Tuesday, June 7, 2022

Spouting Nonsense: Common sense versus just making something up

 


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

At the Gem State Patriot News there is an article (blog post) on June 5, 2022 by Dr. John Livingston titled Time for Some Common Sense. His sixth paragraph says that:

 

“A list of 17,000 scientists signed a petition supporting ‘Science’ and Dr. Fauci. Apparently the ‘science was settled.”

 

His next paragraph just is a link to a press release from the Infectious Disease Society of America (IDSA), but instead it says 12,000 medical doctors, research scientists and public health experts.   

 

Dr. Livingston’s eighth paragraph begins by claiming:

 

“A list of 930,000 doctors, nurses’ public health specialists signed The Barrington Declaration in 2020 offering mitigation and lockdown strategies very different from those recommended by The World Health Organization (WHO), The Centers for Disease Control (CDC), and Dr. Fauci.”

 

 


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This time he does not provide a link, but the current Signatures web page for The Great Barrington Declaration has very different information. As shown above via a bar chart, the Total Signatures were 930,528, Concerned Citizens were 867,612, Medical Practitioners were 47,037, and Medical & Public Health Scientists were 15,883. So, the sum for Medical Practitioners and Medical & Public Health Scientists really was 62,920 – or 5.24 times larger than the 12,000 for the ISDA. That honest number would have made his point, but instead he dishonestly used the total (14.8 times larger). I am awarding John a big red Spoutly award – a booby prize for Spouting Nonsense.

 

Dr. Livingston had told us the same nonsense in a previous article on December 17, 2021 titled The Covid “Boogey Man.” I made the following comment on it there:

 

“The last sentence in your first paragraph claimed there were: “…890,000 physicians and scientists from around the world who signed onto The Greater Barrington Project.” It actually is the Great Barrington Declaration. Their signatures web page now says there were a total of 902,673 but just 15,468 medical & public health scientists, and 45,609 medical practitioners for a sum of 61,077. The others were 836,337 concerned citizens. You inflated the number of physicians and scientists who signed by a factor of 14.8 times, which is ridiculous!”

 

His irrelevant reply was:

 

“Richard, Thank you for your thoughts. I consider nurses–RN. s. LPNs, nurses’ aides, technicians, physical therapists all to be in the category of ‘health care professional’. I have no way of knowing what percentage of the total number includes those professions, but it is certainly a sizable percentage. These are the very people whose voices have not been heard, and yet they are the ones who every day take care of sick patients. Politicians and administrators and ‘experts’ who all are supporting a political narrative are overrepresented by the press and media. The Greater Barrington Declaration gives these people a voice as well as patients.”

 

It is debatable whether the strategies in the Great Barrington Declaration made sense. In an article at Respectful Insolence on April 29, 2022, David Gorski explained that The Great Barrington Declaration never would have worked.

 

Back on July 28, 2021 I also had blogged about Dr. Livingston in a post titled What is a fairy tale and what is real?

 


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