Beliefs and Doubts

It should be clear by any objective measure today that much of the advice and guidance given by the public health authorities about Covid was wrong.

The list is long.

The use of masks.

The lockdowns and shutdowns.

School closures.

The effectiveness of the vaccines.

Vaccine mandates.

Recommended treatment protocols such as the use of ventilators and Remdisivir.

The censorship of opposing views which were labeled "misinformation".

What was particularly egregious was the fact that the public health authorities claimed that "science" supported everything they told us to do.

We were told they were "following the science".

However, it seems that science only matters today if it is the science you agree with.

Of course, scientific facts are not debatable. They are settled and irrefutable.

The results are reproducible time after time with no exceptions

A scientific fact is the law of gravity, the boiling point of water or the distance to the moon. 

That is why we often hear statements about the "consensus" of scientists today when it comes to many "scientific issues". 

Of course, "consensus" is not the same as facts. And consensus is not a scientific fact. 

Over two years into the Covid pandemic, I see more questions being asked as to how so many people could have been misled?

Why were there not more people who questioned what they were told?

How could so many people blindly accept things as true when they were actually untrue?

Malcom Gladwell is one of my favorite authors.

Malcom Gladwell
Credit: CBS News

His books often delve into the unexpected implications of research in sociology, psychology and other social sciences as it applies to real world experience and events.

I recently finished reading Gladwell's sixth book, "Talking to Strangers" .

Although written before the pandemic ( published in 2019), I think it provides excellent insights into why so many people were misled by the authorities.

Gladwell's core thesis in the book is that most humans are very bad at assessing the truthfulness, intentions and motivations of people they don't some into contact every day---strangers. 

In fact, that skill can also be sadly lacking as applied to those we know well.

Gladwell believes this is curious in that you would think that being able to read people correctly would be a core trait that humans would need to survive over the millennia. It would seem logical that those with the best skills in doing so would survive and those who did not would perish. 

Evolution should have favored those who could read strangers the best about whether someone else was deceiving them.

However, that is not the case.

A wide range of scientific research shows that people are notoriously bad on being able to tell who is lying to them and who is telling them the truth.

This applies to even those whose job it is to be good at separating those who are telling the truth versus peddling a lie--- police interrogators, judges who make bail and judicial decisions, etc.

Why is that?

Gladwell cites research that indicates that most people default to truth in interactions with others.

In other words, our operating assumption is that the people we are dealing with are telling us the truth.

That is the human default position that we start from.

This is how Gladwell describes it on p.74 of the book.

We start by believing. And we stop believing only when our doubts and misgivings rise to the point where we can no longer explain them away.

As a general rule, "defaulting to truth" serves society well. It would be difficult to function as a society if everyone questioned everything. We take it as a matter of faith that most people are honest and trustworthy.

Of course, in the case of Covid, it was just not anyone you were getting the guidance and direction from.

You were being told "the truth" by the AUTHORITIES.

I previously wrote about the strong influence of authority as it applied to Covid in a blog post in March, 2021.

 

We are trained from birth to listen and defer to authority. As a result, we believe that obedience to authority is correct behavior and disobedience is wrong.

As human beings we generally have a deep-seated sense of duty to authority. Parents, teachers, coaches, the police, bosses at work, doctors and elected officials are just some of the authorities we have been taught to listen to and show obedience to.

Authority is one of the six key principles that have been identified as having the most effect in influencing someone else's behavior according to Dr. Robert Cialdini who has spent most of his life studying influence and persuasion.

There is no better example of how strong the influence of authority is than in seeing how people quickly conformed to behaving exactly as they were told when it came to Covid compliance.

This is how I described the influence of authority in our Covid world in that March, 2021 blog post.

Authority has been used to influence people's behavior to degrees than most would have thought inconceivable a year ago.

That authority has dictated new norms of behavior that almost everyone has been obedient to.

Social distancing. Mandatory masking. School closures. Economic lockdowns.

People were obedient. After all, the "experts" told us what to do and they were the "authorities".

Who am I to question Dr. Fauci in his white lab coat or the state's public health director, the governor or the President of the United States?

However, as we sit here today, were they really "experts" when it came to this? Did they really have the knowledge and the decision skills to be trustworthy?

Did they have their own agenda? Were there other motivations at play?

Is it any wonder that so many BELIEVED what they were told?

They defaulted to what they believed was the TRUTH from people that they believed they could TRUST.

By now, most people have to have some DOUBTS about what they were told about Covid.

So much that people were told has been proven to be untrue

"You will not get or transmit Covid if you get these vaccines."

"It is a pandemic of the unvaccinated."

"The vaccines are really, really good against variants."

If that alone has not created doubts, seeing your double vaccinated friends (or yourself) catch the virus should have had that effect.

However, we have not yet reached a TIPPING POINT (another Gladwell book) where enough doubts are present in enough people to tip the scales completely on what the public at large believes about Covid policy and the vaccines in particular.

Gladwell says that belief is not the absence of doubt. You believe someone until those doubts accumulate to the point that they no longer can be ignored or explained away.

It is also more difficult to not default to truth (believe what you are told) when forced to choose between two alternatives, one of which is likely and the other which is impossible to imagine.

Why would they be mandating these vaccines if they were not safe and effective and the right thing to do?

It is impossible to imagine they would have done that unless it was absolutely necessary.

It is just hard to imagine that they would have mandated the firing of nurses, forced highly-trained pilots out of the armed services and required toddlers to wear masks unless it was absolutely clear they knew these things would stop the pandemic.

Have doubts increased among the populace of what they have been told?

Undoubtedly.

For example, less than half of the people who have beeb fully vaccinated (two doses) have rolled up their sleeves to receive a booster dose.

That is over 100 million displays of doubt.

You see the same thing in the numbers of children under age 5 that have not been vaccinated.

Less than 5% of children under age 5 have received any Covid vaccine despite the shots being available for over two months and having been heavily promoted by public health authorities and the American Academy of Pediatrics.

More doubts.

Will we reach a tipping point?

I have serious doubts.

It is not easy to get beyond one's beliefs.

It is even harder when you not only believed what you were told but you injected something into your body based on that belief.

The natural human reaction to any doubt is to explain it away and default to what you believe to be the truth.

Why have some already passed the tipping point?

I think that is a function of their level of doubts about the Covid narrative from the beginning.

If you start with a higher level of doubt it does not take as many new doubts to reach the tipping point.

If you have been a long time reader of BeeLine you know that I had significant doubts about our Covid response shortly after the "15 days to slow the spread" had come and gone.

Too much did not add up when I looked at the models, the data and what I saw to be the enormous economic and human dislocations taking place as early as April, 2020.

The economic lockdowns, school closures and all the rest were quickly put in place. Several months later the mask mandates followed. 15 days to slow the spread had soon turned into 365 days to slow the spread at human and financial costs that were incalculable.

None of it made sense especially when viewed against the responses during other pandemic periods of human history like the Spanish flu.

My doubts increased as time went by as I analyzed more data and facts that did not support the narrative promoted by the authorities

We are now 900 days into our Covid response. 

I wrote this in that same blog post in March, 2021 just as the vaccines were starting to be heavily pushed on the general population.

I explained the doubts I had about what we had been told and raised further questions about how much we should rely on what we were being told about the vaccines.

Did these authorities really know what they were doing? Were they trustworthy looking back from our perspective today one year later?

Those same experts and authorities are now aggressively promoting a vaccination program to slow the spread.

We are told that the vaccines are safe.

We are told that the vaccines are 95% effective.

However, is that really the case?

Do they really know? Do you really know if that is trustworthy advice?

I hope it is. However, I don't know that it is at this point. Despite what they tell you, the authorities don't truly know either. There is no way they could know right now. These vaccines have just not gone through the testing and trials that are normally done.

Notice that I asked the question then as to how trustworthy the authorities were and asked questions that those authorities should have been asking of the Pharma companies at that time as well as of themselves?

Were the vaccines as effective as we were being told?

Were they safe?

How do they know?

How do we really know?

As time has gone by and the facts have been revealed, the questions I posed do not look like they were misplaced. 

My doubts ultimately crossed the tipping point and became distrust.

That belief may ultimately be challenged by new doubts that go the other way.

However, it will only come through facts, data and real science.

I am not taking anyone's word for it.

Neither should anyone else at this point.

It applies to Covid as well as other interactions where you might be disposed to "default to truth" or when dealing with the attestations of strangers.

If you feel doubt or something doesn't seem to add up, don't just dismiss it. Step back and think about those doubts more deeply. Investigate more thoroughly and ask yourself if you are defaulting when you should be deliberating more fully about your beliefs.

I will leave you with the same advice I offered in March, 2021.

Keep these rules in mind.

Beware the influence of authority.

Know that you are predisposed to do what authority figures tell you to do. It is the way we are all built.

However, do the "authorities" know what they are doing? Can you trust them?

How good has their record been in the past?

The biggest thing I hear from people today is they do not know who or what to believe.

Do your own research. No one has your best interests in mind better than you.

My objective is to give you some facts and perspectives you may not see from other sources.

I wish I knew all the answers. I don't. 

I do know that most people should be asking a lot more questions of the authorities than they are.

Be willing to suspend your beliefs in the face of doubts.

On the subject of Covid policy, that time should have already arrived for most if they have been paying attention.