

42. Ignoring legitimate vaccine injury is anti-science;

43. Declaring oneself to be The Science itself is anti-science;