Tobold's Blog
Sunday, January 02, 2022
 
The disadvantages of being a scientist

I am a scientist. I have a university Ph.D. degree in chemistry, so I could put the title Dr. rer. nat. on my business cards (but I don't). After 10 years of university studies, I spent 25 years in a company doing research & development. As a general rule, a professional education and experience results in somebody knowing much more about the core subject of his education and job than the average citizen, and that even holds true for related subjects. For many people that doesn't play much of a role outside their job: A certified public accountant (CPA) knows a lot about accounting, but the subject is unlikely to come up during a family Christmas party.

Natural sciences are a bit different in that respect, because chemistry, physics, and biology literally relate to absolutely everything in our lives. I spent the last 5 years doing R&D on chemistry related to climate change, and that subject sure does come up in general conversation. I also understand enough of biology to have a somewhat better understanding about virology, a subject that has been hard to avoid in conversation over the last 2 years. But knowing more about something doesn't necessarily make life easier. Sometimes ignorance is bliss, and you sure wouldn't want to explain scientific facts to everybody who mentions a subject in conversation.

I just got some New Year's wishes from a friend, who hoped in his mail that 2022 would be the year that COVID would go away. I couldn't bring myself to tell him the truth: COVID is way beyond the point where there was any hope that it would ever go away again. COVID will become part of our lives for the foreseeable future, it will just change from being pandemic to being endemic, that is to say everywhere. The good news is that COVID follows an evolution predictable by Darwinism: Successful variants like omicron are increasingly infective, but decreasingly mortal. A virus that kills its host is an evolutionary failure and tends to get left behind by the evolutionary more successful variant that spreads further by keeping its host alive. If you want to understand more about this, I would recommend you play the game Plague Inc. a couple of times. As a result the probability of you not catching COVID over the next decade is about the same as your probability of not catching a flu over the next decade, that is to say pretty close to zero. But your chances of surviving that COVID infection increase every year, and at some point the right-wing deniers who said that COVID is just a flu will actually be right, although that statement certainly was wrong in 2020/2021.

Regarding climate change, the central objective of the Paris Agreement is its long-term temperature goal to hold global average temperature increase to “well below 2°C above preindustrial levels and pursuing efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels”. The bad news is that it is highly unlikely that the world will achieve this goal. Back in 2017 the probability of hitting the 2°C target was scientifically estimated to be around 5%; the fact that in the years since the world hasn't done enough to work towards the target means that today the probability is even lower. There is almost certainly going to be some overshoot. The not-so-bad news is that the 2°C target is completely arbitrary. We are currently "well below 2°C" and already have significant climate events. The probability of extreme weather events at let's say 2.5°C will be higher, but it isn't as if the world is fine at 1.9°C and then becomes uninhabitable at 2.1°C. The higher the temperature gets, the worse the situation for humanity will become, so battling climate change is a really good idea. But the criteria of failure or success are a lot more complicated than a single number.

You can see, knowing science doesn't make my world a happier place to live in. You constantly bump into people who spout nonsense because they don't have the scientific knowledge. And once again, like in the Middle Ages, we live in an age where people think that their irrational beliefs are more important than scientific facts.

Comments:
@Tobold

The good news is that COVID follows an evolution predictable by Darwinism

How does this apply to a virus that was supposedly modified in a lab setting? Genetic sequencing has become so advanced that scientists have already determined that Covid is mutating on the average of every 11-15 days, far faster than any virus in recorded history. A USCS study shows that the Wuhan variant(the "tree trunk" of the virus) has already sprouted over 3 million unique viral sequences, with upwards of 60,000 new sequence codes being generated PER DAY. If anything, natural selection will favor a variant that is resistant to the currently offered batch of vaccines.
 
@NoGuff Not sure about the "supposedly", that could just be political propaganda. However, whatever the origin of a virus is, Darwinism describes the evolution of it by natural selection. As the mutations are natural, and not lab-made, faster mutation just leads to faster natural selection.

Viruses are not "resistant" to vaccines, because vaccines don't kill viruses. It's not the same as bacteria and antibiotics. You could get a virus that is more apt at infecting people who are vaccinated, but that doesn't necessarily circumvent all the effect of the vaccine, which also leads to a milder consequence when infected.

As I said, humanity has already lost the war against getting infected by COVID. But they will drastically reduce the consequences of those infections over time, until these are manageable.
 
Ah yes "supposedly modified in a lab setting".... there's at least one good thing about being a scientist and that's avoiding the watchmaker's fallacy.

If anything, natural selection will favor a variant that is resistant to the currently offered batch of vaccines.

Very likely yes, which means that the only mutations which take hold are the ones making it circumvent (not "resist") the vaccine. And? I mean, with no vaccine you'd get mutations which circumvent natural immunity, i.e. the same result while killing more people in the process. It's been clear from early 2021 that Covid will become endemic, so vaccination does nothing to the evolution of the spread apart from reducing the body count, the long-term dynamics is largely unaffected.

As for climate change, my opinion is that most people don't understand that it's not the change in climate that will kill anyone, it's the ensuing instability, migrations and increased cost to mitigate the consequences which will take a toll.
 
The funny bit is that many of those who spout nonsense these days genuinely believe they are fighting against a tide of morons who think that their irrational beliefs are more important than scientific facts!
 
@Helistar

And? I mean, with no vaccine you'd get mutations which circumvent natural immunity, i.e. the same result while killing more people in the process.

The USCS study I cited above specifically states that in cases where the vaccine is based on mRNA effectiveness(such as the Pfizer vaccine), that the rate of mutation is being increased because of those in the population who are NOT vaccinated while existing alongside those who have been vaccinated.. The genetic sequencing study demonstrates that, at any time, a mutation can, and most likely will appear, that renders the mRNA mechanism useless if the genetic codes continue to change at the current rate.
 
"As a result the probability of you not catching COVID over the next decade is about the same as your probability of not catching a flu over the next decade, that is to say pretty close to zero"

I'm in my early 60s. I have had flu twice in my lifetime, once when I was about 8 or 9 and once in my 30s. I'd also mention that until this year I have never had the flu vaccine and I have never taken any precautions to avoid catching it and I've worled the last twenty years in a retail environment that gets exceptionally busy at times in the winter. I realize anecdotal reports are not statistically meaningful but I'm curious where you get your data suggesting that the chance of contracting flu over a ten-year period is near 100%.

Other than that, yes, that's how Covid is likely to develop, although I don't think we can sit back and just assume it will follow a specific, established pattern if the reported unusual and atypical aspects of the virus are to be believed.
 
Your title would have been just as accurate if it was "The disadvantages of being educated".
 
The data I have is that every year between 5% and 20% of the population catch the flu. So you're right, the chance to catch it during a decade is "only" in the order of 75%, and it is over a whole lifetime that your chance to catch it gets very close to 100%.
 
This comment has been removed by the author.
 
The USCS study I cited above specifically states that in cases where the vaccine is based on mRNA effectiveness(such as the Pfizer vaccine), that the rate of mutation is being increased because of those in the population who are NOT vaccinated while existing alongside those who have been vaccinated.

Got a link? Because I cannot really understand what you're saying here and what the link is between mRNA vaccines and mutation rate.
 
I suspect some people have a good natural immunity to any given virus. I have never caught the flu, not even when my whole family was laid up for a week with the Hong Kong flu back in the Sixties. I've never bothered getting the vaccine.

I don't have any sort of super immune system, the flu is the only bug I could say I probably have some unusual resistance to. (Or maybe I've just been lucky and am riding for a fall!)

 
> The good news is that COVID follows an evolution predictable by Darwinism

Well, until fairly recently, the majority of US population did not believe or accept Darwin and the theory of evolution (because it contradicted their religious beliefs, and it is "just a theory")
 
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