A few years back we were on a trip to New Zealand, where I had been asked to give three lectures at a conference in Auckland. We had decided it was pointless for me to fly there alone and straight back, so we arranged a tour encompassing Dunedin, Queenstown, the west coast of South Island, a drive across to Christchurch (I got a speeding ticket then), a flight to Wellington and a drive to Napier before returning to Auckland.
While in Queenstown we arranged a trip to Milford Sound in a small plane. I loved it. My wife did not, not helped by our homestay owner asking jocularly as we set off for the airport whether we had made our wills. I had promised my wife a larger plane than the six-seater we had. The scenery as we crossed the mountains was amazing and as it turned out the pilot had been a barman in one of our local pubs in England. After we had landed, he said we had been lucky as the weather forecast the next day was for cloud, so he would not be flying. My wife asked why not. “Well,” he said, “you can never tell whether a cloud might have a hard centre.”
That’s a long anecdote to illustrate a principle. The principle is – if you don’t know, perhaps you should not take a chance. Clouds can hide mountaintops. But in medicine there are many ‘don’t knows’, and while it might be acceptable to judge the risk-benefit on an individual basis it may not be appropriate to apply a blanket approach for an entire population.
Of course, if you don’t know that there is a risk you might construe that as being that there is no risk. But if you don’t know, well, you don’t know. And what if someone raises the possibility of a risk? Would you still plough on regardless, or would you wait until you knew for certain?
There’s an Arab proverb: “He who knows not, and knows not he knows not, he is a fool — shun him; he who knows not, and knows he knows not, he is simple — teach him; he who knows, and knows not he knows, he is asleep — wake him; he who knows, and knows he knows, he is wise — follow him.” My father added another two: “He who knows not, and knows that he knows, is dangerous – avoid him. But he who knows, and knows that he knows not, he is wiser still – take heed, for he has true understanding”.
I would like to think I am one of those last.
I posted a response to an online essay as follows – it was in response to one of the growing number of analyses of Covid vaccine risks:
One thing bothers me, and always has – with this and all other disputed items [the issues of Covid and climate change have become interweaved]. If the so-called vaccine deniers who have done careful analyses of available data like this are wrong, why are these analyses not properly and scientifically debunked? All we get is bluster, very occasionally quoting improperly conducted trials. There is of course a good reason they are not debunked, and that is because they are correct. Am I wrong?
This concern is especially important right now as there are official mutterings about the worry of a coronavirus resurgence and the need for booster vaccinations. But there are many unknowns. What is the real risk of post-Covid vaccination myocarditis? What are the potential risks of DNA contamination of mRNA vaccines? Could the introduction of plasmids cause short or long-term changes within cells that have substantial and perhaps frightening consequences?
The answer is, we don’t know. Maybe, but maybe not. The research has not been done (or if it has the results have not been revealed). Given the potential risk, particularly the long-term risk of incorporating foreign DNA into cell nuclei, would it not be wise to suspend vaccination programmes until we do know?
Consider Maryanne Demasi’s interview with Phillip Buckhaults, a cancer genomics expert at the University of South Carolina. Initially fearing that a report by another expert, Kevin McKernan, on the risk of DNA contamination was “conspiracy” he decided to debunk the work, only to find out that his own investigation confirmed it. In a remarkably balanced and non-polemical set of answers he makes the point that there may be risks – but we don’t know whether there are, what they are and, if so, how big they are. He suggests:
It’s possible that long bits of DNA that encode spike are modifying the genomes of just a few cells that make up the myocardium and cause long term expression of spike… and then the immune system starts attacking those cells… and that’s what’s causing these heart attacks. Now, that is entirely a theoretical concern. But it’s not crazy and it’s reasonable to check.
Frankly, there’s an awful lot of concern. It needs to be allayed.
The above principle of ‘don’t know, don’t do’ also applies to climate change. There is undoubtedly climate change and there always has been. Is what we are seeing now due to human activity? I think some of it is, but it may pale into insignificance compared to the effects of sunspot activity, volcanic eruptions and other natural processes and I suspect that the contribution of fossil fuel use may be less important than deforestation and water diversion (see Brazilian rainforest and Himalayas for examples of the first, and the shrinking of the Aral Sea for the second).
Does an increase in CO2 actually matter? Probably not, as it will aid plant growth. Is the global warming trend as steep as is being made out? Probably not, as temperature measurements are distorted by changes in the local environment of sensors (for example, by becoming more urbanised, or in the most egregious case of the U.K.’s hottest day ever in 2020 possibly being caused, extremely short-term, by jet aircraft roaring past the sensor with their afterburners going).
Most of the ‘need for change’ is driven by modelling, so is no more than prophesy, not least if the models have garbage going in, for then garbage will come out. Many people have raised serious and credible concerns on this and pointed to the reality of observational data which contradicts the prophesies. Even in the here and now, contrary to the dire predictions, Great Barrier Reef coral bleaching has reversed, Antarctic warming and ice loss is occurring over the top of active underwater volcanos, and the biggest greenhouse gas problem likely came from the Tonga volcanic eruption which threw vast quantities of water vapour into the high atmosphere. I have yet to see any serious and credible counterargument explaining why the sceptics who state these facts are wrong. If there were such arguments, surely they would and should have been deployed. That they have not lends credence to the accuracy of the sceptics’ views and makes one wonder whether the whole climate crisis is just an artificial one that has somehow turned into a kind of cult.
If the major drivers of climate change are natural phenomena we are only fiddling with the fringe. And that’s before we examine the practical question: is Net Zero economically feasible? Is the overall cost of going electric higher than the cost of the status quo? Can we go all-electric with vehicles when there are insufficient charging points and the demand on the National Grid will be unmanageable? I fear our politicians and some of our scientists are people who know not and know not that they know not. Maybe some are beginning to grasp reality, but the rest are, as in the proverb, fools. Some are in the know not, but know that they know group, and are dangerous. If we don’t know, let’s not do until we do know, and meanwhile beware of false prophets.
I am not alone in thinking this. Earlier this week Dr. David Seedhouse posted a piece on the Daily Sceptic, which he concludes by saying:
We are constantly bombarded with unanalysed assumptions, often presented to us by people with obvious vested interests. Some years ago there was a variety of ways to challenge these assumptions. For example, decent journalists in serious publications would do this and these challenges would filter into the public consciousness. But this seems to happen less and less in the mainstream, where ‘experts’ are presented as authoritative voices on X or Y simply because they say they are, or have a prestigious title, and it is impossible to challenge them directly.
The failure to think deeply, the abandonment of reason, the rush to the preferred conclusion, the desire – even the need these days – to go along with the majority view without questioning it – these are symptoms of a cultural descent into myth, superstition and collective madness. The truth is what we want it to be and what our ‘experts’ say it is and that’s all you need to know.
I submit that this abject thoughtlessness – not ‘the climate crisis’ – is the real ‘test of our times’.
Hear, hear.
Dr. Andrew Bamji is a retired consultant rheumatologist.
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Experts are like scientists in that most of them aren’t.
On the issue of a large transfer to battery electric vehicles, I think the real snag is not so much the overall demand increase (using the normal definition of “demand”, i.e. the total load at a given time), but the physical ability of the system to deliver it to domestic locations simultaneously. As I’ve recently lived through a project by the local Distribution Network Operator (DNO), which involved replacing all the buried cable in my street, I’m aware of the cable ratings, and have had a look at the local transformer capacity that feeds us all.
While it’s normal to take account of load diversity when sizing the rating of cables for most domestic kit, they are not supposed to use load diversity for things like chargers that operate for several hours.
It would not be viable for us all to have household charging points installed, under the requirements of the relevant BS 7671 regulations – unless there is also the addition of remote load curtailment by a third party control system, which is inimical to the way utilities are sold to us at present. They are not advertising that. The other option could be to invest in a lot more enhanced distribution kit, and the associated building and highways work for it all. What do you think the shareholders in the DNO companies would like to do?
Incidentally, the reason for the cable renewals where I live is that they had a lot of cheap and nasty buried cable (only around 25 years old) that had frequent failures leading to power cuts. It was more or less a like-for-like project at the time a couple of years ago.
Pity you weren’t advising government. This is an excellent example of how a plan would collapse because the planners only looked at what was good, and not what might go wrong.
https://off-guardian.org/2023/09/26/inside-russias-digital-transformation/
Russia leading the way in digital transformation and it ain’t pretty.
“I submit that this abject thoughtlessness – not ‘the climate crisis’ – is the real ‘test of our times’”
And I submit that you should do what you exhort others to do throughout this article – RESEARCH.
Nothing that is happening now is real.
ULEZ schemes are nothing to do with raising cash, or the environment and everything to do with removing personal travel.
The fiction of the C1984 was let loose with the sole intention of sticking the jibby jabs in to as many arms as possible precisely because those pushing them knew they would maim and kill.
EV’s – there is no expectation by TPTB that these will replace the ICE fleet because it is simply an impossibility.
I could go on but hopefully I have made the point.
So, a good starting point for your research is here:
https://www.technocracy.news/technocracy-sustainable-is-the-new-code-word-for-genocide/
One benefit of the internet is that research publications are exposed to a very large number of informed people who can pull them to pieces. So fortunately I don’t have to come out of retirement but can comment from my armchair, but I think you attribute malice or design where neither exists. I have seen too many cases in my hospital career of 40 years or so to realise that people make decisions with good intentions but without thinking them through. Another commentator pointed out that the poor electrical infrastructure will always be inadequate to support home car charging. My problem on that front is that I live in a no parking zone so even if the system did work I wouldn’t be able to use it. Another vital principle is to look not only at what the benefits might be, but what could possibly go wrong.
Interesting, but definitely mistaken about one thing.
Most of the ‘need for change’ is not driven by modelling, it is driven by money. Money for the modellers (the experts who by definition do not know, otherwise it would be evidence-based results, not a model), money for research, money for climate grifters, money for pharmaceutical companies and their shareholders (the Bill Gateses, BlackRocks, Vanguards of this world), kickbacks for the whore politicians who let these criminals get away with their crimes.
The garbage fed into these models is intentionally garbage, so that people will be alarmed and will allow billions of taxpayer money to be pumped into schemes to “save millions of lives”, even when they have proven to do no such thing (the vaxx). The vaxx was never needed, but was forced on people, first by exaggerating the danger of corona, then by outright coercion. Even once it was shown it did not work, they still kept forcing it on people. In the US they are still pushing it into babies and young children, despite the ‘theoretical risks’, despite the fact that an FDA-affiliated doctor says he is not taking it because of the risks.
The ‘dangers’ are pushed as part of a money grab, even when they cannot be proven in our lifetimes to have any effect. The climate grift is based on keeping the temperature down over the next 50 to 100 years – no one in political office now, no scientist now, will ever have to prove their BS, ever have to account for their crimes. Indeed, the exclusion clause has already been built in: any climate measures taken now are too late, we can only hope to mitigate the worst disasters, we can no longer stop them (just like people in the past could not stop climate change, no matter how many goats and children were sacrificed). How very convenient.
Yes, people are lazy and slothful, particularly when it comes to thinking. But that is too simple an explanation. The mainstream media creates the narrative and the MSM is owned lock stock and barrel by the above-mentioned big players. The false narrative is intentional, it truly is time that people see this. The internet removed the ability of MSM to have any independence, they are on life support provided by the criminals. We are hearing false science because he who pays the scientist decides the $cience.
I don’t usually subscribe to conspiracy theories but you do have a point. It’s long been true that drug trial investigators are often funded by drug companies and that negative results are often suppressed. Drugs reported as offering “new hope in treating” are splashed by the media and taken up by a credulous public. But to be fair the downsides may take a while to emerge; benoxaprofen is a case in point. See my book “Mad Medicine” for the details.
3 good recent ones on the man made climate change and in particular the CO2 hoax:
https://sciencefiles.org/2023/09/27/co2-viel-zu-wenig-um-klimatische-veraenderungen-zu-erklaeren-die-naechste-studie-zerstoert-den-klimawandel-hoax/
https://madhavasetty.substack.com/p/the-dubious-origins-of-the-carbon?publication_id=1279410&utm_campaign=email-post-title&r=97oj4
https://sciencefiles.org/2019/10/29/klimawandel-hoax-implodiert-alle-klimawandel-fakten-auf-einen-blick/
Experts not admitting that they don’t know when they don’t is a problem, but it doesn’t seem like the most pressing problem to me.
Does anyone here seriously think that people like Whitty, Vallance and Fauci didn’t know covid wasn’t a serious threat, that they didn’t know the vaccines would harm people? The same applies to “experts” in other notable fields. These people are not stupid or even just too vain to admit they don’t know – they bloody well do know and they don’t care. It’s about money and power.
At the beginning of March 20 Whitty in particular was very honest about the trivial threat the disease posed to nearly everybody.
Then the orders from above changed.
He texted Hancock to say there wouldn’t be vaccines as the disease wasn’t dangerous enough to warrant using an untested vaccine. Or was it Vallance. Doesn’t matter. Fauci changed his tune several times too. They all knew the score.
“Don’t know, don’t do” is the true essence of the Precautionary Principle.
For me the ‘why are conspiracy theories not debunked?’ is the crux of the matter.
in the Autumn of 2020 there was a meeting in Central London to debate ‘Have lockdowns caused more harm than good?’
The panel members saying lockdowns caused more harm had the numbers and good arguments.
The panel members saying lockdowns had been good only had emotive arguments and ad hominem attacks, calling people in the audience ‘right wing zealots’ for questioning the use of lockdowns.
So, until proper debate on issues is back, we will continued to be bombarded with Dogma.
Absolutely. So-called experts who have been churned out by our extremely prejudiced and institutionally left-wing “universities” over the past few decades have an Agenda – and they are imposing it as ruthlessly as the Catholic Church did in pre-Reformation northern Europe.
It isn’t science; it’s dogma.