I don’t claim to know what Fauci thinks, but I’ve found that it’s generally useful to look at peoples’ actions and reason backward from them. Fauci and Collins both leapt into the spotlights by claiming to represent “science.” Their recommendations caused mandates that imposed draconian restrictions on society, presumably for its own g…
I don’t claim to know what Fauci thinks, but I’ve found that it’s generally useful to look at peoples’ actions and reason backward from them. Fauci and Collins both leapt into the spotlights by claiming to represent “science.” Their recommendations caused mandates that imposed draconian restrictions on society, presumably for its own good.
What kind of people do that? What motivates them? Money and power are usual incentives. My guess is that Fauci and Collins expected Nobel Prizes—or at least nominations. No Prize for work on AIDS, which must have been a bitter pill for Fauci to swallow. This time, by not “letting a crisis go to waste,” would be his time.
And I’d be surprised if significant money didn’t also find its way to them. I hasten to point out that I know none of this—it’s merely guesswork. But they’re guesses entirely consistent with the actions we’ve seen.
Actual science involves proposing and then verifying hypotheses. Or failing to verify them. It’s been said that nothing is quite as ugly as watching a beautiful, magnificent theory being beaten to death by a gang of unruly facts. When theory and data come into conflict, data must prevail: data = facts. What Fauci and Collins did was prevent people from getting usable data. Which means that what they did was about as far from real science as Tarot cards and astrology. Damage done to credibility in real science is immense and likely to have negative impacts for years.
You don’t have to suspect - Fauci fought to keep his financial disclosures secret, but when revealed, he had millions of dollars of payments and royalties from companies that needed his approvals. I believe it was north of 10 million. Many of the researchers at the CDC and FDA did also.
I don’t claim to know what Fauci thinks, but I’ve found that it’s generally useful to look at peoples’ actions and reason backward from them. Fauci and Collins both leapt into the spotlights by claiming to represent “science.” Their recommendations caused mandates that imposed draconian restrictions on society, presumably for its own good.
What kind of people do that? What motivates them? Money and power are usual incentives. My guess is that Fauci and Collins expected Nobel Prizes—or at least nominations. No Prize for work on AIDS, which must have been a bitter pill for Fauci to swallow. This time, by not “letting a crisis go to waste,” would be his time.
And I’d be surprised if significant money didn’t also find its way to them. I hasten to point out that I know none of this—it’s merely guesswork. But they’re guesses entirely consistent with the actions we’ve seen.
Actual science involves proposing and then verifying hypotheses. Or failing to verify them. It’s been said that nothing is quite as ugly as watching a beautiful, magnificent theory being beaten to death by a gang of unruly facts. When theory and data come into conflict, data must prevail: data = facts. What Fauci and Collins did was prevent people from getting usable data. Which means that what they did was about as far from real science as Tarot cards and astrology. Damage done to credibility in real science is immense and likely to have negative impacts for years.
You don’t have to suspect - Fauci fought to keep his financial disclosures secret, but when revealed, he had millions of dollars of payments and royalties from companies that needed his approvals. I believe it was north of 10 million. Many of the researchers at the CDC and FDA did also.
Well said.