I’m never surprised when certain people surrounded by other certain people in a organization that promotes anti scientific work puts out something silly. . I honestly fall into the camp now days that maybe it’s better for them to just fall into their own destruction. Letting the blind lead the blind into a pit type of thing. Put the info out and if they can’t figure it out and it results in their suffering then it’s really on them. As more time goes by I realize trying to talk to people like that is meaningless. The best thing is to constantly undermine and shut them down and do things like Epperson v. Arkansas, Edwards v. Aguillard and Kitzmiller v. Dover. We need to push for public schools to adopt programs like Next Generation Science Standards with a heavy emphasis on evolution and geology.
Good point. I’ll ask PZ Myers. But the book is stupid and dangerous.
That’s not too surprising. The DI has been hip deep in the culture wars for a while now.
@pevaquark I left a comment on PZ Myers’s blog about how the book is anti-vax. I had to register with freethought blogs to do so! My comment is now awaiting moderation.
Thanks. By the way a new paper discussing this topic:
Its modest conclusion:
It appears clear from evidence to date that government interventions, even more restrictive ones such as stay-at-home orders, are beneficial in some circumstances and unlikely to be causing harms more extreme than the pandemic itself.
I knew that Brazil has been hard hit, but I hadn’t seen this statistic:
That’s not 10% mortality amongst COVID cases in the 85+ demographic, but 10% of the entire 85+ population in Manaus, Brazil died of COVID.
India also serves as example of what happens when nothing is done to stop the spread.
Did you read the book or just the review on Pharyngula?
Haven’t read the book…have you read it?
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When your main endeavor depends on undermining confidence in consensus science, you might as well try to weaken as many areas of confidence in expertise as you can. It all supports the “institutional scientists and academics can’t be trusted” narrative.
I now have a copy and I’m reading it. I can confirm that it is NOT an anti-vax book. I will assume that you got your information from an unreliable source.
Perhaps not, but it’s anti-science nevertheless.
Do you acknowledge that your claim that it was anti-vax was incorrect?
I don’t know. I left a comment on PZ Myers’s blog asking for clarification. (If you are a Discovery Tuter You shouldn’t be talking about unreliable sources of information.)
Since I don’t know what a Tuter is I’m sure I’m not one.
And since I’m reading the book I can give a first hand assessment.
“The Price of Panic” is a rational assessment of the Covid-19 response based on current and historic data. I recommend it to all Biologos readers and thank you for drawing my attention to it.
All I can say, because I’ll never read the book since it’s from DI or connected to them or whatever. In general of something is put out or supported by AIG or DI I don’t waste my time on it. If a decent books slips by me because of that, I imagine that someone from a more informed group of acquaintances, such as here at BL, will draw positive attention to it.
It seems that the book in general is outlining the path we took handling this virus was wrong. Those things are:
- Vaccines.
- Wearing masks.
- Social distancing.
- Fighting disinformation.
- Showing compassion towards the vulnerable.
I can’t imagine any of those things were worse than doing them.
Do you have a particular point from the book that you think they did a particularly good job at? I went through the hour-long video they did on it found a lot of very poor analyses like the one that I highlighted above.. You might note that I also wondered how the book was anti-vaccine so your zealous frustration about that was maybe not so necessary.
I’m pretty sure that is a fallacious argument and your confidence not logically founded. 
(You don’t want me to give counterexamples. 
)