The Illusion of Consensus
The project of science calls for rigor, humility, and open discussion. The pandemic has revealed the stunning magnitude of the political and institutional capture of science.
The Illusion of Consensus Read More »
Articles
Brownstone Institute Articles, News, Research, and Commentary on public health, science, economics, & social theory
They’re Coming To Take You Away
When the monolithic narrative that is all they have been taught lies in ruins, they will replace it not with a rational, informed alternative – for they will know of none – but with whatever satisfies the rage of a population that realizes, too late, that it has been hoodwinked.
They’re Coming To Take You Away Read More »
The Problem of Lost Knowledge: Antibiotic Edition
All of this adds up to a grim picture of mass but often preventable deaths, all because the system did not work to incorporate the previously existing wisdom we learned from a century earlier. We needed merely to rely on the known information gathered from previous periods of history. The system utterly failed and for reasons having to do with regulatory capture and mass panic. Instead, they embarked on a population-wide experiment that created an unfathomable amount of suffering. And they still haven’t admitted it.
The Problem of Lost Knowledge: Antibiotic Edition Read More »
The Trouble with the Center
The Japanese say that “The nail that sticks up will be hammered down.” The unwillingness to question the many absurd, destructive mitigation measures reflected a fear of being ostracized or labeled “an extremist.” Passive Americans were far too willing to placate the actual extremists who supported locking down a country, closing schools and testing, masking and vaxxing everyone.
The Trouble with the Center Read More »
Dr. Walensky’s Dishonorable Acts
Even as the pandemic fades, the CDC and the administration have now realized they hold immense power over Americans’ daily lives. Huge numbers of individuals, influential corporations and administrators will outsource their decision making to CDC recommendations. No matter how ineffective people like Walensky have proven to be.
Dr. Walensky’s Dishonorable Acts Read More »
My Transition from Nuclear to Covid
The case for nuclear weapons rests on a superstitious belief of magical Realism in the utility of the bomb and the theory of deterrence. The extreme destructiveness of nuclear weapons makes them qualitatively different in political and moral terms from other weapons, to the point of rendering them virtually unusable. Like the emperor who had no clothes, this might well be the truest explanation of why they have not been used since 1945.
My Transition from Nuclear to Covid Read More »
The Specter of Human Extinction
A new genre in philosophy made its appearance not too long ago. It is called ‘extinction theory’ or the ‘philosophy of extinction,’ and as the name indicates, it is predicated on the real possibility that the human species may cause the extinction of what it means to be human and that it may actually become extinct as a species.
The Specter of Human Extinction Read More »
What Good Comes from Gain-of-Function?
Though almost all lab-based scientific research and advancements carry at least a tiny element of risk, nothing like the level of terminal, global, and trans-generational risk of GOF has – to the public’s knowledge – been undertaken since the Manhattan Project and the study of radiation. And even that had very specific, very probable, and very real and tangible benefits (useful for “pure” or basic science, ending World War II, power generation, nuclear medicine, etc.) that GOF cannot begin to claim.
What Good Comes from Gain-of-Function? Read More »
Time to Read War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
Toward the book’s end, Tolstoy wrote that “To imagine a man without freedom is impossible except as a man deprived of life.” So true. Imagine if Tolstoy had lived to see what his beloved country had been reduced to. The free thinking libertarian would have been horrified, all the while well aware of why what became the Soviet Union imploded. Do-gooder types and self-regarding politicians (a redundancy, obviously) break things with poverty and blood-soaked battlefields the result. War and Peace makes this all very clear.
Time to Read War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy Read More »
America Will Never Give Up Its Ideals
The cultural crisis and the pandemic of loneliness, not to mention the mass wave of substance abuse and depression, reflects the country-wide shock that all our fundamental ideals could so easily have been swept aside for a cockamamie central plan that trampled on everything we believe in and have always practiced however imperfectly. It felt like an invasion of the body snatchers, nowhere better symbolized than with vaccine mandates that most intelligent people knew we didn’t need even if they were safe and effective, which they were not.
America Will Never Give Up Its Ideals Read More »
Like a Tweet, Lose Your Job
Free speech is more than a slogan. It must be an operational reality for everyone. It can be closed down by forces other than edicts from government. It can be suppressed also by arbitrary private actions that reflect regime priorities. Ever more workers and especially intellectuals today work in an environment of fear that leads to self-censorship.
Like a Tweet, Lose Your Job Read More »
