The Royal Society (RS) is the world’s oldest scientific academy, which, despite its name, began the decoupling of truth from power. Its motto, Nullius in Verba, translated as “on the word of no one”, puts truth claims out of the hands of the mighty and into the hands of anyone capable of reason and empirical observation. Objectivity, not princes, should rule, and claims to truth must be testable. But the Royal Society’s recent honours to some of the world’s most controversial scientific figures reveals the decline of institutional science into ideological blobbery.
Last week, climate scientist Michael Mann and immunologist Anthony Fauci were made Foreign Members – fellows – of the prestigious academy, in U.K. science’s answer to the Oscars. “From visualising the sharp rise in global temperatures since the industrial revolution to leading the response to the COVID-19 pandemic,” said Royal Society President Adrian Smith, “their diverse range of expertise is furthering human understanding and helping to address some of our greatest challenges.”
Despite his award, Fauci, long-time adviser to U.S. Presidents and recently-departed Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes for Health (NIH), has recently been implicated in an explosive controversy. According to allegations, NIAID supported the non-profit EcoHealth Alliance, which in turn funded ‘gain-of-function’ research at the Wuhan laboratory identified by the increasingly plausible lab-leak theory about the virus’s origins. Worse for Fauci, within days of the award, it emerged that his former senior adviser, David Morens, had been deleting emails to avoid Freedom of Information probes into the agency’s role in the pandemic. NIH has since disbarred EcoHealth Alliance from receiving federal funding amid calls for criminal investigations.
None of which is to find Fauci guilty on these here pages of the Daily Sceptic. But it nonetheless raises questions about why the Royal Society would seek to involve itself, at this stage of an emerging and potentially devastating scientific scandal. Fauci, like the U.K.’s most senior lockdown joy-busters, Valance and Witty, became a ‘household figure’ for Americans, but according to a parallel narrative, his incautious scheming may have helped to unleash the pandemic in the first place. The RS cannot have been unaware of the affair. Could it not wait a year to see how the chips fell before handing out the gong?
Not for want of trying, Michael Mann is less of a household name, better known only to aficionados of the interminable climate wars. Mann is infamous for having produced the so-called ‘hockey stick’ chart that seemingly provided the ‘unequivocal evidence’ of mankind’s responsibility for rising global temperatures. But others, who wanted to understand how Mann et al. had used data from ‘proxies’ such as tree-rings and ice-cores to reconstruct historical global temperature data, found themselves, not unlike Fauci’s detractors, stonewalled. FoI requests were refused.
A cache of emails between several climate researchers was subsequently leaked, seeming to show those scientists behaving badly: deleting emails, slandering colleagues, conspiring to prevent career advancement by their foes and the publication of hostile research – even, on some accounts, how to conceal shortcomings in their data. The affair became known as ‘Climategate’, and made Mann a minor celebrity.
But all this is ancient history. Mann’s first charts were published in the late 1990s. And Climategate occurred in 2009. Fifteen years later, Mann is back under the spotlight only because he recently sued journalist Mark Steyn and rocket scientist Rand Simberg for comments they had made in articles published in 2012.
In any normal jurisdiction, 12 years would be well outside any statutory limitation for defamation. But on any normal planet, scientific disputes would surely be settled by, you know, science. But a hallmark of far-reaching policies that seemingly protect us and the planet from pathogens and slightly different weather is that to question them is verboten. Because only bad actors would want to challenge the indubitable rectitude of institutional science’s panjandrums.
But what happened to nullius in verba?
More than simply policies, the politics of saving the planet requires something of an overhaul of outmoded concepts that emerged during the Age of Reason. Empiricism and rationalism are all well and good, but look, you know the virus isn’t going to submit to FOI requests, either. And the greenhouse effect isn’t going to wait around for a vote, much less a debate before it melts the ice caps. So just trust in the divine right of Scientists, or everybody dies, okay?
The Royal Society briefly took on the green movement in the late 1990s on the issue of genetic modification, but lost to the power of ‘Frankenfood’ headlines and the fact that the society’s PR skill wasn’t equal to its political ambitions. As ‘The Science’ says, ‘if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em’, and the RS’s next President, the late Robert May, was a mathematician-turned-population biologist whose fire-and-brimstone environmentalism helped to set the tone of debates about climate change over the next quarter of a century. Rather than bringing cool, calm, scientific objectivity to questions about rising global temperatures, May characteristically shouted down scientific and political critics in angry, conspiracy theory-laden rants.
“I am the President of the Royal Society, and I am telling you the debate on climate change is over,” the firebrand told the BBC’s Roger Harrabin, the journalist revealed in 2010. Nullius in verba no longer means ‘on the word of no one’, explained May in 2007. It means “respect the facts”. He didn’t say what “respect the facts” actually means, however, and took many liberties with them himself. At the end of May’s tenure, the RS published a ‘A guide to the facts and fictions about climate change‘ to counter “those who seek to distort and undermine the science of climate change and deny the seriousness of the potential consequences of global warming”. The guide claimed:
There are some individuals and organisations, some of which are funded by the U.S. oil industry, that seek to undermine the science of climate change and the work of the IPCC. They appear motivated in their arguments by opposition to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Kyoto Protocol, which seek urgent action to tackle climate change through a reduction in greenhouse gas emission. Often all these individuals and organisations have in common is their opposition to the growing consensus of the scientific community that urgent action is required through a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. But the opponents are well-organised and well-funded.
No evidence of this conspiracy theory has been produced, and the Royal Society remained tight-lipped about it, refusing to enter into debates or to provide any basis for its claims. Because, er, Science?
The gongs the RS awards to scientists, very much in the mode of May, then, may well be better explained by their politics than their scientific discoveries. There is more than a mere closing of the ranks in these awards to controversial and questionable characters – and perhaps an attempt to mobilise reinforcements in a battle that has been raging for the duration of this century. What is institutional science for? Mann and Fauci are surely defenders of the faith and the realm of institutional science. But where is the discovery?
It would of course be something else had the Royal Society made these awards to individuals noted for work that contradicted political orthodoxy, or had recently overturned established scientific knowledge. But Fauci and Mann are precisely the opposite. Arguably, the controversies surrounding both men risk undermining institutional science. So, of course, the proper thing to do is to double down, using the institution’s remaining prestige to protect them.
The same award was made by the Royal Society to one of the deep green movement’s most controversial characters, Paul Ehrlich. In 1968, Ehrlich and his wife’s book, The Population Bomb, predicted global resource depletion and famines – and other secular recastings of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse – for the sins of industrialisation. “We must realise that unless we are extremely lucky, everybody will disappear in a cloud of blue steam in 20 years,” he told the New York Times in 1969. Ehrlich also predicted America would be subject to water rationing by 1974 and food rationing by 1980.
Forty-four years later, in 2012, when Ehrlich was made a fellow of the RS, we were all still here. And we are still here, now, 56 years on. Where is the science, if such claims stand no test in reality, and institutional science rewards such failure with gongs?
“Can a collapse of global civilisation be avoided?” asked Ehrlich in the RS’s journal the year after his award. But the more pertinent question is, for how much longer is institutional science going to be dominated by doom-mongers with more than half a century of failed prognostications behind them without suffering a catastrophic collapse of credibility? Like any bureaucracy, the RS and its membership sense the opportunity created by generating a sense of crisis that they, and only they, are the solution to.
The RS’s awards are unmistakably political. They inflate the ranks of institutional science, which has taken a categorically political position, epitomised by the RS. These self-inflating panjandrums are angered and confused by criticism and disobedience. But ultimately, all that the conflicted scientists and decrepit institutions they populate had to do to avoid the controversies that now threaten to undermine their authority is to listen to their critics as peers, and to accept their position within democratic politics as mere advisers, rather than as an entitled clerisy. They had other plans, of course. And science was their first victim.
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Everyone, just research what your rights are *legally* and shove the facts as they stand in their masktard faces. As long as you have the law on your side you need not comply with this perpetual p*ss-take theatre. Civil disobedience is the only way.
https://www.hartgroup.org/the-facts-about-mask-requirements/
Absolutely. Declare “exemption” – they should not be allowed to challenge it. If they do, advise them that they can expect a letter from your solicitor.
I hope I don’t have to burden the NHS again but if I do I won’t be wearing any damn masks. Certainly I could claim an exemption but I will not under any circumstances.
It’s a big fat ‘No’ from me.
Hux merely by being a living human you are exempt from having an experimental NPI forced upon you. NPIs are a ‘medical’ intervention, therefore if you do not wish to undertake that medical procedure, you are exempt. You’re not claiming to have a health condition. All of us are exempt from any medical intervention if we say so.
Amen to that!
When masks were mandatory in supermarkets etc. I always used to claim exemption even though I wasn’t exempt. However when organisations insist that people mask up although it isn’t a legal requirement claiming exemption seems like the wrong response as you’re not telling them that you disagree with their policy. However it’s a difficult dilemma as I wouldn’t be keen on not seeing a relative just to make a point, and the members of staff who have to enforce rules they may not agree with shouldn’t be put in a difficult situation.
Precisely! I got through 2.5 years of mask madness by simply refusing to wear a face nappy. I was challenged three times. Twice my answer that I had an allergy was accepted without further comment. I was unfortunately, thrown out of one store. They actually asked what I was allergic to. I replied; “Stupidity.”
For once, I wholeheartedly agree with you. We need mass civil unrest, and every act of defiance emboldens others.
Peaceful civil disobedience. Peaceful being the operative. They can send in the heavy mob to quell unrest, harder to do with peaceful civil disobedience.
For now, yes. At some point blood may have to be spilt though; sadly, no totalitarian regime has ever been toppled by lots of people holding hands.
I hear you, but the very thought of going back to “put a mask on” / “I don’t have to” and the ensuing bullshit that you probably know of first hand, is abhorrent
There are clearly some incompetent NHS managers who should be sacked.
Chris, you win the award for understatement of the day.
Ah, the burden of being brought up an Englishman. I worried the statement was a bit too strong.
That’ll be the vast majority then.
The irony here is that the same Health Service managers will actually be working from home, imposing these new restrictions whilst shamelessly avoiding the inconvenience and discomfort they are causing to the patients visitors and their own staff. It’s really no surprise that morale is so low in the NHS….
“Covid is on the rise”
Oh for goodness sake stop using the mad language of the enemy
It may be technically accurate to say that the number of people infected with whatever the current most prevalent respiratory virus is but it’s a meaningless statement without context
I’m annoyingly on my third flu/cold since May though only the first bout was anything more than a minor inconvenience. Were some of them related to a novel virus? Maybe- certainly some of the symptoms were a bit odd compared to other stuff I’ve had in years gone by, but unvaxxed me and Mrs ToF have survived to tell the tale
As I was reading the article, something struck me, that I hadn’t really thought about before. Up to now I had focused on the nonsense of perfectly healthy people having to restrict properly breathing in and out so that some fear-riddled people could feel safe by strapping their security blanket about the mouths of everyone in the vicinity.
The sentence about confirmed cases in hospital having to wear a face rag got me thinking. So someone who is poorly enough to be in hospital, let us say they are in fact there because of respiratory problems – is now forced to wear a chemical-drenched made-in-China rag impeding their already laboured breathing and lessening their oxygen intake even more? Sounds more like a form of torture to me than health care.
The simple fact is, hospitals are always rife with all sorts of bacteria and viruses, being, after all, by definition a place where sick people gather. There is obviously a greater risk of catching something when you’re there, particularly if you are poorly, but that is unfortunately the nature of the beast and has always been accepted as reality up until 2020.
It’s an interesting fact that more people get sick/die in hospital than anywhere else.
Lol.
So, best avoided then.
Copyright to the great Joseph Heller, Catch 22 on that one…
Indeed. The Foegen Effect only makes things worse for people already infected, by concentrating and incubating the virus further.
As a patient last year, I didn’t have to wear a face rag in the ward, only in transit to another part of the hospital. I expect otherwise it would have slowed down nursing observations. Quite often when using the ET finger device (phone home!) I had to do a couple of deep breaths before the nurse was happy and moved on.
Re reduced breathing – my thoughts exactly.
It’s quite common for certain hospitals to experience the odd outbreak of certain infections in Winter, leading to some wards being closed to visitors and so on. https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/norovirus/ this one being a regular resident, by the look of it.
I just got over a pretty horrid cold, which felt almost exactly the same as the covid infection I had in June. Neither of these episodes were any different than what we’ve all endured for time immemorial, and which we’ll continue to endure while humans are still allowed to roam the planet. I did get vaccinated, but well over a year has passed since my reluctantly received second shot, and I’ve resisted all of the endless booster coercion we are still subjected to in Canada. What is amazing to me is that virtually everyone has now experienced something similar – the same severity of covid (or a cold) whether vaccinated or not, masked or not, hand sanitized or not, “shielded” by perspex screens at the shops or not, [insert any other theatrical NPI] or not. Yet most cannot shake their belief that some or all of these utterly foolish and societally damaging things are giving them protection.
It’s just too tempting for all the organizations that stand to benefit (demands for new funding, reduced workload or a sense of moral superiority because of their brave work on the front lines) to continue the theatre. And many otherwise sane people get a little visceral thrill from the idea that something SERIOUS and IMPORTANT is happening around them.
There is no difference between the fatality rate of jabbed & unjabbed. There have been countless articles referencing government data from various countries demonstrating this, including data from Canada.
In the EU all cause mortality is higher this year than 2020 & 21. In the EU there have been 65% more covid deaths this year than 2020.
Yep, I’m fully aware of this. At best the vaccine is a placebo, but more likely it causes lasting damage to our immune system. Parents here are still being gaslit into jabbing their six-month-olds.
Well, if I were an in-patient in my local hospital, which is in the above list, I would refuse to wear a mask. What exactly could they do about it?
Just to add that my ‘frightened elderly friends’ (80s) who were coming out of their shells a bit have now retreated back into full 2020 covid mode, because they are convinced they will both die if they catch it. There must be many thousands of people like this. It is so sad.
And lemme guess, they are all fully jabbed and at least double-boosted by now, and still scared. It’s a pattern. Those who should theoretically be the least scared (that is, if the jabs actually were worth a crap at all) are, interestingly enough, the most scared of all.
Yes, they are fully jabbed and due the next one soon. One of them has become so frail in the past two years I wouldn’t be surprised if another jab kills her.
You could try to tell them the following: This year, my parents again visited me (for the first time since 2019). They’re both 83 and triple-perforated. They both caught COVID while in the UK, ie, tested positive after they developed stronger cold symptoms when they were back home. Both recovered without any difficulties within less than two weeks.
That’s the brutal effect of COVID mentioned in the article.
Trouble is, that’ll only convince them the multiple perforations worked. Else it would have been much worse.
These mask rules need to be completely eradicated, root and branch, lest they grow back.
Brutal picture. Makes the woman in yellow look like a cousin of Cruella Deville. I assume she is someone important, right?
I like this man a lot. 10mins of common sense. He reveals how the Israeli Ministry of Health even states that masks have no scientific basis and are only a psychological tool of compliance. Also legislation which exempts government officials from wearing masks but not the plebs.
https://odysee.com/@QuantumRhino:9/Let's-talk-about-Masks–A-message-from-Israel:6
Reversion to type as soon as keywords are mentioned: Michie’s cold fishlike hands are all over this…
They injure us with their jabs, kill our elderly by unsigned DNR orders,damage our children, all to protect their funding and careers, defund the Police! Defund the NHS its not interested in patients welfare it has become a political organisation drunk on its own power.
Still got the pro-masking song up where I work (“no mask on your face, big disgrace”).
A little (alternative) music with supper, yes (cf. Broken Journey)?:
“Your hiding all your smiles baby
Look like a twit
Messing up your teeth now baby
Itchy itchy itch
And it’s hi ho filthy maskers
Go and wash your face now baby
Mask plastic in the oceans
It ends up in your fish. Oh it’s obvious.”
hi ho silver lining instrumental at DuckDuckGo
This being based on nothing but the ONS bullshit guesstimate which claims that the national COVID infection rate must be identical to the rate of positive PCR tests among 100,000 randomly selected people.
Disappointed in Kate. I thought more of her than this bullshit virtue signalling nonsense.
She looks more like Jacinda…
Just an observation (since I live in the area covered by one of these “trusts”, and hail from another:
In the north and west, masks for patients and visitors; in the east, masks for visitors only.
What piece of convoluted idiocy to explain the difference?
In the file picture, a lot of bare-armed females – presumably lathered up their arms with gel?
Any answers?
After 2.5 years of this, they should now be able to provide real world data that these NPIs have a benefit.
If they can’t, a robust ‘no’ should be the answer to any of these.
How can we stop this nonsense.
Pure theatre. Time for Truss to stand up and call them out.
Where is the Right Dishonorable Chris Whitty?. I smell Jimmy Hoffa
Or Martin Borman…
Neil Feguson revealed as one of the Wellcome Five…
Sir Patrick Vallance in the metaphorical equivalent to a submarine to South America…
Not going to happen. We are over it psychologically. Hubby flew to Germany last month, everyone told to don their face nappies, only compliance was from the crew.
Brilliant.
I hate confrontation, so on my visits to the doctor and then the consultant in the past 10 days, I just smiled sweetly and walked past all the ‘YOU MUST WEAR A MASK IN THIS AREA’ signs, ignoring them completely. I did offer to put one on for the masked doctor, though said I’d prefer not to (I really hate confrontation), but he was dismissive and didn’t seem to care. At the hospital, the receptionist took one look at my unmasked face and promptly removed hers, saying she was too hot. The consultant did not wear one himself. A big smile seems to help in these situations
Good news. These days, the dentist I use only wears them, along with eye protection/close-up lenses etc, when using certain tools, but not when doing routine check-ups. The last time I went there, a couple of months back, one of the receptionists wore one, the other didn’t, nor any of the other patients.
“Is this supposed to be living with Covid? Have they not noticed yet that the masks and distancing aren’t achieving anything?”
More to the point WTF are they still using a known fraudulent test which is as useless as it is spurious.
We’ve got to say NO to this nonsense.
I took my Partner to Bedford North Wing recently for a routine blood test. Masks everywhere! Anyway queued up at reception, everyone masked apart from me and said Partner. Got to the front immediately asked by non masked receptionist behind screen “where are your masks?” To which we reply “don’t wear them” Partner says exempt . “Anyway” say I “government restrictions have been lifted since March”. “They haven’t here” says she to which I say “well there’s no statutory requirement to wear masks”. “ Don’t argue with me” she says, trying to provoke me. Obviously with an eye on the notices warning people about abusing NHS staff forgetting it’s mostly the other way round! “I’m not” says I “just telling you the facts”. Partner gets annoyed with me for supposedly being aggressive towards receptionist. They are so clever at dividing people makes you very cross. Incidentally just before we got to the front said receptionist walked out from behind her sanctuary and put a mask on then walked back and took it off just before she sat down. Insane. Just before we ambled off, the receptionist mumbled something about if we don’t wear masks then her colleagues will get “Covid” and they won’t be able to come into work. I suggested they stopped their fraudulent testing which went down like the proverbial! It’s the gift that keeps on giving!!
Absolute madness. Please tell me I’m not going crazy.
“Please tell me I’m not going crazy.”
You are not. I salute you. Don’t forget, a position as hospital / doctor’s receptionist always used to be seen as a a fast track to the SS. Tackling one of them buggers is almost over and above the call of duty.
Thank you my old man used to call doctor’s receptionists dragons.
masks and social distancing can fuck off the visiting is truly evil, my dad had a heart attack in feb and it was so distressing not to be able to visit especially for my mum she would normally just be with a family member all day
They’re not going to give up, are they.
Everyone talks of exemptions but by claiming an exception, you are joining their game of ‘Let’s see who’s allowed rights today’.
“No I don’t wear one” is the only answer, with a further point that if they want to live in a society where everyone covers their face, they should piss off to Nigeria and join Boko Haram.
Hear, hear.
I work in one of the hospitals mentioned in the article. The motion is very daft and detrimental to the patients. Do authorities want to say that so called vaccinations don’t work?!
That photo is hideous. Princess Kate should not be there, masked up, being photographed with those other idiots.She’s perpetuating the myth.
It looks like they are ramping up hysteria in readiness for more ridiculous Covid nonsense.
Waddaya mean; “Masks have returned?” For those of us who refused to partake of Mask 1.0, Mask 2.0 ain’t likely to gain much traction. Bring it on.