We have been told that lockdown and other political measures, in response to COVID-19, are all "led by science". This is not science in a form that most of us would recognise, however. It appears to be the antithesis of science.
Science can become very complex very quickly. Depth of knowledge, in any scientific discipline, is usually required to fully understand it. Consequently, we are often in the hands of the "experts".
Many people decry these experts but, without those who have expert knowledge, knowledge itself could not progress. Experts aren't the problem. The problem is that our reliance upon experts can be exploited by those with a vested interest.
The political response to Covid-19 claims legitimacy by citing scientific experts. The UK government say they are guided by the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE.) The two most high profile SAGE members are Sir Patrick Vallance and Chris Witty.
Sir Patrick, the government's Chief Scientific Advisor, is the former director of R&D at GlaxoSmithKline and has a considerable vested financial interest with the pharmaceutical giant. However, this is not a conflict of interest because the government say it isn't.
Chris Witty, the UK Government's Chief Medical Officer, whose career frequently benefited from the philanthropy of the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation, is equally independent. Just because he appears to be at the centre of a network of scientific advisors and medical experts, which has clear links to industry funded lobbying groups and pharmaceutical corporations, that is no reason to question his advice.
As soon as anyone disagrees with the expert opinion of people like Witty and Valance, politicians and the media are quick to accuse them of "denying science". This tactic is used incessantly. It is not done in the service of science. It is always done to defend policy decisions.
We can say this is always the case, because to accuse someone of being a science denier when they are using reasonable, evidence based arguments, only serves to illustrate how ignorant of science the person making the denier allegation is. Science is not based upon certainty. It is based upon doubt.
While many of us may struggle to understand all the evidence informing a scientific theory, we can understand the scientific method.
The scientific method requires that a hypothesis be presented to tentatively explain an observation. The true scientist then does everything they can, via experimentation, the gathering of data, further observation and so on, to disprove the hypothesis. This is because it is much easier to disprove a hypothesis than to "prove" it. A single experiment can show that an idea is wrong, but a thousand experiments do not prove that an idea is always correct.
Only when all attempts to disprove the hypothesis have failed can the hypothesis lead to a theory.
However, in genuine science, a theory is never considered sacrosanct. It is based upon all of the available evidence. As new evidence emerges, the theory must still account for it. If it doesn't, then the evidence suggests the theory could be wrong.
The process starts again until the new evidence can be explained. Either by updating the theory or abandoning it in favour of a new one.
Theories do not exist in isolation. If one theory explains the observed evidence but a contradictory theory also explains the same observed evidence, it is unlikely both are correct. One or both are probably wrong. Further testing of both is required.
It doesn't matter if everyone on Earth accepts the theory. If just one scientist can show evidence which proves it could be wrong, it is no longer cohesive theory. The theory cannot be said to be true until it accounts for all the evidence. The truth couldn't care less about our opinion, regardless of how many people share one.
This is why science is so useful. It objectively tells us what is. It doesn't attempt to validate belief. It is a logical process for discovering facts based upon the known evidence. Science has absolutely nothing to do with consensus of opinion.
Yet that is precisely how it is misused by policy makers.
They deploy an army of self referencing, self appointed fact checkers, not to examine the contradictory evidence but to censor and deny it. Compliant hacks in the mainstream media are entrusted to cover up the evidence. They use everything from logical fallacies and distraction techniques to outright lies, with the sole intention of making sure the public never look at the evidence or even know that it exists.
This system of genuine science denial is funded by a clique of global corporations. With almost complete control of the broadcast and print media they are now working with their political puppets, and well placed pet spokespersons, to create the legislation that will consolidate their control of social media and all information flows.
For example, when an interview with Dr Mike Yeadon PhD—a biochemist, pharmacologist and research scientist, with more than 23 years of high level experience working in the pharmaceutical industry—was published by Unlocked UK, Youtube (Google – Alphabet) swiftly moved to censor it. This wasn't because Dr Yeadon isn't an eminently qualified expert, nor due to the paucity of scientific evidence he presented, it was purely because he was questioning the Covid-19 policy response.
Google claimed that this information contravened their Covid-19 "misinformation" policy. In reality, it served only to illustrate that Youtube are a tightly controlled propaganda platform.
You can post as many videos of video game-play or makeup tips you like. You can't post anything that ever questions the official Covid-19 story. The Ministry of Truth is nearing completion.
Youtube are by no means alone. Facebook decided that Professor Carl Heneghan (BM, BCH, MA, MRCGP, DPhil)—an Editor-in-Chief for the British Medical Journal, among other senior professional roles—from the Oxford Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine, was also the purveyor of what they call "disinformation."
Set within this suffocating vacuum, the notion that the government's Covid-19 response is based upon science grows more absurd by the day. We do not need to be experts ourselves to know this. We only need to understand what science is.
Science invites critical debate. There is no such thing as unquestionable science. Every attempt by corporations and the politicians to limit freedom of speech, deny expert opinion, hide published science and censor all who highlight it, adds to the growing evidence that their policies are utterly divorced from science.
The politicians cannot both claim to be led by science and then simply ignore all the science that repudiates their decisions. Nor can they claim to rely upon scientific experts if they refuse to listen to expert scientific opinion they don't like. This is the most unscientific approach imaginable. It truly is the denial of science.
Scientists are human beings. They have all the same virtues and vices as the rest of us. However, in general, they value the empirical scientific method as a means of discovering the truth. Some scientists are so committed to this that they will undermine their own commercial interests to expose the misuse of the science they value so greatly.
With this in mind, let's review the statement of another eminently qualified expert, Dr. Roger Hodkinson, to the Edmonton Community and Public Services Committee.
I do appreciate the opportunity to address you on this very important matter. What i'm going to say is lay language and blunt.
It's counter narrative and, so you don't immediately think i'm a quack, I'm going to briefly outline my credentials, so that you can understand where I'm coming from in terms of knowledge base in all of this.
I'm a medical specialist in pathology which includes virology. I trained at Cambridge University in the UK. I'm the ex-president of the pathology section of the Medical Association. I was previously an assistant professor in the faculty of medicine doing a lot of teaching.
I was the chairman of the Royal College of Physicians of Canada Examination Committee in pathology, in Ottawa. But more to the point I'm currently the chairman of a biotechnology company in North Carolina selling a Covid-19 test … and you might say I know a little bit about all this.
The bottom line is simply this. There is utterly unfounded public hysteria driven by the media and politicians. It's outrageous.
This is the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on an unsuspecting public. There is absolutely nothing that can be done to contain this virus. Other than protecting older, more vulnerable people. It should be thought of [as] nothing more than a bad flu season.
This is not Ebola. It's not SARS. It's politics playing medicine and that's a very dangerous game.
There is no action of any kind needed, other than what happened last year. When we felt unwell we stayed home. We took chicken noodle soup, we didn't visit granny and we decided when we would return to work. We didn't need anyone to tell us.
Masks are utterly useless. There is no evidence base for their effectiveness, whatsoever. Paper masks and fabric masks are simply virtue signalling. They're not even worn effectively most of the time.
It's utterly ridiculous seeing these unfortunate uneducated people, I'm not saying that in a pejorative sense, seeing these people walking around like lemmings. Obeying without any knowledge base—to put the mask on their face.
Social distancing is also useless because Covid is spread by aerosols, which travel 30 metres or so before landing. And closures have had such terrible unintended consequences. Everywhere should be open tomorrow. As was stated in the Great Barrington Declaration that I circulated prior to this meeting.
[...] And a word on testing. I do want to emphasise that I'm in the business of testing for Covid. I do want to emphasise that positive test results do not, underlined in neon, mean a clinical infection. It's simply driving public hysteria and all testing should stop—unless you're presenting to hospital with some respiratory problem.
All that should be done is to protect the vulnerable and to give them all, in the nursing homes that are under your control, give them all three to five thousand international units of Vitamin D every day … which has been shown to radically reduce the likelihood of infection.
[...] And I would remind you all that, using the province's own statistics, the risk of death under 65 in this province is one in three hundred thousand. One in three hundred thousand!
You've got to get a grip on this. The scale of the response that you're undertaking, with no evidence for it, is utterly ridiculous. Given the consequences of acting in a way that you're proposing—all kinds of suicides, business closures, funerals, weddings, etc. etc.— it's simply outrageous.
It's just another bad flu, and you've got to get your minds around that. Let people make their own decisions you should be totally out of the business of medicine.
You're being led by down the garden path by the Chief Medical Officer of Health for this province.
I'm absolutely outraged that this has reached this level. It should all stop tomorrow.
Thank you very much.
