When Should Schools Open?

One of the big questions in everyone's mind, is "when will schools open?"  "Under what conditions will they open?"  Today a hearing is being held in the Senate, in part to address this issue.  Senator Rand Paul took the panel members to task in his opening remarks when he spoke of the concept of "fatal conceit."   Fatal conceit, as he explains, is when an individual or a small group of individuals, believe they have they only answer to a question, problem or issue.  They believe they are in a better position to provide answers than anyone else.  This is exactly the kind of thinking that has led to the economic collapse we have experienced.  It is the kind of thinking that has led to protests, riots and violence all across the country.  It is also the reason I left the Democratic Party over 4 decades ago.  No one individual has all the answers to all questions regarding social issues.  No one solution fits everyone's circumstances.

The United States has always embodied the concept of freedom.  Freedom to pursue one's dreams and interests, provided in that pursuit you do not infringe on another's right to do the same.  The events of this year have turned this concept upside down.  People have been denied their right to work and provide support for their families.  Millions were laid off.  All while government workers and politicians continued to draw a paycheck even though they were not working.  Everyone is talking today about discrimination, is this not the definition of discrimination?  When one group is provided relief while another is denied relief.

Fatal conceit can be seen all around us in government.  Especially in this time of crisis.  Everyone who purports to be an expert is supposed to be believed as having the answers.  When in truth they are basing their answers on sketchy and often times erroneous data.  Senator Paul cites several studies in his discussion.  He cites the opinions of supposed experts who are not using this data to formulate their opinions.  One thing we can be sure of, every expert has a vested interest in the opinion he defends.  This vested interest means there is bias.  Bias is supposed to be eliminated by the scientific method.  But when science began using models to defend and support their opinions, it resulted in the use of parameters.  Parameters that more often than not contain assumptions.  Assumptions about the data and assumptions about how that data may vary over time.  To convince us the assumptions are not influencing the model, they refer to probability outcomes.  But as more and more parameters are added to models and the models become more complex, it is extremely difficult to know how these parameters/variables interact.  To help understand the potential interactions they use correlation outputs.  This allows them to see what happens when individual parameters are modified and how other parameters are influenced.  While this is all very good and serves to provide greater confidence in the model, it does not mean the model can actually predict the future.

Just a week ago the IMEH COVID-19 Model predicted just over 201,000 deaths by October the 1st.  2 days later it was predicting just over 179,000 deaths by the same date.  I have found no explanation for the changeover 2 days.  Obviously, the human controllers of the model decided some parameter required adjustment.  While it can be considered a positive note that it is now predicting fewer deaths, it highlights my point that we should not put blind faith in science.  No one ever really talks about when science has been proven wrong and theories have been changed.  If we did perhaps science would be viewed differently.

Let's continue to find ways to End America's Lockdown.  Let's be sensible about how we proceed and not pursue a one size fits all solution across the country.