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Why did Fauci move the herd immunity goal posts?

#1
C C Offline
Scientists play a dangerous game when they tailor factual statements to promote policy goals
https://www.medpagetoday.com/blogs/vinay-prasad/90445

EXCERPT (Vinay Prasad): As a former National Institutes of Health fellow, I have a profound reverence for Anthony Fauci, MD [...] Late last week, Fauci told the New York Times that new science had changed his thinking on the herd immunity threshold -- but he also admitted that his statements were influenced in part by "his gut feeling that the country is finally ready to hear what he really thinks."

Specifically, the fraction of people who would need immunity to SARS-CoV-2 (either through vaccination or recovery from prior infection) to extinguish the spread of the virus was initially estimated to be 60% to 70%. In recent weeks, Fauci had raised the percentage: from 70% to 75%, and then to 75%, 80%, and 85%.

Allow me to quote verbatim from the article, titled "How Much Herd Immunity Is Enough?": "When polls said only about half of all Americans would take a vaccine, I was saying herd immunity would take 70 to 75 percent," Fauci said. "Then, when newer surveys said 60 percent or more would take it, I thought, 'I can nudge this up a bit,' so I went to 80, 85."

Of course, the herd immunity threshold is just an estimate, and the precise figure is contingent on population mixing and a host of other assumptions that may vary from location to location. The same threshold may be different in Rome than in Montana. For these reasons, Fauci has some wiggle room. But, the two undeniable admissions in the Times article are 1) Fauci is, to some degree, basing his statements on what he thinks the public will accept, and to what degree his rhetoric might help vaccination efforts, and 2) this is the absolutely stunning part, he is admitting this openly to a reporter for the New York Times!

This is not the first instance when Fauci made a public statement while considering, in part, what he believed people would do with the information... (MORE - details)
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#2
Syne Offline
Yeah, Fauci also lied about his advise on masks. And people wonder why many don't trust scientists, doctors, or experts.
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#3
Yazata Offline
This kind of thing makes the general public skeptical about science. And me along with them.

We expect scientists, particularly scientists who assume public roles, to provide us with true and reliable facts. When the scientists admit to tailoring their "facts" to serve other purposes, whether that's to impress colleagues, funding bodies, employers (remember the tobacco companies and their purchased research?), political causes or how the scientist hopes the public will react, then that public will only end up suspecting that any scientific pronouncement that impacts a politically charged issue is likely bullshit.

I'm already at that point. I'm still inclined to give considerable credence to results that seemingly have no bearing on hot-button social issues. But even then, it isn't a 100% credulous blank-check. But the more politicized a result is, the less I'm inclined to believe it. (And in our contemporary day and age, everything has seemingly been politicized.) Just as with the tobacco company research, I assume that the research conclusions have likely been tailored to conform to somebody's preexisting beliefs and desires. (Which often-times are poorly justified, based on somebody's utopian political program, moral intuitions or self-interest.)

And given that science is supposed to 100% authoritative (like the medieval church), and everyone is expected to simply salute any bit of bullshit directed at them in the name of 'science' now (it was theology then), it starts to look like just another of our contemporary world's never-ceasing efforts at mind-control. (Journalists, entertainment, the internet, education, advertisers, the government... everyone is trying to manipulate you for their own purposes.)

I would encourage everyone to keep your wits about you. Remain skeptical, not only of ufos or paranormal phenomena, but of what the scientists at the top universities are telling you as well. They are only human after all and subject to all the faults that implies. Be skeptical of everything!

Freedom and liberty begin in your own mind. You need to be the one forming your own beliefs and purposes, not somebody else who wants to turn you into their puppet for their purposes, not yours.
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#4
Syne Offline
There's a reason newspeak was such an apt prediction of language and info changing how people think. The first freedom and responsibility of every individual is your freedom of thought. That has to be protected and maintained, just like any other freedom. Freedom is not the natural state of the world.
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