Experts Should Be on Tap, Not on Top!

John Adams,

The title to this article is from an alleged quote from Winston Churchill (and others) , and I couldn't agree more.  On August 25, 2020 Edward Feser published a Claremont Institute’s American Mind article entitled, Scientism: America’s State Religion, and he starts out saying: "We are hostages to the clerics of an intolerant faith."  An excellent article, though in reference to COVID-19 I wish to add a few observations of my own.

First, we must remember that as a society we no longer look to ourselves, our families, our friends, and our churches and community groups to deal with major challenges. We now immediately look to politicians, and most of all those politicians who wield the most power. Virtually all politicians have very little knowledge about anything in particular. Successful politicians have mastered a few skills: telling people what they want to hear, stating broad and mushy goals with which few can take issue, and most of all, getting themselves re-elected. The latter skill takes precedence above all else.

Politicians therefore must become great experts in avoiding taking blame for any error or any misfortune. They must always have ways of deferring the responsibility for making problematic decisions onto someone else, lest they be stigmatized by any poor outcome; yet all the while positioning themselves to take the credit for any successful outcome.

With COVID-19, politicians in general had zero expertise about viral epidemics. Hence they not only employed scientists, epidemiologists and doctors to provide guidance, they set up these “people of science” to take the blame for any bad outcomes.

In our hyper-emotive, hysterically individual-focused media environment, any bad outcome from a politically directed decision will immediately blow back on the politician. Grandma died? Video of the tearful family to follow (in PA, a Biden commercial showed a distraught woman blaming TRUMP for her elderly mother’s death in a nursing home because Trump predicted the virus would “blow over”, not Governor Wolf who ordered nursing homes to take infected patients from the hospital). Politician: Don’t blame me, I listened to the experts.

And with COVID-19, the shortcomings of the “experts” have been on full display. They knew little about their adversary, their predictive methods were shown to be arbitrary wild shots in the dark, their recommendations were often contradictory and irrational when applied to large groups or complex situations, etc.

But the “experts” served their purpose: they accepted blame shifting from weak and irresolute politicians who were completely inadequate to this challenge.

The sad part is that the “experts” have been so full of themselves and their unaccustomed power that they have willingly shouldered those burdens, and pretended that their knowledge and methods were up to the task. Instead of acknowledging their limitations, they arrogantly projected their facade of omniscience and omnipotence in directing public policy in a way never before attempted.

And that suited the politicians just fine.

Pennsylvania is a great example of this scenario. Governor Wolf has turned all authority over to our academically cloistered, economically ignorant, sadly confused Physician General, Dr Rachel (formerly Richard) Levine. In Pennsylvania, there is no broad forum to examine COVID-19 policies based upon medical, economic, social, and regional circumstances. Because if there was such a forum, Governor Wolf would be forced into making decisions for which he and his party could be blamed. Far better to turn everything over to his “expert” and fade into the background. With his media friends providing cover, he will be blameless at the end of the day for all the economic and social disasters of his policies. Because, you know, if we save just one life, it will all be worth it.. 

Nationally, this paradigm does not follow. Trump is perfectly capable of making hard decisions; and he has used the CDC and his medical experts to give guidance but not make binding decisions. While we cheered that Trump did not exceed his authority by making sweeping COVID-19 policy, we must acknowledge in retrospect that we lost our chance to bypass tin pot, chickenshit, blame shifting dictators like PA Governor Wolf, and his overreaching and intellectually/socially blinkered accomplice Dr. Levine.

I also want to say that any person of science with even the smallest grain of humility and intellectual honesty should immediately acknowledge Feyerabend’s arguments. Most published research simply can’t be replicated, and most of these failures are due to the many faults and limitations he describes.

Much science may illuminate small areas of interest, and be part of a halting and often unreliable progress in our understanding of our universe. The Einsteins, Newtons, and Watson/Cricks are very rare indeed (and we certainly would not have wanted any of them to make broad social policy). We also know that not only is our ability to observe an event limited by an absolute level of underlying uncertainty, but the very fact of our observation changes the event itself. Science itself has proven its limitations in studying our universe.

How Do You Slow Down Life?

Another of my occasional late evening musings. No URLs or political links. 

By John Adams

When I was a kid and school was over for the summer, the vast expanse of June, July, and August seemed endless before me. And somehow it mostly WAS endless. Lots of backyard ball games, tree climbing, fort building, summer league baseball that defined my existence, afternoon trips with family and neighbors to a community lake "club" for swimming, doing an easy 10 books for a "vacation reading club" diploma from the local library, bike rides to Barney's Market or Hanover News Agency to get the latest comics, bike racing with neighborhood kids around improvised tracks on vacant lots, endless skinned knees, and Mom blowing a whistle out the back door to wherever the heck I was to call me home for dinner or at dark. Eventually I had to go back to school, but summer seemed like a heck of a long time.

Where did that perception of time go? How did I lose it? So often now, a season or even a year passes by virtually unnoticed. Summer heat transforms into surprise snowflakes and then deep snow and back again within a seeming blink of an eye. What the heck happened?

I am old enough now that this speeding of perceived time has become worrisome. It's not like I have a lot of years ahead of me. I hate scrolling down those "year of birth" pulldowns until I finally reach 1953. I look at old photos with my kids, and they see an entirely different universe that they simply can't fathom.

Maybe we are hard wired for this but I sure don't like it. How do I slow time down again? Any suggestions?

One small thing that helps is my 45 minute commute each way down back country roads past farms and fields and through hamlets to get to work and my 93 year old Mom's home to help care for her. I make sure to look at every tree and field and notice how tall the corn is getting and what the cows are doing, and the number of ducks and geese and even a few swans in the small lake beside a paper mill I pass on the way, and whether the many roadside farm stands seem to have anything to buy (and I try to stop often), all the while listening to the radio and being thankful for all of it. I really look forward to every moment of the drive.

Still, days and weeks slip through my fingers.

I am still engaged with my work and with my community commitments, and I should be grateful for all of it. But what happens when I retire? I spent most of my life working 60-70 hour weeks (crazy 100-120 hour weeks in training programs, one year never seeing the sun outside for about 6 months, when others were going to bars and enjoying themselves in their 20âs - no regrets here, just saying).

When I shifted out of Medicine and into the horse biz at 50, life not only became reasonable but I was also able to spend significant time with my parents in their aging years that I would not trade for anything. I have some some physical limitations as a result of a car accident in 1993, so daily golf or tennis or whatnot are not viable options for me.

Now I worry about my 93 year old Mom with her macular degeneration, bad hearing, declining memory, and increasingly frail body. What are her days like? Do they slow down again from boredom and lack of purpose? Are her days just burdens to her?

I visit and keep her company as often as possible (Dad died in 2012), and she now has 24/7 Visiting Angels companions (expensive but so much better than nursing home alternatives if you can afford it). These women are saints and so good to her. They alone could help me keep some faith in what has become a degenerating moral universe. She generally does as well as I can hope for, though there are times when she gets depressed about her decline and increasing isolation. Church and going out with her shrinking circle of childhood cronies meant a lot to her. COVID-19 has destroyed all of that.

Again, I am grateful for everything I have been able to achieve in the greatest country in the history of the planet. So how do I slow time down again, and continue to enjoy the bounty of this gift of life? Any suggestions? What have those of you in similar life circumstances discovered that you might share?

This seems like a more pleasant and uniting topic than the usual "everything is going to hell because of X".