by Charles Hugh Smith
Of Two Minds
So what do we know with any sort of certainty about the claim that “the pandemic is over”? Very little.
Is the pandemic over in China, Europe, Japan and the U.S./Canada? Is the much-anticipated V-Shaped economic recovery already baked in, i.e. already gathering momentum? The consensus, as reflected by the stock market (soaring), the corporate media and governmental easings of restrictions seems to be “yes” to both questions.
But science is not a consensus-based activity, and so skeptics of consensus are looking to the sciences of epidemiology, virology, etc., and economics for evidence-based answers.
But as scientist and author Michael Crichton explains in this seminal paper he gave at Caltech in 2003, much of what is presented (“sold”) as “hard science” is nothing but guesswork / conjecture and consensus, i.e. reaching a politically appealing conclusion and then conjuring up some junk science to support the conclusion. Aliens Cause Global Warming (by Michael Crichton) (via Michael M.)