52313
  • Log in
The Daily Sceptic
No Result
View All Result
  • Articles
  • About
  • Archive
    • ARCHIVE
    • NEWS ROUND-UPS
  • Forum
  • Donate
  • Newsletter
The Daily Sceptic
No Result
View All Result

The Paralysis of Caution

by Toby Young
10 April 2021 9:01 PM

We’re publishing a new essay by Guy de la Bédoyère about the excessive cautiousness that is preventing the Government from being more bold. Guy traces it to the cautiousness of the modellers and points out how odd that attitude is to the adventurousness of pioneering scientists like Edward Jenner and Marie Curie. Here’s an extract:

Regardless of your views about vaccines, it is a fact that Edward Jenner took the reckless step of infecting his gardener’s eight-year-old son first with cowpox and then with smallpox. As we all know, the experiment was a success. By today’s standards of gibbering caution, it was the most outrageous example of recklessness imaginable. Yet how else was he ever going to find out if it worked? If that happened today, Jenner would probably never have dared try his theory out and if he had he’d have been struck off and imprisoned. I have no doubt that had a predictive modeller been on hand, busy calculating the risk, there wouldn’t have been a virus in hell’s chance of him being allowed to go ahead.

On December 23rd 1750 Benjamin Franklin electrocuted himself when he tried to kill a turkey with electricity, believing the meat would be more tender. He survived, chastened by the experience. In 1839-43, James Clark Ross took two sailing ships, the Erebus and Terror, on an epic voyage of exploration and scientific experiment around Antarctica. Today he wouldn’t have been allowed out of port.

There are so many other examples from those days of early science it would be impossible to list them. But the underlying approach reaches right into more recent times. We have aviation because people were prepared to throw themselves into the air with bizarre pieces of winged equipment or brave their way across the Atlantic in a Vickers Vimy from Newfoundland to Ireland, as Alcock and Brown did in 1919. Imagine the risk assessment if anyone had bothered to think of writing one at the time, and the same applies to Marie Curie’s work on radiation.

Worth reading in full.

Tags: ModellingReopening

Donate

We depend on your donations to keep this site going. Please give what you can.

Donate Today

Comment on this Article

You’ll need to set up an account to comment if you don’t already have one. We ask for a minimum donation of £5 if you'd like to make a comment or post in our Forums.

Sign Up
Previous Post

The Paralysis of Caution

Next Post

News Round Up

Subscribe
Login
Notify of
Please log in to comment

Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban.

29 Comments
Oldest
Newest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments

NEWSLETTER

View today’s newsletter

To receive our latest news in the form of a daily email, enter your details here:

DONATE

PODCAST

Nick Dixon and Toby Young Talk About Toby’s Appearance on the 77th Brigade’s Watch List, the Scrubbing of the Internet After the Pfizer Sting and the Trans Insanity Unfolding in Scotland

by Will Jones
31 January 2023
0

LISTED ARTICLES

  • Most Read
  • Most Commented
  • Editors Picks

MIT Expert on Drug Safety Calls for Immediate Withdrawal of mRNA Vaccines: “Clearly the Most Failing Medical Product in History, Causing Unprecedented Harm”

30 January 2023
by Will Jones

How Safe Really is 5G?

1 February 2023
by Gillian Jamieson

News Round-Up

1 February 2023
by Will Jones

An Honest Voice at Last

1 February 2023
by Thorsteinn Siglaugsson

How the Unvaccinated Got It Right

1 February 2023
by Robin Koerner

Elderly Vaccination Saved Lives in East Asia

49

How Safe Really is 5G?

33
Mandatory Credit: Photo by JUSTIN LANE/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock (10421665ds)
Sixteen-year-old climate activist Greta Thunberg addresses world leaders at the start of the 2019 Climate Action Summit which is being held in advance of the General Debate of the General Assembly of the United Nations at United Nations Headquarters in New York, New York, USA, 23 September 2019. World Leaders have been invited to speak at the event, which was organized by the United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, for the purpose of proposing plans for addressing global climate change. The General Debate of the 74th session of the UN General Assembly begins on 24 September.
United Nations 2019 Climate Action Summit, New York, USA - 23 Sep 2019

Elite Billionaire Foundations Fund Wave of Green Climate Propaganda Flooding into British Schools

36

How the Unvaccinated Got It Right

20

Popularity of St. Jacinda’s Party Soars After Her Resignation

18

How the Unvaccinated Got It Right

1 February 2023
by Robin Koerner

An Honest Voice at Last

1 February 2023
by Thorsteinn Siglaugsson

How Safe Really is 5G?

1 February 2023
by Gillian Jamieson

Elderly Vaccination Saved Lives in East Asia

31 January 2023
by Noah Carl
Mandatory Credit: Photo by JUSTIN LANE/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock (10421665ds)
Sixteen-year-old climate activist Greta Thunberg addresses world leaders at the start of the 2019 Climate Action Summit which is being held in advance of the General Debate of the General Assembly of the United Nations at United Nations Headquarters in New York, New York, USA, 23 September 2019. World Leaders have been invited to speak at the event, which was organized by the United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, for the purpose of proposing plans for addressing global climate change. The General Debate of the 74th session of the UN General Assembly begins on 24 September.
United Nations 2019 Climate Action Summit, New York, USA - 23 Sep 2019

Elite Billionaire Foundations Fund Wave of Green Climate Propaganda Flooding into British Schools

31 January 2023
by Chris Morrison

POSTS BY DATE

April 2021
M T W T F S S
 1234
567891011
12131415161718
19202122232425
2627282930  
« Mar   May »

SOCIAL LINKS

Free Speech Union
  • Home
  • About us
  • Donate
  • Privacy Policy

Facebook

Twitter

Instagram

RSS

Subscribe to our newsletter

© Skeptics Ltd.

No Result
View All Result
  • Articles
  • About
  • Archive
    • ARCHIVE
    • NEWS ROUND-UPS
  • Forum
  • Donate
  • Newsletter

© Skeptics Ltd.

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password?

Create New Account!

Please note: To be able to comment on our articles you'll need to be a registered donor

Already have an account?
Please click here to login Log In

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In
wpDiscuz
You are going to send email to

Move Comment