“In science, you’re used to being criticized. Usually in a constructive way, but not always. And what you learn is that any criticism, no matter how well or unwell it is meant, is actually very helpful.”
Nobel Prize laureate, Michael Levitt
When was the last time you heard someone say, “I was wrong?”
Being wrong is common to all of us.
Admitting we’re wrong is something quite a bit less common.
And in political and other public spheres, it’s like sighting a wild, endangered species - extremely rare and a profound experience.
Though I often find discussions between scientists to be challenging, I am following the data.
So I breathe deeply and use these resources as a kind of presence practice, an opportunity to open my mind and hone my listening skills.
In the podcast I’m sharing today, I was immediately drawn in by the opening words of Michael Levitt, winner of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, when he started by saying this about his initial Covid-19 predictions:
“That was really me making a mistake. And the mistake was - and it’s actually a mistake that hurts a lot - that I wasn’t looking at my own data.”
Admitting mistakes is not only common in science, but an integral part of the scientific process itself. You create a theory and then set out to disprove it.
For me, this admission of mistakes makes Stanford University’s Michael Levitt a scientist of integrity.
But even if we mistrusted his predictions, we've now got data about what's already happened.
So let's follow the data...
In this podcast from The Fat Emperor, Irish health expert Ivor Cummins and Professor Levitt dig into the latest covid stats for a fascinating and info-packed overview of what’s happening around the globe.
Here’s my Top 10 List of what I learned or confirmed:
What “excess deaths” are and why we need to be looking at that number and not "cases."
How the measures against covid may be causing deaths by other diseases to be going up.
Many deaths of people with covid are being recorded as if they died of covid.
Covid has replaced colds and flus - though no one yet knows why.
People under 65 have had virtually no excess death.
The CDC knows and have said that reported covid deaths are inflated.
The initial justification for lockdown was to save the healthcare system, and yet hard-hit NYC never had an overload problem, and that Ireland, the UK, and China, all build overflow facilities that have never been used.
North Dakota, which had lockdowns and mandatory masking, and South Dakota, which had neither, have faired the same.
We need an engineering approach to crisis management.
The chance of dying of covid-19 is 0.13% overall, and much lower if you’re under 65.
So why are we not hearing these facts in the media, and from politicians?
Why do we still have lockdowns, mandatory masking, and PCR testing?
Why do we keep counting cases that are inaccurate and irrelevant?
I refer back to my opening for at least one answer - they’d have to admit they were wrong.
About the inaccuracy of testing, the ineffectiveness of lockdowns, and even the number of deaths.
This is a fine mess we’re in.
It will take courage and commitment to move forward.
We must be rigorous enough with our thinking to replace opinions with facts.
We must course correct our actions, rather than "cancel" out people.
We must accept our human capacity for making mistakes and embrace the beauty of the scientific method.
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